Yesterday was a rather uneventful day aside from gathering some nice with greens and mixing them with garden greens as a lovely add on to dinner. It is very sad to me that so many people have no idea of the food growing all around them. Our weed feast included Plantago (bandage plant), a yummy green that has twice the iron of spinach and tastes just as good if not better. Curly dock, I think is a wonderful and quite yummy weed, it's ruffled long leaves taste a tiny bit sour, so it is it a nice touch to both pot salad (cooked in water like spinach), or used in salad or stir fry. Some dandelion's, one of the most useful plants you can pick, the flowers make a great wine,made into jelly or jam, as well as blossom fritters, The roots are roasted and used as a coffee substitute and the leaves make great greens. Wild garlic, this needs no words, we use a lot of wild garlic. To these lovely weeds I added from our garden,fresh green peas, some young broccoli, some radishes with there greens,some onions, some asparagus, some dandelion greens, with a the addition of some frozen broccoli, a store bought onion, some pickled ginger, a little soy sauce and some olive oil in my flat bottom wok, it was an amazing meal.
Today I think we will have milk weed with dinner, this little plant is one of the most useful of weeds. The new shoots can be slightly boiled, water cast off and than eaten or cooked in a stir fry or eaten like asparagus. The new seed pods, when hard can be eaten like okra and even pickled for latter use. The flower heads are like yummy free broccoli and can be eaten the same way and the flowers once they bloom can also be eaten. The roots as also edible though I have never tried to eat them. I am also going to hunt down some burdock, only the root of this plant is food, but it is enough...at nearly a foot long in most cases a two year old burdock plant can be a yummy treat. The root is thinly cut up on the diagonal and than boiled and added to other things,raw it has a almost potato smell to it. It is used most often in japan's cooking. Anyway I am toying with making egg Yong for dinner with milk weed as the main vegetable in in it...it does sound yummy. I would make an egg pie but I would have to make some cheese and there are only so many hours in the day, lol.
Here are my goals for the day, to get some more of the garden set up and planted. I bought six zucchini plants and four green/red pepper plants for the garden and they are going in before the rain. I need to plant corn, more peas, radishes, carrots,and now green beans and maybe some other greens, cucumbers. I am pleased with the progress of the garden as we are getting quite a bit out of it already;each day I harvest peas, greens, asparagus and onions. I still have home work to get done for college and a few tests to study for. Gathering food of course as talked about above and in a feet of grandness I hope to move the fish pond to it's new home. I hope to use the fish water to water the plants where ever I can and I am concerned about trying to move the fish themselves. We have some good size ones in there now, but if I want to order the tilapia, I have to move the pool, plus the kids are bugging me to put the new pool up, which is bigger and better, I hope as it cost us a bunch of money a month or so ago. It will be nice to get just some of this done out side. I am still messing with grain in the house as one of the bags broke as Dah'veed was lifting it out of the van, what a mess very expensive grain all over the place, we sat on the ground picking it up and putting in a Rubbermaid container,(rolling my eyes), I guess I will be grinding it very soon. The bulk of it was not spilled and is safely in the kitchen. I still have to go tot he feed store and pick up some eggs from Ken, I get extra guinea eggs from him, don't worry I pay him, it is really good for both of us.
Yesterday we got a new hard bed for Elijah from our neighbour down the road, he is a very kind man and unbelievable smart,not sure there is much of anything the guy does not know or has not at the very least studied. Plus he is very kind abut our enumerous animal escapes, horses, birds, cow, ect..lol He is a blessing for us, as we are still a bit wet behind the ear and we do not always plan the best, but my heart is in the right place, lol....
No new news about the cow, or my spoiled goats and sheep who are waiting for some outrageous storm to have more babies. Michael got more of our trees planted and we talked about finig the pond, I lost my fish from there most certainly. the storms have left their mark upon our little farm, but like our busy bees, we will work hard and get it all back up to where it needs to be. In other news, more peepers were born, some rally cute little guys and they are already to be placed in homes. I have a few ducks left to sell if anyone needs some and I am looking forward to getting the sheep sheared on the 13 of this new month, poor man canceled on us again. His son is sick so I would ask you all to find it in your heart to put out a little pray that the sweet child make a full recovery. With this said I must leave you all for a little while, have to go to town, gee, I hope they have whole ginger at Town and County I need to make some soda starter....
Be Blessed dear ones and love one another and be kind, in kindness there life in cruelness only death...live well, Shekhinah, Michael and all the kids and critters on Mahanaim Farm
Today I think we will have milk weed with dinner, this little plant is one of the most useful of weeds. The new shoots can be slightly boiled, water cast off and than eaten or cooked in a stir fry or eaten like asparagus. The new seed pods, when hard can be eaten like okra and even pickled for latter use. The flower heads are like yummy free broccoli and can be eaten the same way and the flowers once they bloom can also be eaten. The roots as also edible though I have never tried to eat them. I am also going to hunt down some burdock, only the root of this plant is food, but it is enough...at nearly a foot long in most cases a two year old burdock plant can be a yummy treat. The root is thinly cut up on the diagonal and than boiled and added to other things,raw it has a almost potato smell to it. It is used most often in japan's cooking. Anyway I am toying with making egg Yong for dinner with milk weed as the main vegetable in in it...it does sound yummy. I would make an egg pie but I would have to make some cheese and there are only so many hours in the day, lol.
