Freezing Cabbage

Do you ever freeze cabbage?  If not, you should try it!  It is so easy, and handy to have on hand.  When you want to make a pot of vegetable soup or some other soup with cabbage in it, you can take whatever amount you want out of the bag and add it the last 10 minutes or so of the soup cooking.  I try to have about 10 quart bags on hand for winter soup making.  That's enough cabbage for at least 20 pots of soup, or maybe more depending on how many other things you have in the soup.   Summertime cabbage fresh from the garden or the farmer's market is so much better than the stuff you can buy in the stores during the winter.   Here's how to do it:

First cut up cabbage into quarters, then shreds.  If the cabbage is larger, cut the quarters in half to shred.

Throw away the core and any hard or big pieces you don't like.

Blanch the shredded cabbage for 1 1/2 minutes in boiling water in a colander.

Cool the blanched cabbage in ice water for about 15 minutes.

Drain the cabbage well, and put into freezer bags.   Figure on about one pound of shredded cabbage per quart bag.  The cabbage I used here was about a 3 lb cabbage.

This winter, when you make a pot of homemade vegetable soup you'll be glad you have some shredded cabbage to throw in!

My Big Adventure!!

Today I got to go for a ride in my husband's boss's plane!  Poul Sorenson has his own Cessna plane and this spring he got his pilot's license.  Yesterday he took Harold for a ride, and today it was my turn.  I have never been in a small plane like this, and it has been at least 25 years since I have flown in any commercial planes.   So this was a very exciting afternoon for me!   Poul took me over my house so I could get a nice photo of it, and we flew around some of the lakes here and around White Earth.   It was a sunny, but hot day here, and a little warm in the plane, but I really enjoyed the trip!  I would like to go again, but in the fall when the tree colors are pretty.  That would be wonderful to see all the fall colors from that high up!

Here is the plane I rode in.

A view of the inside.

Ready to take off .......then I had to put on safety belt and head set.

One of the many views of farm land around here.

Here is my house, far away and a general view of our 100 acres.

A closer view of the house and yard, and some of our area.  You can see my gardens, and the greenhouse, which looks tiny from 1200 feet up!  The lake in the background is what we call Two Squaw Lake.  Not quite half of it is on our property.

Another beautiful view!

Back on the ground - and I survived!

All in all, this was an afternoon I won't soon forget.  Thank you, Mr. Sorenson for treating Harold and I to some exciting adventure this summer!

Canning Season Begins Again!

Today I am canning peaches.  This is the first canning I have done this year.  I was a little worried that there would be no peaches this year, as the ones I like to buy (Mrs. Smittcamp's canning peaches from Cutler CA, Wawona Packing Co) come from the part of California where I thought they have had drought.  But apparently it didn't bother the peach growers there, as the peaches are just as lovely as ever and the price was the same as it has been for the past 2 years.   I always can up Faye Elberta peaches and they are always consistently good. 

The first canning of the 2015 season!

I've had a couple articles in the past on this blog regarding peaches.  If you are interested, see the link below for instructions on how to can up the peaches.
http://www.honeybfarm.blogspot.com/2014_07_01_archive.html

If you need to remember how to ripen peaches perfectly, see the link below.  I learned this method from a peach grower and it has worked perfectly for me for the past 6 or 7 years.
http://www.honeybfarm.blogspot.com/2013_07_01_archive.html

Hopefully these links will work, otherwise search for these dates of articles in Older Posts.

Messy Little Darlings

Every year we get barn swallows building a nest under the unfinished eaves of the porch.   They are beneficial birds, but they sure are messy!  They try to build nests over all the windows, too, but I always discourage that by hosing down their partly built nests.   I let them go under the eaves, though.   After all, they DO have a purpose - they are marvelous mosquito eaters!  They also do a good job cutting down the fly population.   So I have to let them live with us.  Just not over my dining room window!  Here's a close up of one of the nests and the young:

Three young barn swallows almost ready to leave the nest

Speaking of wildlife, I finally saw the bear that made the prints in our yard.  The other evening we had to burn some bee hive boxes because one of the hives had a very contagious bee disease.   The next morning we saw a huge bear sniffing around the burn pit right in the back yard.   I couldn't grab my camera in time for a photo, and by the time I opened the door, he looked at me and ran off.    There was a little honey left in the ashes, so I guess he was after that.  oh boy, yum, yum!  Ash flavored honey.

It's A Monster!

Here is a photo taken this morning of my cherry tomato plant.  It is 6 feet tall!  Never in my life have I had a cherry tomato plant grow to this size!  Greenhouses are amazing, eh?  It's like a jungle in there.   We have 2 more months of summer, so I am wondering what these tomato plants will look like by the end of August!  We shall see.   The rest of the tomato plants are at least 4 feet tall.   All of the plants have blooms and tomatoes growing, so pretty soon I'll have tomatoes to eat.

