Farmer-ettes

I was reading a newsletter wherein it featured an article from the Wall Street Journal called "Green Acres is the Place to Be". This article talks about people who left their urban life to embrace the rural life with the goal of becoming more sustainable and adopting a more self reliant lifestyle. It was an interesting article and I'm half tempted to google the people they talk about and give them a call to ask about how this change has turned out for them. The article just gives a brief overview noting where they lived then and where they moved to without much info on their day to day lives. Living in rural areas is wonderful for those of us who understand what living in the country entails. So I'm really curious how the "city slickers" cope with country life. I want to ask if living in the country and being self sufficient is really what they envisioned. I'm sure it is harder than they ever thought possible and hopefully the rewards outweigh any hardships they may face.

The next day after putting my project house up for sale, I received a call from a friend inquiring on behalf of an older couple near retirement whose goal was to become more self sufficient, raise chickens and get a dairy cow. How refreshing is that? This couple didn't want to move to Florida and take up golf; rather they were looking to become farmer-ettes and putter around with chickens, a cow and raise their own vegetables. I like the trend that people want to get back to more basics things, then perhaps they will get a feel for what we farmers do only on a larger scale.

End of my “Bucket List Wish”

Yea, my project house is almost complete; it's done enough to put it on the market. Quick re-cap, on October 27^th we purchased the farm ground across from us and a cute 1950's ish house came with the land. So with this purchase I got to cross off a "bucket list wish" which was to get to re-do a house. After about ten gallons of paint or so (I've lost count) the house changed it's appearance.

It is amazing what paint and a few upgrades can do. Those who had seen the house before I worked on it, couldn't believe the changes…. Here's some before and after pictures. This was so much fun, I'm sad to see it end.A new island, new flooring, new sink, paint… a totally new look.

The main bathroom before:

Most of the walls were all white-ish, non descript, so here I've added color to make some of the cool built-ins stand out.

The living room only needed some color and new curtains:

The color scheme for most of the house was milk chocolate and cream with accents of dark brown and blue.

Thanksgiving Eve and cooking

It is 9pm on Thanksgiving eve and I'm in the kitchen cooking for tomorrow. I'm in between what is cooking & what needs to be put together so with a few minutes to spare I'm currently sipping a glass of wine (plus I have Christmas music playing) – life is good. My oldest brother, Doug is hosting Thanksgiving at his house and my job is to bring the strawberry pretzel salad. Hosting Thanksgiving has become his special tradition and it started when he moved into his home just outside of Moscow. Doug's girlfriend, Edie, is really the mastermind of the event, organizing and making sure all is perfect. Later on in the day, we will also have a dinner with Joe's side of the family and it is hosted at Jay & Lisa's. They always put on a great dinner and are wonderful hosts. Joe's sister and her family are visiting from Seattle, so it will be a houseful as well. Lisa has me bringing pumpkin pies and a fruit salad. This holiday is bittersweet, as both my step dad and Joe's dad have serious health issues and realistically this could be our last holiday together with our dads. So we'll eat lots and enjoy the day with both of our families.

Recipe updates!

On my last blog I had posted the pumpkin dip (from memory) but when I checked the recipe I found I had the spices wrong, so here is the correct recipe:

Pumpkin Dip

15 oz canned pumpkin

8 oz softened cream cheese

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teas cinnamon

½ teas ginger

Beat cream cheese till creamy, blend in pumpkin, sugar and spices. Serve with apples & enjoy!

Turkey with a citrus flavor

Because Joe and I like to have family over, many of the holiday or family events are hosted at our house. I'm almost a complete vegan vegetarian (with the exception of having a fondness for cheese and yogurt) and do not eat meat/poultry/fish, but I am willing to cook it. So when hosting family events so I like to experiment and try new recipes and I have had rave reviews about the following way to prepare a turkey. This recipe has been requested now for a few years so I know my family really likes it and wanted to share it. They tell me is has a nice mild citrus taste and is very moist.

