Holidays

This is going to be an odd Christmas

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Today is the first Sunday of Advent.

Leyendecker is undisturbed by human regulations and restrictions! :-D

Normally, our tree would have already been decorated, and the Advent wreath, with its candles, set up.

It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to have a tree this year. The cats just seem to wait until we’re not around, then go after it. The main problem is, there’s really just one place that works well for a tree in this house, and there isn’t any way to stabilize it. At least not without making holes for hooks in places I really don’t want to put holes.

So we’re thinking of using a garland that looks like spruce branches in place of a tree, and focus more on decorating the house.

At least, up near the ceiling! :-D

As for the Advent wreath, I forgot we no longer had candles. There are supposed to be 4 of them. Three in blue or purple, one in pink. One after another is symbolically lit on each Sunday of Advent. A 5th candle, in white and representing Christ, can be included, to be lit on Christmas day.

If I’d remembered we burned away the last of our supply of these candles last year, I would have gone hunting for them long ago. I’d found them at Michael’s before, but outside of boxed sets specifically put together for Advent, it’s hard to find the right colours, this time of year. Michael’s, of course, is shut down right now, along with all the other “non essential” stores. Churches are shut down, too, so there’s another potential source no longer available.

I did have other candles, though. I have a silver candelabra my husband bought for me years ago, that holds 3 candles – and I had kept the candles from the last time we’d used it. They’re gold instead of blue or purple, and only about 4 inches long, but they’ll do. In place of the pink candle, I have a white one. For the Christ candle, I have another white one, marked with a cross, that had been included in our traditional Easter basket for blessing.

Yesterday, I helped my mother do her grocery shopping. Her building is closed off to all but residents and staff, so she had to meet me outside. She wasn’t wearing her face shield, but the surgical mask under her nose again. When I asked why, she ignored me, so I suspect she’s afraid of being hassled, even with the shield. She had to go to the bank, first and had called ahead to make an appointment the day before. She was told she could come any time during opening hours, and given instructions. They don’t allow anyone into the bank anymore. There’s a table set up in the vestibule. Only one person allowed at a time. Not that there’s room in there for more. My mother filled out what she needed, then knocked on the door. When someone came over, they couldn’t even open the door very far, because there was no room with her walker in there.

I waited outside while she sat in her walker. Some guy came by, wanting to go in. After confirming with me that my mother was not waiting in line, but had already been helped, and that I was not waiting in line, either, he read the signs while putting on his mask. He read the “one person in the vestibule at a time”, then asked, “what’s a vestibule?” :-) It is not a word that is commonly used out here!

Then he decided to try and get into the bank.

Yup. Went in, with my mother, and tried to open the locked inner door.

*sigh*

I don’t know what my mother said to him, but I heard him answering “I know that” as he left. :-D

We started chatting about the ridiculousness of it all (seriously; in that tiny space, if the virus were an issue around here, which it isn’t, it’s like they’d created the very conditions it would most likely be spread!), and he started going on about how the reason we were having so many problems was because all the kids are allowed to go to school and spread the bacteria.

Yes. He said bacteria.

Thinking he may have misspoke, I mentioned it was a virus, and he just brushed it off and kept talking about how all these asymptomatic kids are getting everyone sick by spreading the bacteria.

Thankfully, my mother was soon done and I had to help her with the doors. Because, of course, they’re not using the entry with automated doors for persons with disabilities.

*sigh*

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and my mother is now well stocked for a while. I made a point of bringing our folding wagon along, so while my mother unlocked the side door closer to her apartment, I loaded it up and brought it over. She then had to push her walker while pulling the wagon to get her groceries in, then bring it back. If I weren’t concerned about her being hassled, I would have gone in anyway. :-(

Since I was out with my mother yesterday, it was today that I started something for Christmas that I’ve been wanting to try for some time.

I cooked up a baking soda and cornstarch dough. My intention was to make cookie cutter ornaments with it. I have a set of cutters that are meant more for gingerbread house type dough, that make interlocking pieces. Once dry, the pieces can be put together to make a 3D tree, star or reindeer. I had another set of cookie cutters in a variety of Christmas themed shapes.

