In honor of Matt’s birthday I had to post a cow picture.
Missus Hamilton says, “Happy Birthday as you mooove into a new decade!”
1 year ago:
Happy Birthday – check it out to see a “baby” picture of Matt 🙂
Ethanol myth blasted in new Science mag
“The latest issue of Science magazine highlights studies showing that…replacing fossil fuels with corn-based ethanol would double greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades.”
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Jackson named Sustainable Woman of the Year
“The Women’s Food and Agricultural Network started the Sustainable Woman of the Year award to recognize women who have worked hard promoting sustainable agriculture. Dana Jackson of Stillwater (MN) is the first recipient.”
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“It’s the best of times and the worst of times to start farming, says Fred Kirschenmann.”
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Reclaim control of agriculture to benefit Iowa
A Des Moines Register opinion piece
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A new book subtitled “Essential Steps to a Healthy, Sustainable Agriculture”.
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Organic chocolate a good alternative
Something to “chew on” as Valentine’s Day nears 🙂
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Today was one of those frustrating days with direct marketing. A customer had order three quarters – three! – of beef for this week. We took a heifer in yesterday and I called to remind her last night that her beef had gone in. She called back this morning to say they didn’t want it, they’d gotten some from someone else in December. And you were going to tell me when???
So…if you’d like a quarter (or more) please let me know ASAP. You can have the choice of taking it now, or in March. (I can shuffle my other customers up the schedule which would leave me openings in March.) And you’ll be getting a bargain. I’ll give it to you for 2007’s price of $1.85/# hanging.
email themillers92 (at) osage (dot) net
Ava seems to be coming along learning to be of help with the cows. She’s still somewhat fearful of them, but at the same time so excited about her job that she just trembles all over.
Last week when they got mixed together she helped run the bull back to his pen by running up behind him and grabbing him by the tail. He bolted right back to where he was supposed to be! She’s quick. She knows to retreat when a cow swings around toward her and charges.
She’s catching on to the herding. Next up is to teach her to guard an open gate.
3 years ago:
2 years ago:
Today my cousin Tim turns 30! Go over to That’s a Cute Little Farmhouse and ask how he was feeling this morning 😉 Let’s just say we had a real good time celebrating with him last night. (In the big town of Greene, where the King Corn movie was filmed!) And tomorrow my dear husband turns 40!
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A new-to-me blog, Grow Better Veggies will tide over those of us still in the throes of winter. She explores an interesting array of veggies and gardening-related topics, with beautiful photos to match.
Ang at Children in the Corn is getting her winter greens by growing sprouts. Looks yummy! Going on my To Do List.
Jason at Diary of a Farmer shares how he administers apple cider vinegar to his herd. Great information. I use ACV religiously with my pastured broiler chickens, but we’ve never tried it with the pigs or cows.
Becky at That’s a Cute Little Farm House shares a link to a Flickr photoset called Urban Decay in a small Iowa town. Beauty and sadness, all wrapped up into one.
Clicking around that photoset led me to another called Our Waterloo. It’s a mix of past and present Waterloo photos and ranges from East High School student protests to a group of women meatcutters at Rath.
And finally, The Beginning Farmer’s Wife gave a sourdough photo tutorial. I’ve always been a miserable failure at sourdough. Maybe I’ll have better luck with her trick of using pineapple juice in the starter.
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This Golden Polish hen is almost 3 years old, one of the very first group of laying hens we bought. Except she was purchased for Madeline to show at the fair, not for laying eggs.
Madeline’s poultry-showing lasted only one year. The judge asked her, “How many teeth does a hen have?” Her cute little 10-year-old self looked quite bewildered, and finally she answered, “Ten?” The judge chuckled and moved on.
I’ve noticed in the last year or so that the Golden Polish girls have started to look less and less golden. Their hats didn’t always have white feathers in them.
But her body feathering is still so beautiful it looks fake and painted on.
You can see her baby pictures here and her toddler pictures here. And here she is as a 2-year-old.
Okay, is that weird that I have baby pictures of my chickens?
2 years ago:
(Requires Adobe Reader free download)
There are a couple of interesting articles in the latest newsletter from the Niche Pork Marketing Working Group – “High Feed Prices Impact Pork Producers”, and “A Delicacy Comes to Iowa” about an organic acorn-fed pork producer. Also a listing of several resources for niche pork producers.
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Online calculator helps figure food crop profitability
A new tool, created through funding from the Leopold Center, to help Iowa farmers determine the profitability for a number of food crops.
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Avant-garde badass Eve Balfour
“In 1939, while most people in Europe were thinking about things entirely different, she launched the Haughley Experiment, the first side-by-side scientific experiment comparing conventional chemical farming with organic farming.”
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This picture sure makes spring seem like a long time away!
2 years ago:
Barn fire
1 year ago:
Miscellany
“Flowers, chocolates and diamonds will top many people’s shopping lists as Valentine’s Day approaches. Unfortunately, the items most associated with romance are also marred by environmental and social justice concerns.”