1 turkey

1 orange, lemon, lime –cut into wedges

1 small onion, cut into wedges

½ cup softened butter (no substitutions)

1-2 teas rosemary

½ tsp poultry seasoning

Salt & pepper

Pastry bag

Citrus Turkey

1. Thaw the turkey, rinse, pat dry, salt and pepper the cavity
   
2. In the cavity, insert 1 sliced orange, 1 sliced lemon, 1 sliced lime (no stuffing goes into the cavity) along with the onion
   
3. Mix the butter, rosemary, poultry seasoning, put into a pastry bag – no tip is needed
   
4. Next cut the top of the turkey skin with kitchen scissors and in-between the skin and meat, pipe in the butter mixture- this will melt into the meat, add flavor and help keep the turkey moist
   
5. Oil the outside of the skin w/olive oil
   
6. Bake as you usually like. I usually use a turkey bag and don't baste. Very easy and no mess.
   
7. Once the turkey is done, remove the fruit and serve as usual
   

Also, to my friends at LaBella Hair Salon, here is the recipe you have patiently been waiting for! (This was created by my friend, Lezah)

Peanut butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cup peanut butter

2 cup softened butter

2 cup brown sugar

1 ½ cup white sugar

4 eggs

Mix well. Then add

4 cup flour

2 cup oatmeal

4 teas baking soda

1 teas salt

3 ¾ cup choc chips

Drop onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake approx 10-12 min @ 350 or until lightly brown. Do not over bake.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

A day on the farm 11.23.09

With the snow this morning and it looking like it was going to stay, my husband finally conceded that "Fall work" was officially over and he could unhook the tile plow from the tractor and move the equipment into the storage shed for winter. Before the snow falls, there are always outdoor projects that can be done, weather permitting. Just last week brother in law, Jay was putting in some tile lines in one of the fields close to our house. The tile lines help channel water in soggy ground areas that show up in the Spring to dry out so it can be seeded with a crop. Regular field maintenance is a never ending process and because of diligent tending it helps the farmer in the end. Sort of like keeping up on the maintenance with a vehicle or home, not the most exciting, but necessary.

With Joe and Jay officially out of the fields, they focus their time in the farm shop. Days are spent fixing, repairing, or doing maintenance on the equipment. The winter time months are a more relaxed work mode after a busy Spring, Summer and Fall schedule. A welcome time to work just a 40 hour work week as we do not have livestock to tend. Winter on the farm also means this is a time for farm related meetings. Joe was recently elected onto the Idaho Grain Growers Association (IGPA) board and many of meetings are geared to the winter months. Last month was a joint meeting between IGPA and the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) held in Salt Lake City.

As for me, I've been working almost every spare moment on a "project house". Some farm land that is across from our home, and in which we have farmed over 27 years, came up for sale and it contained a house. We purchased it on 10/27/09 and almost all of my waking hours since then have been focused on fixing the house up. While Joe admittedly does not like household fixing up projects, I relish them. So this was truly a bucket list dream come true. It was a perfect house for me to work on - it's newer (built in the 1950's), sturdy and well built, but it had lacked good maintenance & upkeep for several years. My goal is to fix it up as soon as possible to get it on the market to sell. Home Depot, Moscow Building Supply and Columbia Paint Store have been my favorite haunts now. I comb the isles, talk to the clerks and am learning how to fix drywall as well as what paints to use and in what rooms. I have an arsenal of tools that I use and have been enjoying the freedom to be a little creative and put a little zest into fixing the place up. It has become addictive to say the least. All of my time spent watching HGTV on fixing up houses for resale have been hours well spent. I am on a first name basis with Grant at the paint store and several gallons of paint later; the house is evolving out of dull, dreary and ugly to fashionable and contemporary (hopefully the prospective buyers will think so too!)

I've spent so much time at my project house, that I think my husband bought me a new laptop computer to try to lure me to stay home a little bit more. =) He commented that I had not blogged in a while. So thought I'd post what I was doing. I've been taking before and after shots. So stay tuned!

