Eh, What's Up Doc? Carrots!

Today I pulled up the rest of the carrots from my garden.  Throughout the summer I pulled up carrots whenever I needed some, but I always like to keep the bulk of the harvest until after we have had a couple frosts.   The carrots seem sweeter that way.  But by doing so, I run the risk of split carrots, buggy carrots, and oversize carrots.   Today I found quite a few oversize ones, but they are good for carrot cake!   Carrot cake is my husband Harold's favorite dessert and he says I could grow carrots just for that purpose only (not for dinner he says).  In spite of his supposed 'hatred' of carrots, he eats them anyway. 
     I will save some carrots for cake, some for the freezer, and plenty to eat fresh.  Here is my favorite carrot cake recipe, and some photos of today's harvest.  I have one picture of a "space alien carrot" - that's what happens when you aren't diligent about thinning carrots.  I admit to failure on that dreaded job!  It was a beautiful fall morning for this carrot harvest - the birds were singing, the geese were honking, and grasshoppers were very unhappy that I was disturbing them!

A row of freshly dug beauties

After topping, and washing with the garden hose, they are all ready for the kitchen.

You always get a couple splits and "space aliens"

Here's my favorite carrot cake recipe:

                    CARROT CAKE WITH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 c. shredded carrots
1 c. chopped nuts
Grease and flour the bottom and sides of a 13 x 9 x 2 pan.  Mix sugar, oil and eggs in a large bowl until blended well (I beat with a wooden spoon by hand).  Stir in remaining ingredients except carrots and nuts.   Mix well for another minute.   Then stir in carrots and nuts.  Bake in a 350 oven for 40 to 45 min.  When cool frost with cream cheese frosting:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened (I use Lite)
1/2 stick of butter
2 tsp. milk (might need more)
1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 c. powdered sugar
Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla in a bowl with mixer until smooth.  Gradually beat in powdered sugar and then beat on high until fluffy and the consistency you like.   You might have to add a little more milk.  Spread generously on cake, and if you have leftover icing keep it in the 'fridge to spread on graham crackers!

Extracting Honey

Finally we are doing our 2013 honey extraction!  This is what we are all about here on Honey B Farm.  We have been so busy the last couple weeks, it's been hard to find time to get the supers off the hives, and get our honey done for the year.  The last two evenings we have extracted honey, and we have done about 90 pounds so far.  We expect to get somewhere around 250 lbs this year - not a real good year as the summer was very dry and hot and the wildflowers were not as abundant as they usually are.  Last year we got about 300 lbs.  We should fill up about 6 buckets full of honey.   This year's honey has a very strong clover taste and a little darker than last year.   All the various clovers were about the only plants blooming during the hot dry summer.  But it is good tasting honey and we are pleased with it!
     For the next week or so, my kitchen will be a sticky, messy place to be.  We have the honey supers stacked up on the kitchen table, and equipment scattered all over.   We do a little bit each day and should have it all extracted by the end of the week.  A radial extractor is used that will accommodate 18 frames, and they are spun out by centrifugal force.  We accumulate a lot of wax/honey combination, and that is filtered again, and that honey is what I use in cooking (I put honey in all my breads and also many cookies).  The wax is then melted into a large block and used for candle making.  When we're all done with extracting, we take the hive boxes and extractor outside and let the bees clean up the residue.  Then everything is washed and cleaned and put away until next year.  Here are some pictures to help explain the extraction process.

The honey supers are stacked on the kitchen table.

Harold uses a hot knife to cut off the wax cappings (the bees seal up the honey with wax)

A close-up of the capped honey.  When the wax is removed, the honey is in the frame.

The frames of honey are placed in the radial extractor

The honey is filtered through a 600 micron mesh filter into a honey bucket

Harold turns the crank on the radial extractor (while my Mom looks on).  Two honey buckets are almost filled.

A container full of wax cappings and plenty of honey still left in the wax before refiltering

Another dose of "cute"

I often post pictures of my farm cats not only because they are cute, but also because people always ask how some of the kitties are doing.   I tried to get photos of the new little 4 week old kittens, but they wouldn't cooperate very well.   It's so hard to take pictures of cats - they have a mind of their own!  But I did manage to take some photos of many of the farm cats, including the new kittens.  So - all you cat lovers out there - here's some more cute for you!  Most of the day the cats are out and about all over our 100 acres (some spend days out there).  But at feeding time most of the cats come home for chow.