It didn’t work.

I think I might not have cooked the dough long enough or something, but I cooked it until it was so thick, I couldn’t stir it anymore, so it should have worked. Yet it was way too soft to be able to do anything after cutting the shapes I wanted. After several attempts, I gave up and offered the dough to the girls. They made a bunch of little sculptures, instead, which will take several days to dry.

I guess I’ll just stick with the orange slice decorations I was going to start on while the baking soda dough ones dried.

It’s funny. With having moved so many times over the years, and now with my husband’s mobility so reduced, there is nothing unusual about having Christmas with just the 4 of us. Since we were already living on my husband’s disability payments, we’re used to being extremely fugal. Living in relative isolation, a lot of the restrictions and regulations don’t affect us directly most of the time. Yet, the long tentacles of government overreach is affecting even us. When we do go into town, we’re not allowed to buy anything Christmas related (unless it’s for pets; you can buy all the Christmas themed pet toys you want, but you can’t buy toys for human children), nor books and magazines, most clothing, and so many other things government talking heads have decided are not “essential”. All of this is affecting everyone, as prices for basic necessities, have to go up in response. So people like us and my mother – who at least have incomes, as small as they are – are going to be having a harder time of it. Gas prices are going down again, but there is nowhere to go. Supposedly, the lock down is going to end on Dec. 11, but our premier is already saying it’s not going to be lifted much, and telling people not to get together with family for Christmas, even with the reduced restrictions.

Meanwhile, it’s our seniors in long term care in the city, surrounded by people in PPE, but no family or loved ones, and no activities to help combat cognitive decline or loneliness, that are dying. Not necessarily of the virus, but of starvation, dehydration and neglect. Meanwhile, my mother can’t even find out how her sister is doing; her niece isn’t returning her calls (not sure what’s going on there), and my mother can’t navigate the automated phone system to talk to a human being. I’m not on the list of people they’re allowed to talk to, so I can’t find out for her.

I think I’ll call, anyway, and ask them to phone my mother or something.

It’s going to be a very strange Christmas.

The Re-Farmer

Thanksgiving lunch, mulch experiment and outside kitten progress

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Lats this morning I headed over to my mother’s place with a turkey dinner to have lunch with her.

On the way out, I spotted three sets of ears in the window of the cat shelter.

Tiny sets of years belonging to the little kittens! I didn’t dare go closer for a picture, though, because I didn’t want to startle them away. There may have been more cats inside with them that I couldn’t see, too. I’m so glad to see them in the shelter, rather than hiding under it!

My mother and I had a very nice lunch and visit (how visits turn out is always touch and go with my mother! LOL). I brought a mask exemption card to tape to her door, and another she can carry with her. Hopefully, that will help reduce the harassment from the caretakers. Unfortunately, I think more has happened than she is telling us, because she kept insisting she “doesn’t want a war” and even started asking me not to call the housing department responsible for her building to talk about the caretaker’s abusive behaviour. She wore a mask – under her nose! – to meet me at the side door that’s very close to her own apartment door, and even in that short distance, by the time she was back in her apartment, she was struggling to breathe. She had also mentioned to me on the phone, waking up and struggling to breathe again. So I brought a foam wedge we got for my husband that he ended up not being able to use. Depending on how it’s positioned, it can be used under the knees, to lean against while sitting up in bed, or to sleep in an inclined position. The doctor had recommended trying to sleep more upright to see if that helped. When she saw it, however, she flat out refused to even try it and told me to take it home. Eventually, she said it was because it looked ugly! Which I highly doubt is the real reason. Frustrating!

Still, it was a good visit and my mother was very happy I was able to come over. I think the pandemic social restrictions are really getting to her. There used to be many events and gatherings, either in her own building, or in nearby venues, that she attended. Now, there are none. It seems the only real “social” interactions she’s getting these days are with the nasty caretaking couple. The restrictions seem to be bringing out the worst in people. I think she is getting very lonely, and some serious cabin fever!

Once at home, I took advantage of the warmer weather. With the garlic ready to be picked up when the post office opens tomorrow, I was thinking of how I wanted to mulch the beds. The straw is not breaking down as I had expected, and I decided to try an experiment.