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Click your way to local food sources
A roundup of online resources to help (or convince) you to eat local!
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“Thanks to recent consumer interest in locally raised meat, however, the demand for local processing facilities is prompting Iowans to find new ways to help small processors start, upgrade or expand their businesses.”
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I’m not that into football, unlike my husband and son. Somewhere about Friday night Matt asked, “What are you making for the Superbowl?” “Superbowl?”, I replied. “Is that this weekend?”
So I set about trying to come up with Superbowl food that I could make without a trip to the grocery store, and without a lot of effort. (I think I should be titling my cooking posts “Lazy Cooking from Scratch”!)
A can of black beans and a can of organic diced tomatoes already seasoned with garlic & herbs made for a quick, easy, and delicious salsa of sorts. Popcorn seasoned with parmesan, garlic, and Italian seasoning = pizza-flavored popcorn! My mom & dad came bearing cheese curds, crab salad, carrots and crackers. (Wow, they were on a “foods that start with C” kick, weren’t they?) I pulled a cheesecake out of the freezer that I’d purchased from the school choir’s fundraiser, and baked a beer bread mix purchased at Becky’s recent Tastefully Simple party. Things were shaping up nicely! And for something of substance I decided on vegetable beef soup.
In years past I used to get the beef soup bones and keep them in the freezer to feed starving doggies when I accidentally ran out of dog food. I had no idea what to do with them. Once I tried throwing one into a pot of vegetable soup, but it turned out nasty and tough. So they were relegated to dog food status.
Instead I used stew meat, or leftover roast beef. And this is certainly a fine way to go, especially when short on time. But using real soup bones gives you health benefits that just using the meat doesn’t. Boiling bones releases minerals in a form that we humans can easily absorb. It also breaks down the tendons and cartilage into things like chondroitin and glucosamine – a now-popular dietary supplement. Of course getting these things from “real” food instead of factory-produced supplements is always going to do you more good. And you’ll know when you eat this soup. It just makes you feel so well.
Enough chatter…on to the recipe!
Use 3 to 5 pounds of meaty beef soup bones. I think I used even a bit more here. If frozen, defrost appropriately. (I’m not sure why I always take a picture of the packages! Not terribly useful, but I just like the classic look of the crisp, white butcher paper. Weird, I know.)
Put them in a pan and put them in the oven. You’ll want to preheat the oven to 350 degrees first. Roast them for about an hour.
When they come out of the oven they’ll be nice and brown and carmelized. According to Sally Fallon, roasting the bones first “forms compounds that give flavor and color–the result of a fusion of amino acids with sugars, called the Maillard reaction.” She would know.
Then throw those bones into your largest soup pot, salt well, and cover with cold water. I used a 10-quart stock pot. Bring to a boil, and then turn the heat down until you have a slow rolling boil. Boil for a couple of hours. Or more, to keep that good smell permeating your house all day! As it boils some “scum” will form on top. Just spoon it off. It will stop doing that eventually.
Getting the meat out of the broth can be an adventure. I have a small strainer/colander with a handle that I use to scoop the meat and bone out of the broth.
Set one daughter to work shredding the meat.
Set the other daughter to work dicing vegetables.
This is another one of those recipes where you can just use whatever vegetable combination you see fit. We used 2 carrots, 2 stalks celery, 3 or 4 potatoes, 2 cups frozen corn, 2 cups frozen green beans, a palmful of dehydrated onion flakes, and a pint of diced tomatoes. I didn’t season with anything but sea salt, but you could try basil, oregano, garlic, Worcestershire sauce. Go crazy, get creative!
I would think this soup would freeze just fine. But no matter how large of a vat of it I make, ours never lasts long enough to find out!
Vegetable Beef Soup
3 to 5 pounds meaty beef soup bones
2 large carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1 onion diced or 3 T. dehydrated onion flakes
4 potatoes, peeled and diced
2 cups or 1 can diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen corn or 1 can corn
2 cups frozen green beans or 1 can green beans
sea salt to taste
Roast soup bones 1 hour at 350 degrees. Place in large stock pot, salt to taste, and fill pot with cold water. Cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat to a slow rolling boil. Spoon off any scum that forms on surface of the stock. Boil 2 hours. Carefully remove meat and bones. Shred meat and return to pot. Add vegetables and cook until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes.
Okay, I know this recipe is already of epic proportions. But just a few more things in parting:
* If you make a vat of beef broth, like I did in my 10-quart stockpot, but don’t want that much soup, just take some of the broth out and freeze it for later. Same with the meat off the soup bones – freeze part of it for making soup later. Then just reduce the amount of vegetables accordingly.
* I referenced this wonderful article by Sally Falon for some of the health info. Go read the article, lots of good stuff there. Sally is the author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
* Does anyone have a copycat recipe for Tastefully Simple’s beer bread mix? That stuff is wicked delicious and I’ve never found a recipe that comes close to it.