On the recipe side- while attending the Salt Lake City meetings with Joe last month, I did score a really yummy pumpkin dip. It was a catered dinner at one of the director's homes and the caterer gave me the recipe. The pumpkin dip was served in a hollowed out pumpkin and served with apple slices. I literally could not stay out of it. So try this for your Thanksgiving gathering.

Pumpkin Dip

15 oz canned pumpkin

2 cups powdered sugar

8 oz softened cream cheese

½ tsp cinnamon

Beat cream cheese till creamy, add in pumpkin, pwd sugar and cinnamon. Mix well and serve with apple slices.

Enjoy!

P.S. thanks to all who read this, and please feel free to comment on what you like or ways to make this blog better. G

Cooking on the Farm

In case you missed the movie Julia and Julie, it was made into a movie about the blogger preparing all of the recipes in Julia Child's cook book. I am not a gourmet cook, just one that likes easy and comfort kinds of food, without lots of fussing. I recently received permission from the Pea & Lentil Commission to publish recipes from their cookbook so long as I gave them the proper credit.

So a couple of weeks ago, it was a cold Fall day and I wanted a hearty soup that I could throw together and cook in a crock pot. The recipe I used from the Pea & Lentil Cookbook was not intended for the crock pot, but it worked out very well, so I'll list the recipe as it was written, but I'll note the changes that I made.

Zippy Bean Soup
1 scant cup of dry lentils, rinsed
2 cups water
(1) 16 oz can diced tomatoes, with juice
(1) 15 oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), undrained
(1) 16 oz can kidney beans, undrained
1 teas chili powder
1 cup salsa

In a large saucepan, combine lentils and water, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until lentils are tender (about 30 minutes).

Add remaining ingredients to lentils, and bring to boil. Then reduce heat and simmer for 3-5 minutes to blend flavors.

Gayle's version: I added 2 link Italian sausages (sliced) to the above ingredients. I added in all the ingredients into a crock pot and cooked them on low for 7 or 8 hours. Prep took about 5 minutes to throw everything into the crock pot and it was very tasty.

Legume update: Did you know that 1/2 cup of cooked peas or lentils provides 8 grams of fiber? Vegetables average 5 grams, whole grains average 3 grams. Eating foods that contain dietary fiber and are low in fat may reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers.

Good Steward in Farming and Life Part 2

As mentioned in the Good Steward Part 1 blog, our interactions with others are important. I think for too long producers just went about their work and assumed people understood what we were doing and why. But that is not the case, as those of us in the Ag industry are realizing that mainstream America may truly not know where their food comes from nor why farmers/ranchers do the things that we need to do on our farms and ranches. It's a serious wake-up call for us when we find ourselves having to conform or work through adverse policies and regulations imposed upon us by those in power who may not understand what the outcomes will be. Do we need to remind the EPA and special environmental interest groups that farmers feed the world?

Personally, I think education and reaching out to others is up to us in order to begin bridging gaps that have been created. It may not be perfect, but it is a start. We also need to begin being approachable and telling "our story" as we are the ones who live it. At a recent conference we were told "if farmers don't tell their own story, it will get written for us, and it may be unfavorable".

Yes it takes time out of our operation and lives to volunteer in organizations, attend meetings or participate in worthy functions, but it is the right thing to do and it helps others.


For example, earlier in October my sister-in-law, Lisa and I were co-hosts for the Pink Tea. This is a community fundraising event for breast cancer awareness & treatment. All proceeds go to our local hospital wherein an account is set up to pay for mammograms for women who could not afford to have one. Over 500 women participate in the great event. Each hostess is in charge of table decorations and this year Lisa was in charge and we were the "Farm Goddesses"! Note the "pink" wheat bouquet as well as the pink John Deere hats that we were wearing. Pictures will be uploaded soon!

