Life at the Farm Under Covid-19

Hello dear friends, I hope everyone is keeping safe and well wherever you are!  The days are blurring together here at the farm.  Is this week 4 or is it week 5 of stay at home?  I cant remember!  My husband still goes to work every day as he is considered to be an essential service and I am working from home 4 days per week and only going to the city on Fridays.  We are doing a very good job of social distancing and only go out for groceries.

Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day.  The farm and nature seem to go on as usual.  For a break I went for a little walk outside.

I have discovered that borage continues to pop up everywhere.  Borage is a bee friendly plant so I have not been ruthless about controlling it.  This may be the year I investigate its' herbal properties.

Abby is still very puppy-like.  Her world revolves around playing, eating, playing, sleeping and then playing.  I am going to build a flagstone path through this garden as she and her sisters and turned it into a racetrack.  A proper pathway with strategically situated obstacles may help protect the plants that are otherwise being pulverized!

Such a pretty girl.  I take Abby with me at night when I gather the sheep.  She is (mostly) obedient but not very focused and the sheep seem to have learned to ignore her.  Of course we attribute this to her puppy behaviour and not any failings on the part of the farmers that are supposed to be teaching her!

This is a delightful miniature daffodil.  I used to have lots of them.  I wonder where they went?

A collection of snail shells.

Pulmonaria is one of my favourite spring flowers and the foliage is pretty at any time of the year.

On occasion the chickens make a run for it!  At this time of year they start doing quite a bit of damage in the gardens.  I have been adding lots of weeds and leaves to their chicken run to keep them distracted and so far my trick is working.

It seems that baking bread has become a very popular activity while we are under orders to stay at home.  It is almost impossible to find flour or yeast in the shops.  As I love to bake I had a good collection of different flours and a large supply of yeast but now I am starting to run low.  We are assured that there is no shortage of products and that the supply chain just needs time to catch up to the unexpected demand.

Our little barn bird feeder is a busy place.  I never have my camera when we have the most interesting activity.  We keep the feeders topped up and as a result we have chickadees, junkos, tons of sparrows, cardinals and squirrels.  This year we have had a lot of red winged blackbirds which only recently seem to have returned to our farm.

Our muscovy ducks are wondering outside of the barn following the sheep.  We still have a momma duck sitting on a nest of eggs.  This weekend we will need to move her as none of her eggs hatched.

The sheep are scattered everywhere.  I don't know what these lambs were expecting from me as they all came running towards me when I was taking their picture.

This little lamb is just a day old.  The green paint on the lamb and momma help us identify which lamb belongs to which ewe.   We use a special marking paint which does not permanently discolour the wool.

Last year we made a little fire pit using a piece of concrete casing from a well.  A couple of Adirondack chairs and a collection of fallen branches for a fire make for a great place to have a glass of wine on the weekends.  This past weekend we were burning some branches from an old apple tree.  

Lucy is now 10 years old and is still in good health for which we are very thankful.  She and her fur-sister Abby are quite attached to each other and great playmates.

The peonies are all coming up.  We are trying a new experiment with wire cages, partly to provide them with support as they grow and partly to stop Abby from running over them.

A red winged blackbird at one of the bird baths.

This year I am really noticing a huge increase in the number of allium I have.  This is one of my favourite spring flowers and they are great for naturalizing.

Nothing says spring cheer like daffodils.

We are huge composters at the farm.  We compost almost everything.  This cage composter is made with chicken wire and heavy plastic tubing.  I use it in the fall to add leaves and then I top it up in the spring with weeds.  We have a second set of composters elsewhere that are wooden frames with removable fronts.  When we constructed this composter we didnt think that far ahead so I am not sure how I am going to empty it.  :)

Our maples are all budding out.

Sometimes bulbs end up in the lawn.  Here is some muscari.

I have allowed sweet cicely to take over the universe by not deadheading the blooms and am now paying the price!  It is a very pretty plant but is now becoming a nuisance.