Using the new push mower to chop it into smaller pieces!

The bag filled up very quickly, but it wasn’t until I had already started that I realized I’d forgotten to check the height of the mower. It was at 7; the highest setting! So things weren’t quite as chopped up as I wanted.

I lowered it to 3 and that chopped things up much better.

It took only 2 bags to fill the wagon, it’s so fluffy. LOL I laid out a tarp near the beds the garlic will be planted it, to make it easier to work with when it’s needed – plus I can fold half the tarp over the pile to keep the wind from blowing it away.

Unfortunately, I had an unexpected problem.

The new lawn mower stopped starting.

Right from the beginning, it was harder to start, but every time I had to turn it off to empty that bag, it kept getting harder to restart it until, finally, I just couldn’t start it at all. It had been so easy to start, before! In the spring, when we had so much rain, I was using it a lot and had no problems. Then the rain stopped, and the grass never really got long enough to make it worth cutting again. So it’s been sitting in the garage for the last couple of months. That on its own should not cause the problem. I couldn’t find any reason for it. It just won’t start. After getting only 2 1/2 wagon loads done, I finally gave up.

I will just have to take it in to the small engine shop in town to get it looked at, later in the year.

So the experiment worked, as far as chopping up the straw to make a finer mulch. It was just the lawn mower that failed!

After giving up on that task, I took the time to take the sun room replacement door off in preparation for painting the frame. I plan to get at that as soon as possible tomorrow morning, then go to the mail to pick up our bulbs. I will get the garlic in, while the girls will be doing the digging to get their flowers in.

While working at the door, I spotted this.

That is two little kittens in there! One of the orange tabbies, and Creamsicle Jr. As I walked around after taking the picture, Potato Beetle came out of the entry. I hadn’t seen him at all in there!

So I decided not to go inside after taking the door off, and stayed to see if I could get the kittens to play.

I had a target in mind.

This little lady. In the interest of trying to reduce future litters, we are hoping to get her friendly enough to bring her inside.

Yeah. I know. We have too many cats inside already!

Nostrildamus, meanwhile, couldn’t get enough attention! It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were lucky if we could pet him at all. Now, he’s all over us, asking for pets! He still doesn’t like to be picked up, but he does like chewing on fingers!

The two napping in the shelter eventually came out to see what was going on, and joined in on the play. I was able to pet the little orange one – the smallest of the 4 younger kittens – and even managed to pet Creamsicle Jr. a bit. The calico, however, would not let me touch her! However, my daughter came out to join me for a while, and she tried to play with them. Not only did she get the calico close enough to pet, she was even able to pick her up! Only briefly, and she didn’t like it, but she didn’t run away after jumping down, either.

Aside from Nostrildamus, we seem to be having a better time of socializing Butterscotch’s second litter than the older kittens. Though it didn’t help that Butterscotch was around and growling all the other cats away, including her own babies!

Still, we have made some socialization progress!

The other little orange kitten came by later. That one, the gender is still in doubt, but from what little we’ve been able to see, I suspect it is female.

I thought it was supposed to be rare for orange tabbies to be female, but here, they seem to be the majority! Of the older kittens, Nostrildamus is the only whose gender we are sure of. His one confirmed sister is now inside, but with the luck we’ve been having, his other sibling and Rosencrantz’s baby are also female! And we can’t get anywhere near any of them. :-(

Ah, well. We will just have to do what we can. Mostly, I’m just really, really glad the little kittens are going inside the shelter.

The Re-Farmer

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving weekend!

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The kitties got an early Thanksgiving breakfast.

Someone is looking like I woke him up too early!

Nostrildamus and his sibling were sleeping in the cat house. From the red light on the timer, I could see that the heater was on. Now I’m thinking of getting a thermometer to put inside, facing the window. LOL I’m such a suck, when it comes to the cats!

Not only does Nostrildamus (aka Nosey) now allow me to pet him, regularly, he’s picked up Potato Beetle’s habit of going between my feet while I’m trying to walk!

Mystery is giving me attitude!

I’m good with that. She and her mom usually run away!

