Stray Arrow Ranch

9 months later

August 26, 2018 · By Ann ·

No, not that. Were it not for the wonders of modern medicinal chemistry, you could already call me a crone. It’s been 9 months since my last post, which I wrote about the time my sister died, I find myself talking in my head to the blog again. I blame this thread on Twitter where I started documenting my daily acts of food preservation. It’s something Carla Emery recommended in the Encyclopedia of Country Living, to plant something every day as soon as the soil could be worked until midsummer, then preserve something everyday until winter.

Keeping up with that thread is busting my butt. I’ve run almost out of zucchini. And I have more to say about every project than fits in 280 characters. And I should own my own content here, not just give it free to @Jack’s profiteering machine for Russian bots and their treasonous handlers. Not that any Russian bots care about homesteading, cider making, or living in a small town at 7000′ on the Utah edge of the Colorado Plateau with too many animal mouths to feed.

I gave away two zucchini today and almost regretted it when I decided that today’s food storage project would be Zucchini Pineapple. And I decided that on a whim, because it sounds just weird enough to be good. We don’t eat a lot of desserts or baked goodies, and I despise zucchini bread, so this is an odd choice, but it’s only zucchini. We’ll probably end up putting it in pancakes or maybe I’ll make a coffee cake with it when it’s cold and blustery. Worst case is that it ends up on ice cream.

Zucchini trimmings for the compost pile.

Peeling the zucchini was the hardest part, and that’s because we grow a ribbed variety called Costata Romanesco, which actually has real flavor. And deep ribs that are hard to peel. I didn’t know that because I’ve never peeled zukes before. Even if the Costata Romanescos get to be larger than baseball bats, they are still tasty, and I’ll grill them. I’ll make zucchini parmesan with them, and I want them at least 3″ in diameter for that project. It’s really good and freezes well, but I can’t make it more than once or twice a year because it makes an awful mess. Mostly I’ve been dehydrating chunks for spaghetti, and in slices for zucchini chip snacks. I only made a half recipe; I may be the only gardener in the county who doesn’t have a surplus of zucchini right now.

And since when did zucchini start giving me a skin reaction? It’s apparently not uncommon for one’s hands to get dry, taut and itchy. Luckily I remembered to bust out some nitrile gloves. Naturally, living with a biologist, we are well-stocked in the sanitation department.

Efficient home canning set-up, not too much to clean up but everything I need to get the job done. Took 7 minutes to fill 5 jars and load them in the canner.

Here’s a photo of my set-up for filling canning jars. Using the baking sheet to catch the spills has been amazingly helpful in the ease of clean-up afterwards. I have mostly shifted over to using the Tattler reusable canning lids, which I sanitize with boiling water. Those magnetic lid lifter doohickeys don’t work with the plastic lids, so I use the tongs to fish them out of the hot water. The canning funnel was recommended by Erica, and it has the different fill markings on the rim. I wish I’d known about it when I first started canning. A ladle, a spoon for adjusting fill level, a wet paper towel to wipe the rims before putting on the lids, and I’m good to go.

One thing I try to do is prep two more jars than the recipe calls for, one in the size intended (pint, quart, etc.) and one a half size smaller. That way I’m ready if the predicted amount is way off, as it often is. This recipe should have made 4-4.5 pints and I got a full 5 pints. So what if I end up with an extra clean jar to put away that I didn’t use?

When canning at this high altitude, my success rate has improved as I have gotten better at rejecting recipes out of hand that just won’t tolerate the additional processing required. Just because they tell you how long to process it doesn’t mean it will be good when it’s done. Our boiling point of water is 199 F (92.8 C) here, so I have to add 15 minutes to whatever time the recipe calls for at sea level. That’s no big deal with tomato sauce, but a cucumber pickle slice is going to turn to mush. If there weren’t so much sugar in this recipe, I probably wouldn’t even have attempted it, but I’m hoping the grated zucchini will still have some texture afterwards. If not, it’s only zucchini.

The canner finished up in the time I was writing all this up, and I remembered a couple other little tricks I’ve adopted over the years. When I take the jars out, I put them on a towel on the baking tray. That way, if I have to move the jars around on the counter before the 24-hour cooling period is over, I can gently slide them across the counter. I’ve even stacked trays when things are really cooking in the kitchen.