Look at this giant cherry tomato plant.  It's a variety called Chadwick Cherry. 

Here is a shot of the other tomatoes right now.

I grow indeterminate tomatoes.   That means they can grow to whatever size they want.  Determinate tomatoes only grow to a certain size and quit.  But since I only grow heirloom or open pollinated tomatoes, most of them are indeterminate types.   I try not to grow hybrid stuff because you cannot save the seeds from them.   Since my goal is to produce a garden for as little as possible cash-wise, I am very much into seed saving.
     So far I'm on my second crop on many things in the greenhouse.   The plants in the regular garden are only just beginning to grow.

Bears in the Driveway

I went to get the mail this afternoon and found fresh bear tracks on our driveway!  Good thing we have the electric fencer on the bees and gardens!

Pretty good size track - about 5 x 7 inches.

Another one

The tracks lead from our woods and down the road and to the foot of the driveway.  Better watch out, Kitty!  There's bears out there!

Meet the New "Farmhands"

I haven't had a dose of 'cute' for a while, so here goes.   This spring three of our female cats each had 3 kittens.   But two of the mamas pawned off their kittens on one mother to feed.   That poor mama cat tried for almost 3 weeks to feed 9 kittens (with 8 teats!).  She finally gave up and hauled the female kittens to another spot and stayed with them, and abandoned the 5 male kittens.  Funny how cats know what sex their offspring is at that age!  Anyway, we hated to see the poor things starve, and I have no time for bottle feeding kittens, so we called the feline rescue organization here which is only about 10 miles away.   They do great work with stray, abandoned, and abused cats.  They have an agreement with another feline rescue group in the Twin Cities and some volunteer veterinarians there, and they house and place cats and offer next-to-nothing cost for spay and neuter.   The lady from the local feline rescue place said these kittens would most likely become indoor cats in the Twin cities area.  

Here are the 4 females that we were left with.  As usual I had a hard time getting photos of the kittens as they would not cooperate and were too wiggly.  But they are extremely friendly and cute!

Harold needs a lesson on how to hold cats!

If they are all sleeping, I can take a picture of them!

I try to help out Mama Cat by feeding the kittens a little milk, but they aren't sure yet whether to play in it or drink it!

This is the runt of the litter and Mama helps this one out a lot.

Well, so much for the new "helpers" here on the farm.  Here's a photo of how things are progressing in the greenhouse:

Look at the size of things now!   The bok choy on the left is almost 3 feet tall!

Another view - the cherry tomato plant in the corner is almost 6 feet tall!

Well Pulling Day

Today, with the help of a couple of neighbors, we pulled the submersible pump on our well and replaced it with a new one.   The old one had been in there for about 28 years, and was getting weak, running way too much and causing high electric bills.   We replaced the 1/2 horse pump with a 1 horse pump, which should run less and be more efficient, and hopefully lower our electric bills considerably. .   I am documenting the procedure here to show what is involved in pulling a well pump, and also for our own benefit for future reference.   By doing the work ourselves, we saved probably close to two thousand dollars.   I guess that's why country boys do their own work - nobody has that kind of cash sitting around.   Old timers like us have learned a lot of practical skills over the years.  It is hard to convince today's youth that practical skills are important, as texting and video games seem more enticing, but if more young men learned a few skills, they could sure save a lot of money.   I asked Harold and the neighbors where they learned to do all this, and they said : "From the school of hard knocks"!

Anyway, in long photo form, here's what we did today!   (In about 4 hours)

First the well head is disconnected.

The first part of the well head is lifted via chain over a wheel.   Neighbor Ronnie lifts, while neighbor Frank pulls on the chain.

The chain is then connected to Harold's tractor/loader.

Harold begins to pull up the submersible pump - 175 feet down.

Ronnie guides the pump cable over the wheel, Frank guides the well head connection, and Harold backs up with the tractor.

Harold keeps backing up.

He backs way out - only another 100 feet to go.

Almost there!  Keep on backing up Harold!

The pump is finally out of the ground!

Harold and Ronnie connect the electrical wires on the cable to the new pump.

Ronnie uses a torch to apply the heat shrink to the connections.

Harold ties on some new black cable with electrical tape.

The new pump is lowered into the well housing, back over the wheel.

Harold walked out and gradually brought the cable in, while Ronnie guided it over the wheel.

A few more electrical connections to make to the fuse box.

Everything back in and connected up.

There is running water coming out of the main spigot!!  Success!

And so, this is how it's done, and how you can save $2,000 doing the job yourself!  All you need is enough skills to connect electric wires properly, some basic tools, neighborly help, (and a good tractor helps), and a working knowledge of how well pumps operate.   Some wells don't have to be this deep, it all depends on the conditions of where you live.   Ours just happens to be about 175 ft deep.   We should be pretty good for another 20-25 years or so.