Though Thanksgiving is officially tomorrow, we had our dinner today. The brined turkey using apple cider vinegar in the brine, apple pieces added into the cavity along with the lemon halves, and more ACV added to the roaster, turned out fantastic. I made a mushroom gravy this time, frying up a mix of sliced white button, crimini and oyster mushrooms in advance, adding them when I made gravy from the drippings, then using an immersion blender to whiz the mushroom pieces. That worked really well.

Also, we still had some of the Poor Man’s Hippocras left, and it most definitely tastes better chilled. :-) It also went well with the pumpkin pie and whipped cream! Which makes sense. They both have a lot of the same spices

Meanwhile, I’ve already packed up some take-out containers will be taking them to my mother for lunch tomorrow. When I called to arrange the time, she was asking me right away, if I had mashed potatoes and gravy! LOL Yes, Mom, I do. Just for you!

We have much to be thankful for and right now, as I look out the window, I am thankful we aren’t having a blizzard right now, like we did last year! :-D

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Re-Farmer

Preparing for Thanksgiving

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Before I start, I want to say Powitaninia! Dziękują za odwiedzanie! to my sudden spike of new visitors from Poland. To jest cudowne mieć wy tutaj.

Today is going to be a busy day for us – and it was a busy day of cats this morning!

On the list of things to do is clean out the eaves troughs (aka gutters), so I left the ladder out after bringing it to the well for the plumbers. The cats don’t seem to mind it there at all. :-D

The painted bird feeder stand is now ready to be put up again, so that’s another thing on the to-do list.

Can you see the little snoot of a hidden kitten?

There he is!

The little kittens now come out to the food bowls here, consistently. Though I have seen one or two explore inside the cat house, they prefer to hide under it, rather than in it!

Also, their mother is getting nasty! Butterscotch has been growling and hissing other cats away from the food bowls, which is not all that atypical. It’s when she goes after her own kittens that it concerns me!

Also on the to-do list is building a simple shelter to keep the snow off the food bowls. One that’s long enough that I can spread them out, instead of crowding them under the makeshift shelter I’ve made on the sawhorses to keep any rain off.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. While the holiday falls on Monday, we will be having our dinner tomorrow, and some preparations are starting today. I’ve got a turkey that should be thawed out by now, and I just finished preparing a brine. I decided to try something different this year, since I happen to have the ingredients. Along with the usual salt, brown sugar and herbs, I’ve added a generous amount of apple cider vinegar (the one that I used as a “starter” for our own vinegar that is still fermenting). Once the brine is cooled down, it will go into our giant stock pot with the turkey, adding enough cold water to completely immerse the bird. Then it will go into the old kitchen to chill for the night.

Having an un-insulated room has come in surprisingly handy for things that need refrigerating, but don’t fit in our refrigerator! It’s not quite cool enough in the summer, but this time of year, it’s perfect for the job.

Probably not too good for our fermenting vinegar, though! :-D

We never stuff our turkey, but I do like to add aromatics into the cavity. When it comes time to roast the turkey tomorrow, I will continue the apple theme. I like to rub the turkey all over with lemon, then put the pieces inside the cavity for extra flavour and moisture. This time, I plan to add apple pieces as well. The bottom of the roasting pan will have some celery sticks, onion slices and carrot pieces laid out to act as a roasting rack, while also adding flavour to the juices that will be used to make a gravy. The turkey itself will be topped with a woven mat of bacon – a trick I learned from my late mother-in-law.

I picked up some things yesterday, to help me with finishing the sun room door, so I will be heading out to work on that right away. I neglected to check the mail yesterday, though. It turns out our bulbs and garlic arrived, but with Monday being a holiday, I won’t be able to pick them up until Tuesday. So the girls and I will use the time to prep where the bulbs will be planted. Given how late in the season it is, and that we are dipping below freezing almost every night now, we will have to make good use of mulch to help the bulbs get the start they need once they’re in the ground.

Lots of work to do before the cold! But we will still take the time to celebrate the many things we have to be thankful for. For all the problems we are finding in this place, it’s still better than where we were before moving out here! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Wishing you a happy and blessed Easter!