Here are my goals for the day, to get some more of the garden set up and planted. I bought six zucchini plants and four green/red pepper plants for the garden and they are going in before the rain. I need to plant corn, more peas, radishes, carrots,and now green beans and maybe some other greens, cucumbers. I am pleased with the progress of the garden as we are getting quite a bit out of it already;each day I harvest peas, greens, asparagus and onions. I still have home work to get done for college and a few tests to study for. Gathering food of course as talked about above and in a feet of grandness I hope to move the fish pond to it's new home. I hope to use the fish water to water the plants where ever I can and I am concerned about trying to move the fish themselves. We have some good size ones in there now, but if I want to order the tilapia, I have to move the pool, plus the kids are bugging me to put the new pool up, which is bigger and better, I hope as it cost us a bunch of money a month or so ago. It will be nice to get just some of this done out side. I am still messing with grain in the house as one of the bags broke as Dah'veed was lifting it out of the van, what a mess very expensive grain all over the place, we sat on the ground picking it up and putting in a Rubbermaid container,(rolling my eyes), I guess I will be grinding it very soon. The bulk of it was not spilled and is safely in the kitchen. I still have to go tot he feed store and pick up some eggs from Ken, I get extra guinea eggs from him, don't worry I pay him, it is really good for both of us.
Yesterday we got a new hard bed for Elijah from our neighbour down the road, he is a very kind man and unbelievable smart,not sure there is much of anything the guy does not know or has not at the very least studied. Plus he is very kind abut our enumerous animal escapes, horses, birds, cow, ect..lol He is a blessing for us, as we are still a bit wet behind the ear and we do not always plan the best, but my heart is in the right place, lol....
No new news about the cow, or my spoiled goats and sheep who are waiting for some outrageous storm to have more babies. Michael got more of our trees planted and we talked about finig the pond, I lost my fish from there most certainly. the storms have left their mark upon our little farm, but like our busy bees, we will work hard and get it all back up to where it needs to be. In other news, more peepers were born, some rally cute little guys and they are already to be placed in homes. I have a few ducks left to sell if anyone needs some and I am looking forward to getting the sheep sheared on the 13 of this new month, poor man canceled on us again. His son is sick so I would ask you all to find it in your heart to put out a little pray that the sweet child make a full recovery. With this said I must leave you all for a little while, have to go to town, gee, I hope they have whole ginger at Town and County I need to make some soda starter....
Be Blessed dear ones and love one another and be kind, in kindness there life in cruelness only death...live well, Shekhinah, Michael and all the kids and critters on Mahanaim Farm
It looks like the weather will hold out to be nice and drying out, so maybe we will make the swap meet, although end of the month, most all of everyone is broke, but we shall see, the last 2 weeks I doubt anybody else went as it was too cold and rainy, and no one wants to lose birds to the cold, or the heat as it was so hot 3 weeks ago.
we went to Hardy to work on 3 horses and had vehicle trouble, overheating when the air conditioning was on, so we roasted a little bit
stopped at a few garage sales yards sales and then to the grocery store and got some goodies for supper and snack times, the Bears' like the animal crackers and moon pies, I get fig bars
got home somewhat late in the day, it was 90F on the back porch in the shade, checked and got water for all the critters that needed it, then came in and listened to the Borscht Blender on WEFT a.k.a. The Rabbi's Show officially now I guess, although the web page still says Borscht Blender which I have known it as for the last 15 or 20 years
after the radio show on the computer, I got outside to the barn and started on those chores, with fresh cold water for the yard birds 1st, then started my usual routine of doing things, then when I got to the yard birds, recheck the water and refill and then feed them, watered the pot belly pigs 3 times today, the last bucket of water was still when I finally came in for the night, made sure Moo's was and the goats trough was filled twice and I gave them another extra bucket for just in case, never know with expectant mommies...egg collection has been good, depsite the excess heat, which usually causes it to slack off for some of the birds, although the silkies and the guineas seem to thrive in this stuff for some reason, the royal black quail still put out nice big eggs, where as the regular cortuinex <--sp? quail will stop, then we have the little peepers in the brooder box and the finisher that has new baby quail, duckies, a goose or 2, and chicks, really like this type of "warmth" even with the heater stuff on now, their all reptilians I am sure of it
We got a double yolker egg from the Americanas today also, its blue and twice the size of normal, like the size of a small goose egg...tomorrow night it is suppose to be 42F and 60s Tuesday daytime, we have had the air conditioner on for the last few days none stop, like it was summer time here in Arkansas, hopefully tomorrow I can get trash dumped and maybe get some trees planted, the Bears and I seen lots more butterflies on the blossoming tree out front and seen a few monarchs as well at the clients house today, but they did not have the diversity like we have here for some reason
