Smokin'!!

Saturday evening, our neighbor, Frank, stopped by with two  big buckets of  fish  for us. The suckers were running and he had taken his grandson fishing but couldn't use all the fish.

Well, we didn't want them to go to waste!  Frank suggested pickling them because suckers have a lot of tiny bones, but both of us prefer smoked fish, so we decided to try that.

It is possible to smoke fish on a barbecue grill, but Rog had another idea.  On our farm is a huge cylindrical burner.  Probably it was oringinally intended for burning trash, but we have only ever used it to burn burdock and thistles. We always thought it would make a great smokehouse someday.  Rog power-washed it out and devised a plan.

But first we had to deal with the fish that night.    While I made supper, Rog cleaned the suckers. Twenty two of them. He took a break halfway through to eat supper and then finished cleaning and filleting them by the light of his headlamp.

The next step was to brine the fish.  We found lots of instructions on the Internet, but Rog adapted a recipe into his own concoction:

3  qt water
1 1/2 cup pickling salt
1 1/2 c. sugar
3/4 cup spiced rum
1/4 cup lemon juice
9 cloves garlic
1 tsp lemon pepper
9 bay leaves
The fish went into the brine in a big pot and were refrigerated overnight.

This morning Rog transformed the  burner into a smokehouse.  We happened to have a bunch of  fire bricks purchased from Craigslist last year, intended for our future brick oven. Rog lined the inside walls of the burner with the bricks, creating a ledge for the shelves to rest upon.

A couple years ago, Cadence and I purchased a bunch of large stainless steel metal shelves at a restaurant auction for $5 (we had to  buy the shelves to get the cutting board Cadence wanted.)  Rog cut the rectangular shelves down into circular shapes to fit inside the smoker.

 Rog and his finished smokehouse invention.

Next, he built a fire at the bottom. A layer of  fire bricks on the bottom shelf insulates the fish from direct heat.  The smoke travels up the front and the back of the smoker, permeating the shelves of meat, and out the tall chimney pipe on top of the burner.

Rog says he seems to have a knack for making smoky fires, so maybe smoking meats will be his thing.

The fish, removed from the brine and dried off, ready for the smoker.

Nearly done,  a couple hours later!

The smoked suckers are so delicious!

Tonight we feasted on a salad made with garden spinach, carrots and scallions,  tomatoes (not from the garden), mushrooms, and roasted almonds, topped with the smoked fish (bones carefully removed) and drizzled with homemade honey-mustard dressing. Absolutely wonderful!

Now my clever husband can hardly wait to smoke a turkey in his new culinary device.

A New Roof Over Our Heads

Other than the barn and loafing shed, which have metal roofs, all of our farm buildings have been due for new roofs since we bought the place.   Roofs are this year's big improvement.

We got a couple of quotes and settled on these guys, Ronningen Roofing. They have a full slate of jobs scheduled for the spring, but were able to do our house and garage  last week before they started on their other jobs, thanks to the crazy, unseasonably warm weather.
The crew arrived at sunrise, some of them wearing shorts (on March 15th in Minnesota!), and got to work tearing off the old roof.

By 9:00 a.m. it was so warm they started shedding their shirts.   First sunburns of the season.

The shingles arrived

and were lifted up to the roof.

Because the truck had to park a distance away from the house, some of the  pallet had to be unloaded by hand to lighten the load before it could reach far enough onto the roof to be set down.

Many roofers make light work.

When I returned home from lunch with a friend, the roof was already nearly covered with new shingles.

Installing the ridge vent.

Our roof is pretty steep and high, but these guys are as surefooted as mountain goats! Pretty soon I even forgot to worry about them.  Later they told me they found a number of wasp nests up there, which they kindly removed. It had never occurred to me about that particular hazard of the job--wouldn't want to make a nest of wasps angry when you are atop a roof!

The next day, a few guys finished up details on the house roof and cleaned up the mess, and the rest of the crew tackled the garage.  The shingle delivery guy brought the garage shingles, adeptly maneuvering his  huge truck through a crowd of vehicles and the dumpster.

The  beautiful new roof on the garage!
That's all the roofing we can afford for now - we will do the chicken coop and  farm store/granary in the fall.

Thanks, roofers! Great work!

Wordless Wednesday - Winter Garden Still Growing Strong

Seed Starting!

Feb 29 -Planting begins.
This year, I invested in a couple of seed blockers to start my seeds:   rectangular moulds divided into small compartments that are pressed into the seed-starting mix, then the blocks are ejected into a tray and seeds are planted into them. The smaller seed block create 15 3/4-inch soil blocks. The larger blocker, for larger seeds, creates five 2-inch blocks. Getting the soil blocks was a strategy to reduce costs and  avoid plastic -no pots required.  Also, by using the smallest size blocks, I can start 300 seeds in one tray and fit 2 trays on the heated mat, speeding germination of  600 seeds at once.

I ran into one complication with the blocker. I intended to use Eliot Coleman's recipe for seed starting mix, but it called for "green sand" and I could not find that anywhere. I ended up concocting my own mix, with organic potting soil, seed starting mix, and compost. (approximately 1:2:1), adding water until a handful of soil would hold the shape when squeezed tightly. That mix seems to be working just fine.

The first tray of seed  blocks, planted. The mould forms a little divot  in the top of the block for the seed.The hardest part is placing just one seed in each block (especially with those teensy flower seeds - today I planted  Night-Scented Tobacco and those seeds were like dust specks.)