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I hope you all had a wonderful day today, even if you had to celebrate it in a different way than usual.

This morning, the basket was assembled, and I found an English translation of the traditional Polish blessings of the contents (my Polish is not good enough anymore!).

Then it was time to lay out our Easter brunch, using the contents of the basket.

I included the beet and onion pieces that were with the pink pickled eggs, just because. :-) The olive oil from the marinated goat cheese was strained of the herbs and spices, to be used with the vinegar as a dip for the bread. The braided loaf makes it easy to tear into chunks.

We had a lovely and delicious meal together!

We were not the only ones to enjoy the basket.

DahBoy decided it would make an excellent bed!

While the turkey was in the oven for our evening meal, I had a chance to have a video chat with some of my family.

Technology is awesome. :-)

Though today was very busy with lots to do for our special times together, I still tried to keep today as a Sunday day of rest. I notice others are taking advantage of the weather and conditions, though. As I sit here typing, I can see the live feed from our security camera. A burn is being done on my brother’s rented out field, across the road. Work never stops for farmers, even on Easter!

I am quite grateful for all those who work to produce our food and the other goods we need! We have much to be thankful for.

The Re-Farmer

Easter preparations and difficulty typing

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I know I should be in bed right now, but I had a few setbacks. Problems with the van being the most obvious one, but also, I had difficulties typing.

My husband got evidence as to why.

Susan decided she absolutely HAD to drape herself across me as I tried to type. She particularly felt the need to roll around, and use my hands as pillows.

For such a tiny cat, she takes up a lot of space. :-D

Meanwhile, I did manage to finish the last things for the basket before I had to head into town.

These are easily the darkest onion skin dyed eggs we’ve ever made! I didn’t leave them in the pot longer than usual, either. This is just from the sheer volume of onion skins they were immersed in. Also, every single one of them are fine. One of the nice things about colouring eggs this way is the high success rate. At most, sometimes an egg will crack in the boiling water.

The tea dyed eggs, however, are typically much more difficult.

Of the dozen I did this way, I lost three eggs completely (they were delicious, though), and I think only one or two peeled without damaging the egg white. Cracking the shells and cooking them again in the dye seems to make it more difficult to peel them. It also leaves them too fragile to use the shaking method of loosening the peel. I did try it, and the egg just split open in the jar.

We’ll just have to made to with slightly torn up eggs this year! :-D

As for the horseradish, usually I just peel a chunk of root and put it in the basket whole. We would then shred it for use during our Easter breakfast made up entirely of basket contents. This time, I decided to grate it, first.

I left it to dry on a paper towel for a while before putting it into a teeny tiny jar.

I almost forgot I had one last thing to prepare before heading to bed. Brining the turkey! We’ve never done a turkey dinner for Easter before, but I had one in the freezer, so we’re using it now. I use a giant stock pot to brine the turkey in. It’s a big bird, and the brine needed almost 3 gallons of water to be able to cover it completely. It makes for a very full stock pot. I have to get one of my daughters to help me carry it to the old kitchen, so it doesn’t slosh all over. This time of year, the old kitchen is about refrigerator cold during the day, and will probably drop a degree or two below freezing overnight, which makes it quite safe to leave the turkey in overnight.

For now, though, I’d better get my butt into bed. There will be lots to do tomorrow! :-) I’m looking forward to it. :-)

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter!

The Re-Farmer

Easter preparations and successful finds

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I’m happy to say that I was able to deliver a little care package to my mother for her Easter. I called right after dropping off my daughter to see if she needed anything at the grocery store, but she was able to order everything she needed from the grocery store and have it delivered. Which means they were able to accommodate her in regards to her not being able to pay over the phone. I thought that might be the case, as the grocery store near her caters to a lot of seniors in similar situations.

When I got there, she met me at the door, since her building is on lockdown. Technically, I could have visited her and it would have been okay, but the less people from outside come in, the better.

After the drop off, I went to the grocery store near her place and scored big time!