Two of the 4 wk old kittens, left is Keemo and rt is Susie Q

The other two 4 wk old kittens, left is Tiger and rt is Snowflake

Here's most of the farm crew

Little Tiger tries to eat with the 'big boys'

Remember Rosemary from this spring?  All grown up now!

Here's Scruffy - about 12 weeks old

Domino and Catnip are stalking something interesting in the weeds

Snowflake isn't quite sure what to do with cat food just now

Making Our Favorite Snack

One of our favorite things to snack on is dried apple slices.  Harold and I found out about these when a lady at our square dance club always brought containers of these to dances.  It's a good low-fat, low-calorie snack, and we like to munch on these in the winter when we play cards or Scrabble.  We also like popcorn, too, and we grow that ourselves in the garden.  Just about any firm tart apple will dry well.  Red Delicious apples don't do well, however.   At least we don't care for them.   This year we dried apples from our tree, Prairie Magic apples, and some from a fellow beekeeper's tree (not sure what kind they are), and also apples we got from an old farmstead that nobody wanted (probably Haralsons).
     I slice the apples in about 1/8 inch thickness, and swirl them around in a little lemon juice in a bowl (so the slices don't turn dark), then arrange them on the drying trays that came with my Nesco dehydrator.  I can do 10 trays at a time, and end up with 3 ziplock bags of apples.   I store the bags in the freezer to keep crisp.  We will be drying apples for several evenings so I can end up with about 10 baggies of dried apples.   The apples must be dried for about 10-12 hours on 135 degrees setting on my dehydrator, so I usually do these in the evening and let the dehydrator run all night long and take them out first thing in the morning.  The dried slices turn out a little tart, a little sweet, and crunchy.  The more you chew on them, the more "apple-y" they taste!

A tray of apples ready for drying

The slices are arranged for maximum air drying

Ten trays stacked up and plugged in overnight.

Three trays of dried slices ready to bag up.

A finished bag full of dried slices ready for storing in the freezer

Corn Harvest Day

Today we harvested our corn for the year, and prepared it for the freezer.  Mom and I and Harold shucked "over 100" ears, and put 14 quart bags of corn in the freezer.   Everyone enjoyed corn today, even the cats!  They love eating raw corn ears - forget Fancy Feast cat food!  And the horses enjoyed the soft green husks - their favorite treat! 

We husked several wagon loads of Golden Bantam corn.

Corn fed Minnesota farm cats.

More cats enjoying the corn.

Our Belgian horses Dick and Dan with their favorite corn treat!

 

The ears are ready to prepare for the freezer.

 

 

Making Sauerkraut

Today we made up a crock full of cabbage for sauerkraut.   Several weeks ago, Harold bought a cabbage cutter at a yard sale, so this year we tried it out.  I usually have to use a smaller mandolin slicer (which takes all day long!).  Today we did everything start to finish in about 3 hours.  I grow Danish Ballhead cabbge for kraut making as it is a sturdy winter cabbage variety made for this purpose, and it holds up well to fermentation.  We put about  35 pounds of shredded cabbage in the crock, which should yield about 14-17 quarts of good sauerkraut!  After the cabbage is in the crock, it takes about 3 to 4 weeks to ferment - depending on the temperature of my basement.  Could take longer if we get cold weather.  If it stays warm, it might be quick.   I check it every 5 days.   When it's ready to be canned, I heat up the kraut to near boiling and put it into hot sterilized jars, and process them in the water bath canner.
      For every 5 pounds of cabbage you use 3 T. of canning salt, mix it up until it gets juicy, and then pack into a crock tightly.   I cover the kraut in the crock with cheesecloth, then use a double thick plastic bag of water on top for weight, which also seals everything up nicely.   As the kraut ferments, I might need to ladle off some excess water.   Here are photos of what we did today.

A couple of the Danish Ballhead cabbages.   They weigh about 8 to 12 lbs each and we cut up 5 of them. 

The cabbages are cut into quarters or eighths.

Harold runs the cutter while his sister Becky looks on. 

My Mom also tries her hand at the cutter. 

Salt is added to the shredded cabbage and it sits until it's juicy. 

The juicy cabbage is packed into the crock. 

The crock is fully packed, and weighted with a bag of water.  In about a month or less we will have kraut!