Good Stewards in Farming & Life Part 1

Yea it rained and more is expected, this is good. Fall rains are needed to get the winter crops that have recently been seeded to begin their germination process. We, as with most farmers, do crop rotation on our fields to manage weeds and diseases. If one kind of crop is planted year after year in the same field, plant diseases will thrive and thus reduce the yields for the farmer. So by rotating crops, we can effectively kill the diseases. Also by rotating crops, we can use different kinds of crop treatments to control the weeds as some are geared to kill broad leaf plants, while some are geared to kill a grass type plant. Typically, the rotation is winter wheat (planted in October), then the next year that same field would be seeded (in late March/April/early May) with a Spring wheat, then the 3rd year it would be seeded in the Spring with a legume, usually garbanzo beans.


My husband, Joe, and brother-in-law Jay finished seeding wheat and mustard at the Tammany farm and winter wheat at the Genesee farm. There is still some field work left on the fields that will be seeded next March/April. This is the tractor and seeding drill that was used. This particular tractor has a special GPS unit mounted wherein it helps the driver to know where he has been in the field so we don't overlap seed and fertilizer. Not only is this a cost saving measure, but a time saving one too. The unit also helps with ratios of fertilizer to put in the ground based upon the soil composition.

This GPS unit was purchased as a matching funds federal grant as it was a costly item, but one we felt was worth the cost and effort to try for the grant. We feel we can be better farmers by utilizing state-of-the-art technology. The grant requires a quarterly report on it's usage and part of the requirement was community education. Joe has made presentations to other farm related groups as well as to our visitors when we did our Dinner on the Farm series in September.


Even when we are not hosting farm dinners, we feel we are ambassadors for the Ag industry in the everyday things that we do, the organizations we belong to and our interactions with others.

More to come on the Good Steward subject, so stay tuned!

Life on the farm - 10.12.09

Joe and brother-in-law Jay are still down seeding winter wheat at the Tammany farm. They are hoping to be done in the next day or two and then will get the equipment moved up here to begin the seeding process on our Genesee farm. Once all the seeding is complete, life slows down for us and our guys will then only work a 40 hour work week instead of the 100 (or more) hour week. We don't have livestock, so the winter months provide a little bit of respite before the busy spring work cycle.


For me, it seems like life is always busy. Most of it is self-imposed tho! My daughter, Jen and I were vendors at the Red Barn Fall Festival this past week-end and it was lots of fun & lots of work too. We call ourselves S-Wheatie-Pie and we also have a blog that both of us will try to keep up (what did I say about self-imposed busyness! ) From our booth, I would people watch and it just reconfirmed that people take pleasure getting out and enjoying the farm scene. I saw moms, dads and kids picking out pumpkins, going on a hay ride and just enjoying a day in the country. The weather was sunny, but quite cold with temps in the mid-40's, so you know they really wanted to be there and brave the chilly weather. It was a perfect "Amerciana" kind of event.

After a successful day on Saturday of selling our treasures, I got the bright idea that I should make up some Pumpkin Butterscotch baking mixes to sell. So I found my old beat up cook book with the sticky pages and globs of goo on it and made up 12 dry mixes and then one batch to give out samples . The recipe is as follows:

Pumpkin Butterscotch Bread

1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cooking oil
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup pumpkin
1/3 c water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup butterscotch chips (you can either add into the batter or sprinkle on top once the batter is in the pan - either way is yummy). I personally like to sprinkle the chips and 1/2 cup of walnuts on top

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl and turn batter into a greased and floured 8 x 8 pan. Bake @ 350 for 1 hour or until done.

Life on the farm - 10.06.09

The skies are warm and sunny and we didn't get the rain we were really hoping for from last week's storms. The ground at the Genesee farm is concrete hard and it makes seeding difficult, not to mention the added wear and tear on the equipment. My husband Joe and his brother, Jay decided to try seeding at the Tammany farm, which is about 37 miles away. The soil in the Tammany area doesn't have the clay and we need to start getting the winter wheat seed in the ground. Weather forcast for next week is rain, rain and more rain. Yea, hope the weatherman is right.