Not only did they have big bags of cat kibble, but they were well stocked in pretty much everything! They even had a big display of large pack toilet paper, though they were selling for over $30. We are fine for that, so I didn’t get any. Their yeast section was completely full, and I was able to get a nice big jar of the traditional (slower acting) yeast. Between this, what we’ve already got left at home (even after baking day, yesterday) and our sourdough starter, we’re set for a good long time. :-)

Finding a candy thermometer was just bonus! I won’t have to make to with a meat thermometer, when I try a new cheese recipe after Easter.

Once home, I got a couple of pots doing with more eggs; one with the tea dying mixture, and the other with onion skins. We’ve been collecting onion skins all year, and there was so much, I couldn’t even use it all. (click here for how we do our three different types of eggs)

Once the eggs were at the stage where they could be left unattended, I got the dining table all pretty.

Which has fascinated the cats.

Cheddar, at least, was polite about his curiosity. He just sat on a chair and rested his chin on the table cloth. I’ve already found Two Face, just sitting on the table, like a bread loaf.

Once the table was cleared of cats… again… I worked on preparing other basket ingredients.

Each of the items has symbolic significance, some of which are old traditions for our Polish family, while others are traditions we added ourselves. Along with the bread, which symbolizes Jesus (the “bread of life”), and the eggs, which symbolize the Resurrection and new life, we have:

  • ham; to represent joy and abundance, marked with a cross made of cloves
  • sausage; representing the favor and generosity of God
  • butter; to remind us of the goodwill we should have towards all things. We like to make different flavored butters. This year, I’ve added parsley, garlic granules and paprika. Like the ham, it’s marked with a cross of cloves, and the fish shaped bowl it’s in is a reminder for us to be “fishers of men”.
  • salt; in one of the tiny jars, it symbolizes prosperity and justice, and is a reminder to be the “salt of the earth”.
  • cheese; this year, marinated goat cheese, but we’ve used many different kinds of cheese over the years, as a symbol of moderation
  • vinegar; the other tiny jar has red wine vinegar, as a reminder of the wine vinegar mixed with hyssop that Jesus was given to drink, just before he spoke his last words. This is one of our own, added traditions.
  • olives and olive oil (in with the marinated goat cheese): this is another of our added traditions, symbolizing wisdom, peace, and hope.
  • Not pictured is the horseradish, which symbolizes the pain of crucifixion. Traditionally, it can be made into a paste with beet juice, with the sweet juice representing the joy of resurrection. We’ve included the beet juice with our pink pickled eggs.

Other items that would be appropriate to add are a candle, a bottle of wine, and sprigs of greenery.

By the time we’re done, there’s enough food in the basket to feed us for a couple of days! Typically, we eat the blessed food as a brunch on Easter morning.

Gosh, I love making these baskets so much!

Now it’s time to check on the eggs, and prep the horseradish! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Easter preparations: baking day and frozen ground

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Today, while the girls continued to work on the basement (I have yet to go down to see their progress!), I worked on baking our Easter bread.

Then, since I was baking anyway, I made some sourdough soda bread, and another double batch of what has become my usual standby, a basic bread recipe modified by the addition of rolls oats and various seeds. This recipe, plus chia seeds and minus the rye flour. Lately, I’ve also included hemp hearts as well, which adds a really nice flavour and texture. Thanks to my dear friend, I even had yeast to use for the non-sourdough recipes. :-)

In this photo, the braided loaf is for our Easter basket, and I made 4 mini loaves with the other half of the recipe. In the back, left, are the loaves of sourdough soda bread. Which did NOT want to rise today. The house was a bit too chilly today, even though it has been warming up again, outside.

In between batches and rising times, I also made a soup using one of my meals in a jar mixes with sausage. The mix had brown lentils, red lentils, orzo pasta, turmeric cous cous, dehydrated vegetables, dehydrated onions, mushroom ketchup powder, 1 cube of vegetable bouillon and 1 cube of chicken bouillon.

The seedy bread was shaped into mini-loaves that made excellent bread bowls.

This was soooo good to break my Good Friday fast (for health reasons, I do not do a total fast).

While doing my rounds this morning, I checked the ground near the power pole in the old garden, where there is horseradish planted. It was rock hard, but I hoped that things would have warmed enough to dig some up by this evening.

