An update on the Homefront

First of all, I guess it's only prudent to acknowledge that yes, it's been over 4 years since my last post -  which also started off with an apology and an admittance that it had been 6 years since the update before that. So, 3 updates in 10 years...that's some solid blogging work. 

Transgressions aside, I actually have been cooking all throughout this time. 

We bought an old dairy farm in 2020, and have been slowly rehabbing the property to become more sustainable for life. Tending to soil conditions, naturally fertilizing, testing and growing crops, transplanting wild black raspberries, adding livestock, and building out flowering areas for pollinators. (We even have a milk weed patch to help maintain the migratory path of monarch butterflies.) We compost all of our kitchen waste, lawn clippings, and chicken poop. We also tap our maple trees and sugar homemade maple syrup. 

A print of the property when it was a dairy farm in 1960 hangs in our kitchen. 

Our main vegetable garden is about 20 feet x 70 feet. We grow all of the usual things: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, summer squash, and beans, but because of the space have, we added items like potatoes, carrots, squash, and corn as well. In a small supplemental area we have rhubarb, strawberries, and asparagus. This past fall we added another garden area for pumpkins and gourds. 

We introduced a flock of chickens last September, and they started producing daily eggs in February. Raising chickens has a ton of advantages (compost nourishment, tick maintenance, and food), but they also provide an element of fun. Two weeks ago, we decided to add more babies into that mix, and while they are not big enough to introduce them to the rest of the girls yet, they grow so fast that they will all together in no time. (And then we will start to think about a Rooster to govern over the flock and keep the peace.)   

Those who are not busy laying are in their outdoor chicken run, scratching away.

Every day brings hours worth of chores, more as we get into nicer weather. 

I never thought I'd say this, but I am loving every minute of it - even in the deepest, darkest days of winter. In fact, I think all of this daily maintenance has actually helped with that depressed trapped feeling I experience in December, January, and February. 

I have also found a need, appreciation, and love for food preservation. In that exact order. Our first year in this house made us quickly learn that if we are going to grow it, we would have to learn ways to preserve it, so that we could enjoy our spoils throughout the year. The easier methods of water bath preserving gave us jars and jars of strawberry rhubarb jam, black raspberry jam, rhubarb dessert sauce, traditional cucumber pickles, zucchini pickles, relish, pickled green beans, applesauce, apple butter, salsa, and of course, tomato sauce.

We prepped and froze gallons of vegetables. (Note to self: Do not freeze in actual gallon bags, separate vegetables into smaller units, because the whole thing will freeze into one big block. It might be fun watching me attack bags like JasonVoorhees, but it's not good for my knives, or people's perception of me.)

We needed a pressure cooker, so that I could can goods, outside of pickling and making jam. I talked about wanting one so often that Santa Claus even got the hint and gifted me one!

That beauty has been a game changer in the short time that I've had it. I've canned chicken stock and fully preserved a mountain of homegrown butternut squash. It takes a ton of time, science, and mental energy, but the results are beautiful and delicious - most of the time. The baked beans I attempted to make were a huge fail, but it won't step me from trying the process one of more time.

There is a more layered aspect of homestead farm-to-table cooking that I am excited to share on this blog, as I continue to learn and grow.