March 7 - Eight days later! The  tomatoes are  seeking the light, and the slower onions and peppers are just starting to germinate.  At this point I moved the tray from the heated mat to wire metal shelves in my office. I hung 4-foot fluorescent shop lights from the shelving and set the trays under the lights, very close to the lights.

March 13
A second tray of tomatoes was started a day later on March 1st -- this is how they are looking today. Not quite so leggy - I think they appreciated being moved under the lights sooner.

The seed blockers come in graduated sizes, with idea that you can just pop the smaller block into the next size block as the plant grows bigger.  The larger soil blocks get more expensive. I haven't ordered the medium size mould yet, so I decided to create little pots by recycling old paper towel rolls and the corrugated paper tubes the fluorescent bulbs came in.

I labeled each "pot"with the tomato variety, filled it with soil, poked a hole in with my finger and set the  small soil block into it. I will just set the cardboard tube into the ground when I transplant so the roots aren't disturbed. The tube should decompose quickly.

A silver antique butter server turned out to be the perfect tool to lift the mini soil blocks out of the tray. (Please don't tell my mom I used it this way.)

Tomato in a light bulb box pot. The repotting of all these tiny plants is rather labor intensive, Perhaps popping them into the next size soil block would be worth the investment in the bigger mould.

More seeds started that will very soon need potting.  And still more on the heating mat. A lot of  work ahead.
The crazy thing is that I am starting my seeds at the appropriate time to be able to  transplant outside on our traditional frost-safe date, Mothers day, almost two months away.  But we have 80-degree weather right now!!    The weather is just too, too weird  these days.

March Bee News

On a sunny day in January, I was delighted to discover that all three of my beehives were alive and buzzing. I didn't open them up to look inside because it was still very cold. A couple weeks later,  when I knocked on the Langstroth hive it hummed and  a few curious bees came to the door, but when I rapped on the two Warre hives, I got no response.  Heart sinking.

This week, my bee mentor Tom came over and we opened up the Warre hives to see what had happened.  There was no honey left in the combs - the bees had devoured it all and starved.  If you look closely at the  bottom cells in this photo of the comb you can see little bee butts  - many of the bees had gone into the cells headfirst, probably trying to keep warm.

I felt so, so terrible.  Last fall when we harvested the honey, we thought we had left ample honey to get them through the winter, but it has been a strange winter, unusually warm the entire season. Warm winters are harder on bees than cold years because the bees never really go into hibernating mode and being somewhat active,  have to consume more food to keep warm.

Fortunately, my Langstroth bees are still alive and look pretty good.  It is almost the time beekeepers begin feeding bees to encourage them to start raising brood and increase their population for spring, but right now I am mostly concerned that my bees have enough food to get through the last bit of winter.  I diluted some honey with water and filled two pint canning jars. Tiny holes are drilled in the lids and the jars are inverted into wooden supports that allow the bees access to slurp up the honey.

I wore my bee suit for this job.  (I made the mistake last year of  thinking the bees would be sluggish in the cold, but  no, they are just very crabby.)

I also used the smoker to calm the bees. For some reason,  getting the smoker to smoke seems to be one of the biggest challenges of beekeeping for me.

When I removed the lid,  the inner cover was full of bees, most of whom retreated into the hive when I waved the smoke over it. I quickly placed an empty super (box) on top of the hive to create space for the feeders, set the two feeders inside, and replaced the lid before the hive could lose  much heat.

It's supposed to be a warm weekend coming up, so tomorrow I will check to see whether they have  been consuming the honey.

I am very sad to have lost the  two Warre hives, but on the positive side, it will give me a chance to shore up the hive.  The  fellow who built the Warre hives for me used nails to construct the hives and should have used screws. Some of the corners sides have already begun to pull apart. Now I can glue the edges and reinforce the corners with screws. Maybe I will even repaint the  hives in a whimsical design -if I have time.  Two new packages of bees are on order and will arrive in one month!

Wordless Wednesday: March Forth!

A Bit Cold for a Walk? Baaa!!

It's about time we tackle  that New Year's resolution to get in shape!  So, on Saturday, Rog and I bundled up for a long walk, even though it was a brisk day.  Instead of our usual loop along the bike trail, we headed north toward our neighbors' farm.

Walking into the wind was even colder than we expected, and we appreciated warming up inside Don and Betsy's kitchen when we arrived, chatting for a while.  Then we went out to meet the critters.  They raise Texel sheep, a meat breed that is the most popular breed raised in the United Kingdom, although it is not common in the U.S. yet.
This pen contained all the pregnant ewes.  Lambing will begin in May. I hope to get a call when that happens! I may not be much help, but I am eager to learn - and to take photos of  newborn lambs.

These pen held younger sheep,  many with colorful fleece.

"Badger" is a favorite ewe.

This sheep looked like a movie star to me, those long, shapely legs emerging from that wrap of soft, luxurious fur.

These two furry donkeys reside were once wild burros, adopted through the Bureaus of Land Management's Wild Horse and Burro Program with the idea that they would be guard donkeys for the sheep.

The burros turned out to be better pets than guard animals.  (Now they have three big, white great pyrenees dogs to guard the sheep.)

All of Don and Betsy's animals are calm and friendly, which indicates to me how well-loved and cared for they are.

I didn't take photos of the horses, dogs or chickens this visit, but a pair of  geese  bid us farewell as we headed home.  A  few years ago, Don gave us the three goslings that we raised.

We are so lucky to have friendly, farming neighbors within walking distance!  And happily, the walk home seemed much shorter with the wind at our backs.