After scraping aside last year’s leaves, I found the horseradish has already been trying to grow.

The ground was certainly starting to thaw out by this time, but the soil here is so full of rocks, it didn’t make that much of a difference. I can’t understand why my mother planted these here. For a plant that is grown for its roots, rocky ground would have been something to avoid. The area has always been much rockier than the rest of the garden; so much so, my parents eventually stopped using it completely. The base of the power pole, however, has rocks and gravel packed around it, so it’s even worse than anywhere else.

I did manage to break off a couple of pieces, then decided to see what I could find in the other spot my mother had planted horseradish; at the base of a spruce tree near our feeding station. I had hoped that, between the wood chip mulch and possibly a bit more sunlight, the ground would be thawed out more.

The horseradish here isn’t as big or prolific, but I could see where it was starting to grow.

I did scrape away the wood chips, but it’s still pretty hard to see.

There isn’t as much growing here, and they’re much smaller, but the ground was indeed a bit softer, so I got a couple of decent chunks out. The ground isn’t rocky here, but of course, there’s plenty of tree roots. Again, I don’t understand why my mother chose this location.

After much washing, then scrubbing with an old tooth brush to get into the crevices, I now have several chunks to use.

That big piece with three sprouts? I could potentially plant each of those, and have three fresh plants.

I think the two little ones will be enough for my mother. If all goes to plan, I hope to swing by her place tomorrow with a care package for her. I’ll leave these as is, so she can prepare them as she wishes – or plant them in her own little garden plot outside her window. :-)

We only need a bit for our own basket. I have been thinking of planting horseradish in softer ground; perhaps in a raised bed or planter. Something that will allow a straighter root to develop. If I can think of a good spot for that, I might do that with the big piece. My mother always kept a piece of horseradish, with the green parts still attached, in the basket to be blessed with the rest of the food, specifically to share with friends to transplant, or to transplant herself. I’ve tried it myself a few times, but the only one that succeeded (and didn’t get dug up by squirrels) was the one I’d included with our Easter basket the last time we were able to visit with my father, 5 years ago. I took it back with us to plant when we got home, and it actually survived. It got left behind when we moved, of course.

Normally, we would finished putting all our basket contents together tonight, in preparation for taking it to church for the blessing tomorrow morning, but since there is no church blessing, we’ll finish arranging the basket tomorrow and do our own blessing whenever we’re ready. I still want to do onion skin dyed and tea dyed eggs, which will be the last things that require any cooking.

For now, I think I’ll head down into the basement and see how things are looking after all my daughters’ hard work! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Preparing for Easter, and an easier way to peel eggs!

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One of the bonuses of our move to the farm I grew up on is that we could take part in a childhood tradition; the blessing of our Easter baskets. It was many moves and many years before we were able to find a Polish church that did basket blessings, and be able to take ours in.

That didn’t stop us from doing our traditional baskets. It was one of my favorite traditions, growing up, and even when we stopped going to church for many years (for a variety of reasons), we still did our baskets and simply blessed them ourselves.

Which is what we’ll have to do this year, since none of the churches are holding any sort of services during the lockdown, other than online.

We did start some of our preparations already. For the cheese portion of our basket, we decided to do marinated goat cheese again. I made up two 250ml canning jars for our basket (I’m hoping to get one of them to my mother, along with some fresh horseradish), plus two 500ml ones, just for regular eating.

Tomorrow, I hope to make some fancy bread for the basket. Probably a Braided Egg Bread again, though I haven’t completely decided yet.

Today, I started pink pickled eggs; one of three ways we like to do eggs for our basket. The recipe for pink pickled eggs that I followed before is here. This year we, strangely, had a hard time finding anything other than shredded beets at the grocery store, so I modified the recipe a bit. I found 1 small jar of tiny pickled beets and used the juice from that to colour the liquid, plus sliced some of the beets and included them in with the eggs. With so little beet juice, I figured the addition of the beets themselves would help add colour. The other change I made was to include the fresh herbs I had left over from making the marinated goat cheese; thyme and rosemary.

When preparing eggs for the basket, we always cook way more than we need, so that we can use only the most perfect eggs for the basket.

