horses

Weekend Update – Yarn Store

September 16, 2017 — 2 Comments

Hello all,

Just another weekend update from Mountain Hollow Farm over in Tazewell, Tennessee.

This week I spent hours and hours shovelling shit. It was good.

And I finished burning that wood pile…see before and after…(Notice the giant pile of sticks and logs behind the burning pile of wood),

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…and now its pretty close to all gone. See?

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I also spent many hours shelling beans, picked from the LMU Garden Club in Harrogate, the next town over.

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…and made soup beans, nutritious and delicious (click here for recipe)

A note about beans, which I learned from a sort-of strange homesteader girl with a wonky eye: most commercially grown beans (think-canned beans) are artificially ripened by spraying Roundup (or something like that) on the crop, which ultimately kills the plants, but has the benefit of encouraging the plant to make a last-ditch effort at spreading its seed, i.e. ripening the beans. So, the chemicals make the crop ripen all at once, which makes it easier to harvest, since everything ripens at the same time (cost-effective). But, mo’ money, mo’ problems, I say, since the soils and groundwater become contaminated and ain’t no fixin’ that down the line without a pretty penny for clean-up.

Beans grown without chemical additives ripen more slowly, making it more complicated and time-intensive to harvest (more expensive), but I say the trade-offs for human and environmental health much outweigh the extra cost of organically grown beans. Buy organic.

Phew, getting off my soap box meow…

What else, well, the horse started engaging with me more than just eating the hay I bring to her on a daily basis. Its happened two times, where I fake run and then she actually runs and kicks her back legs up…and farts a little bit as she runs off. Its hilarious and I try not to be embarrassed for her since farting is natural.

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Also, here is a cute picture of Fiona, an exceptionally friendly 6 month old Cashmere goat, eating watermelon.

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That’s all for now folks, sorry I forgot to write about the Yarn Store. More on that later. That, and Poke Berry natural dye.

Thanks for reading!

xo

Kelly

 

 

 

Sunday Funday, WWOOF Update

September 4, 2017 — Leave a comment

Hello Readers,

Happy Sunday. We’ve all survived another week. Woo hoo.

Today at Mountain Hollow Farm it was a cheese and goulash making sort of day.

It was a free day, and my farm host Beth and I had been talking about making cheese all week, so we started off by making cheese, Paneer cheese, a soft, simple-to-make kind of cheese.

Here’s the recipe we used

Panir Cheese

  • 1 gallon milk (we used goat milk, of course, fresh, unpasturized, unhomogonized)
  • 2 tsp citric acid (or 8tblsp lemon juice) dissolved in 3/4 cups water
  • cheese salt to taste
  • dried herbs de Provence to taste (1.5 teaspoons)

yeilds – A giant ball of delicious softish/stickyish/melt in your mouth mushyish farmers cheese. Will keep about 10 days in fridge if it lasts that long

Process

  1. Heat 1 gallon milk in big pot until it comes to a rolling boil, stirring to prevent burning
    • Note: a rolling boil means you cant stir away the boiling bubbles
    • Note: make sure the pot you’re using is the kind of metal that wont react adversely with the citric acid (cant remember which kind of metal that is, aluminum?)
  2. Once rolling boil is established, turn down heat to LOW and add the citric acid mixture before all the foam dissappears, stir for 15 seconds and then REMOVE from heat
    • Don’t get freaked out by the color change, that is the cheese separating from the whey, which you can feed to your dogs or use in cooking to make biscuits
  3. Gently stir the couldron, so the cheese curds bunch together
  4. wait 10 minutes
  5. ladel out the curds into a cheese cloth, do this over a colander so the whey can continue to drain. catch the whey if you want to use it for something else. apparently its nutritious.  If you cant scoop all the curds out, pour the rest over the cheese cloth,
    • Note: try not to pour the hot liquid over the cheese you already scooped out because you dont want to have it melt through the cloth…leaving you with less cheese to eat
  6. wring out the cheese
  7. add salt and herbs to taste
  8. let hang for an hour or so, or press to make hard cheese, or just eat it like that. Voilá, delicious!

**I miss you Snickers!**

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***

Also,

Goulash was also quite tasty, here’s that recipe:

…meh, I don’t feel like writing it, but follow this link for the delicious recipe. We used more carrots and some turnips and next time I would add some red wine to the broth. We had no caraway seeds but used marjoram and it was fine. YUM.

Ok, if you’re still reading, thank you, here are some other farm updates:

Things I’ve learned/observed:

  • Llamas have very small testicles compared to goats
  • A horses eyelid can get cut and make it look like the horses eye has fallen out of its socket. Then it can be stitched up, and look like new in just a few short weeks
  • Horses and goats eat a lot of hay and drink a lot of water
  • Giant dogs who chase cars can get hit by those cars, hurt their paw, and still chase more cars
  • Giant dogs are difficult to wash and it is difficult to communicate their largeness in photo
Franz

This was at a dog-washing station at a car wash

 

  • Ladies who knit make for lovely company

 

More to come.

 

All good things,

Kelly