These are very difficult times and I am thankful that none of our friends or family have contracted the virus.  We feel very fortunate to live in the country and believe that this is the safest place to be.  The farm keeps us grounded and provides me with much needed peace and tranquility to help balance the stress of this crazy time.

I hope everyone keeps well and thank you for visiting my blog!

Sourdough Madness!

Hello dear friends,

 For some time I have been thinking about trying my hand at making sourdough bread.  I studied the King Arthur Flour website and Pinterest but to be honest the process seemed complicated and labour intensive.  I read that keeping a sourdough starter is a bit like keeping a pet as it needs frequent feedings.  I also learned that many people actually name their sourdough starter.

As with so many people I am now working from home so I thought I would try making my own starter.  Below is a photo of "Sally"! I have learned however that our old stone house is too cold to create a sourdough starter.  I have also learned that it takes a lot of flour to make the starter and get it to the point where it is possible to bake bread with it.  After a week of feeding the starter, not seeing any activity, fretting over how much flour I was using and then feeling that the sourdough "discard" was taking over the farm I am finally seeing the beginnings of success!

Our secret was to use a seed starting heating mat, place the starter on a metal rack on top of the mat and then covering it with a box.  It is quite a lot of work but rather than dwell on the labour part I thought I would share with you some of the results!

The sourdough starter begins with one cup of whole wheat flour mixed with one half cup of water.  Mix it thoroughly and place it in a jar while waiting for magic to happen.  Or in our case, to not happen.  😓  Every day the starter must be "fed" by removing all but one half cup of the mix and "feeding" it with one cup of unbleached all purpose flour and one half cup water.  This process is repeated for several days.  As you can imagine this uses a lot of flour and although I have a supply of flours at home as I love to bake it is currently in very short supply at the shops.  

The portion of starter that is removed each day is referred to as "discard".  There are many recipes available on line to use up sourdough discard so it doesnt need to go to waste.  The first recipe I tried was sourdough pizza crust.  I learned that sourdough pizza is well suited to strongly flavoured toppings.  So we tried pizza with Asiago cheese, spinach and spicy Italian sausage.  It was delicious!  The photo doesn't do it justice.

Each new feeding creates more discard.  Next up was a recipe for rustic sourdough pasta.  It was really very simple calling for a mixture of starter, flour and eggs.  I rolled it out as thinly as possible, used a pizza cutter to cut it into little strips and boiled it for a few minutes.  It was scrumptious with a chewy texture.  I prepared it with a bottle of store bought pasta sauce, leftover Italian sausage and spinach from the pizza, and the rest of the Asiago cheese.  We loved it!

I see why professional food photographers use plain white china.  This is my old set of Villeroy & Boch kitchenware.  The pattern is no longer available but I love it.  It does distract a bit from the beauty of the dish though.  :)  

I forgot to mention sourdough discard waffles!  Scrumptious served with butter and maple syrup.

Finally yesterday I was able to bake some bread.  As with everything I am sure that practice will make the process perfect.  I baked 2 boules and while they were quite acceptable I think that my efforts will need some improvement.  The bread was quite heavy and the crust didnt "shatter" which seems to be one of the characteristics of a great sourdough loaf.  

I also tried a sourdough sandwich loaf.  It looks great!  We will try this today when I make turkey sandwiches.

After two weeks of trial and error (and lots and lots of flour) I now have a starter that is bubbly and has been rising.  It will need regular feedings if I want to bake lots of bread or it can be stored in the refrigerator and feed weekly.

I was astonished to find daily articles about the number of people that are baking sourdough breads while staying at home. Baking has enjoyed quite a resurgence! Perhaps in part because the supply of so many items at the grocery store is unpredictable.  I have only just seen toilet paper at the shop in town! But we have all experienced the anxiety of seeing entire shelved devoid of products.  Many of us have noted that it is difficult to purchase flour and other related items that are used in baking.  I do find baking relaxing and there is a certain feeling of security in being able to create something from scratch.

Dear friends, I hope that you enjoyed this little sourdough journey.  I am looking forward to baking a few times a week and creating new foods for us to try.  I hope that you are all staying safe at home and that you and those you love are all healthy and well.