Which is difficult, when the eggs need to be peeled first. There have been times when we’ve boiled a dozen eggs, and not a single one could be peeled without tearing apart!

So today, I tried a combination of “hacks” to get the job done.

The first is to add baking soda to the cooking water. Yes, it does make a difference.

The next is to cool the cooked eggs down as quickly as possible. Putting the eggs into an ice bath is one way to do it, but our well water gets so cold, we can get away with using tap water.

The final one is something I tried for the first time today, and it worked beautifully!

Shaking them in a jar.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite that simple. :-D

I grabbed a small canning jar, though any jar (with a lid) just a bit bigger than an egg would work. Theoretically, you can use a small glass and cover the top with your fingers, but that would get pretty messy. The first jar I tried was a 500ml (pint) size, and I found it a bit too big and ended up using a 250ml jar instead.

Leaving the eggs in their cold water soak, take one egg and put it in the jar, along with enough water to fill the jar about half full or a bit more. It can be helpful to crack the shell a bit before putting it in the jar.

Then, put on the lid and start shaking. Vigorously, but not too violently!

The shaking does a few things. The most obvious is, it cracks the shell quite thoroughly. This is where you have to find a balance on how much water is in the jar when you shake it. Too much, and the water protects the egg from cracking as much. Too little, and the egg can get bashed apart.

The shaking also separates the membrane from the white of the eggs – which would have already been spurred along by the addition of baking soda to the cooking water, and the quick cool down. And finally, it lets water work its way between the membrane and the egg white, making it much easier to remove the shell.

After a thorough shaking, dump the contents back into the water with the rest of the eggs. While holding the cracked egg under water, start peeling away the shell. If it still sticks, do the shake again. :-)

Out of the package of 18 eggs I cooked, I got 8 that were perfect enough for the basket; two for each of us.

This is what happens when an egg is shaken up too vigorously.

Here are the best eggs, ready for the fridge.

They should have at least 3 days to marinade in the pickling liquid, which is just in time for Easter.

Of the remaining eggs, there was one that broke during cooking, which left another 8 eggs suitable for pickling. I did up another container the same way, minus the beet juice. It still has beet slices with the eggs, so it will have just a hint of pink. That one will be for regular eating.

It is going to be a delicious Easter celebration this Sunday! :-)

The Re-Farmer

A Year in Review

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A great big Happy New Year to all our wonderful visitors and followers! May 2020 be a year of peace and good health to you and your loved ones.

Out of all the millions of blogs out there, you chose to pop over and visit our little corner of the world, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate it.

Last year, I did a list of this blog’s top 10 most visited posts. I was all set to do it again, only to find it couldn’t quite work out as I intended. It turns out there are too many “tied” posts. A 2 or 3 way tie is one thing, but a 13 way tie? :-D I also noticed that the top visited posts are almost all from last year. I was going to try skipping those and just do posts that were written in 2019, only to find myself back in that tied-a-dozen-times problem.

So here is the list of the top 5 most visited blog posts in the past year.

Five: New Range Hood – part 1 Thanks to my daughter, we finally replaced the original range hood, which was installed in the early to mid 1970’s. Part 2 is when we finally got the new one wired and working!

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Four: Sourdough Cornmeal Pancakes These are still my favorite pancakes. Recipe to make yogurt cheese, as a sour cream substitute, included!

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Three: Chokecherry Vinegar Drink This turned out to be a very refreshing drink.

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Two: Making Chokecherry Vinegar Here is the recipe for the vinegar used in the Chokecherry Vinegar Drink. This year’s chokecherries were frozen, and we plan to use them in mead making. Depending on how many chokecherries we get next year, I hope to make this vinegar again, just so we can make that drink!

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And the Number One most popular post in the past year: Gathering Chokecherries

I’m sensing a theme, here! :-D This post is from 2018, but we got quite a nice haul this past summer, even though we gathered from just 2 out of 3 trees.

I hope you enjoy visiting these most popular posts of 2019 here at The Re-Farmer blog. Thank you, again, for choosing to visit our little corner of the blogosphere!

Happy New Year, from The Re-Farmer household to yours!

The Re-Farmer