I used to print up nice labels for each jar, but they don’t fit so well on the reusable lids. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do until R told me that you can remove the Sharpie ink from plastic (or glass or metal) with hand sanitizer alcohol gel. Mind blown. So now I do my labeling with a fine point Sharpie.

And that’s that: another day’s food harvest safely stored away. I think Carla would be proud.

Homestead Log November 20-26

November 28, 2017 · By Ann ·

Why disassemble it just to put it back together again? (photo by Robert Marc)

Americans have got the concepts of feast and famine all wrong. I’m reading a new-to-me cookbook, European Festival Food by Elisabeth Luard (republished as Seasonal European Dishes but I’ve got the older edition). A major theme is the rhythm of fast and feast, externally dictated by the liturgical calendar, but driven by nature’s immutable cycles. The fast precedes the feast, the labor before the festival. What do we do? We feast like fools from Thanksgiving to New Years Eve, then go on a national diet of contrition, imported celery and “scientific” fads that end in spectacular failure and shame. At least Lent or Ramadan has a defined end point and a celebration to look forward to.

We feasted well at the homestead this year. Turkey breast, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, all raised here. It would have been our green beans, but I took the wrong package out of the freezer and we had Costco asparagus I had frozen when it was in season instead. (The consequence of breaking an important homesteader’s rule: label everything, no matter how sure you are you’ll remember. You won’t.) I made a pie out of a Burgess buttercup squash, the one winter squash that we seem able to grow in quantity. The dark meat of the turkey went into a mole I have been making since 1992, when I found the recipe in a Texas Monthly article on what my first star chef hero Robert del Grande would serve if his family let him cook on Thanksgiving Day.

Husbandry and gardening: It has been ridiculously, unseasonably warm here. If we still had access to the irrigation system, we would water the trees. But we do not. R has been using the time well to put a coat of white paint on the trunks of our trees and to trim back the grasses around their bases. Now that the turkeys are out of the orchard, the dogs are having a wonderful time romping while R works—Wyatt has paint INSIDE his ears.

After Sunday’s harvest, I can report that six geese are a lot quieter than nine; one male is more harmonious in the flock than two.

Food, harvest and preserving: The weather pretty much decided the timing of our turkey harvest, which resulting in seven days of aging on the turkey meat we cooked on Thanksgiving. I think we accidentally hit on something successful, because the flavor and texture were excellent. Our aging method is primitive: put the vacuum-packed meat in a cooler and dump ice on it.

We reloaded the cooler with goose meat, except the gizzards (corned and slow-cooked for 24 hours) and the liver (paté flavored with Calvados instead of brandy). R smoked the wings, which we will use as a substitute for ham hocks while cooking beans this winter. The rest of the meat is a project for the coming week.

I restocked the freezer with cornbread dressing and leftover mole sauce to make some quick meals later this winter. The rest of the holiday leftovers are gone, just about the time I started hankering for anything other than poultry.

Finances: We have two bills that come before all others: the property tax bill and the irrigation company assessment. If you are late on the property taxes, your name gets published in the paper. If you are late on the water assessment, someone else can scoop up your water rights. We set the money aside every year, but I am always anxious until I get the bills paid, for fear I will forget somehow. Disaster averted this week for 2017.

Community: We joined some friends on Friday for an amazing Alaskan crab feast. I was bludgeoned with crab.

Creativity and recreation: It’s a good thing cooking is fun.

Next week: We are closing up our apartment in Salt Lake City next weekend, doing some shopping and seeing friends. There might even be some cocktail attire involved.

Seasonal observations: Winter hawks and migration stragglers show up regularly now. R saw a peregrine checking out the barnyard, I spotted a rough-legged hawk over the orchard. The deer in town are becoming brazen, ambling across the highway in the middle of the day and having out in yards.

A few Christmas trees, strapped to the tops of trucks and SUVs and sporting green Forest Service tree-cutting permits, passed through town over the weekend. So did a truck carrying a fully assembled trampoline with safety netting, held down by some of the most excited looking kids in the world. Santa must have come early, driving a faded white pick-up.

Homestead Log for November 6-12

November 13, 2017 · By Ann ·

My name is Wyatt and when I grow up to be a big McNab cow dog, both of my ears will stand up.

Last week was almost a vacation, except for the part about breaking ice for the birds. We haven’t had rain for over a month and after the three nights of killing freezes in September, it really hasn’t been that cold, until Wednesday when we woke up to 16 deg F and a blown circuit breaker on the turkey and goose deicers’ line.

Luckily, we have an aluminum baseball bat R uses to hit grounders to dogs and threaten raccoons. It broke ice just fine, and then it warmed up, I found the faulty deicer, and fielding practice resumed after we rousted out the sundry winter gloves, mittens and hats.

Husbandry and gardening: The turkeys and three geese and the lone remaining chicken meet their destiny in a few days, but until then they are having a final hurrah, with grain twice a day. Based on the swollen rumens we see every night, the goats are enjoying the extended dry period-fallen cottonwood leaves are goats’ potato chips. I should rake up a bag or two for their winter snacks. But the goats still complain if their grain ration isn’t delivered by the time the shade of the trees reaches their pen in the afternoon.

Wyatt cut a pad on his paw somehow on one of our hikes. I had failed to reload our dog hike bag with blood clotting powder but his wound didn’t stop him from chasing the other dogs (we had some friends’ dogs with us too) and having fun. Getting a bandage on a dog’s paw is non-trivial and I’m really glad we have concrete floors today since there’s a bit of clean-up needed.

Food, harvest and preserving: R brought in the potatoes. We have been ~~arguing~~ debating the merits of leaving them in the ground where they are cool vs getting them out and away from the slugs. He did some forensics and discovered that the slugs are only in the damper part of the beds, so maybe we can compromise next year by making a slug trap away from the potatoes. Anyway, I will clean, trim and dehydrate the damaged ones; even with the loss, we still have a huge cooler full of potatoes that should hold us for quite a while. No significant yield difference was evident between the Kennebecs and Daisy Golds-next year we will plant whichever does better in storage.

The kitchen tempo this week: on fire. I have been making tons of pantry food. I canned 7 quarts of mixed meat stock from duck, goose, pork and turkey bones that needed to come out of the fridge. Once the pressure canner was out, I decided I might as well can some pinto beans as well. Yes, store-bought canned beans are cheap, but these were already paid for, and it’s nice to have them ready to go into soups and casseroles.

Since the ducks are having an egg-laying vacation (about to end as R fixed up a light on a timer this week to reset their biological clocks), I made a half gallon of granola and some yogurt. This was the first time using the Instant Pot for yogurt and all I had was powdered milk and the package of dried starter in the fridge was dated 2012, but why not? It turned out to be some of the best yogurt I’ve ever made, so breakfasts are covered for a while.

Finances: The eating-from-the-pantry campaign is going strong. All I bought on this week’s trip to the grocery was half and half for coffee and some flour tortillas. R picked up a pork loin at Costco to make more Canadian bacon while we have decent weather to run the smoker.

Energy and conservation: Now that it’s been cold, I have been making a fire in the wood stove once a day. If I get it right, one big log will burn cleanly for several hours and that’s all we need until the next day or maybe even 36 hours. We installed the smallest efficient stove, a Pacific Energy Vista Classic (in a gorgeous red) that we could find that worked with our limited clearances, and even so it can put out a lot of heat.This is Wyatt’s first winter and he is far too interested in fire-making.

Other projects: I turned in our final report for our USDA Value-Added Producer Grant! After celebrating that victory for a couple of days, I started working on the details of a marketing plan that uses the analysis we got from our consultants. There’s going to be a lot more on this topic soon!

Community: Other than my regular weekly commitments for the Entrada Institute, I stayed holed up in the bunkhouse. That can’t go on all winter, but it was nice to have some down time.

Creativity and recreation: Three dog hikes in one week. Our friends are traveling and their dogs needed frequent airing out. C&W love playing with other dogs. We have to remember not to say the names of these particular playmates or Carson will start looking for them. These friends live next to some public lands that are perfect for off-leash dog walks and everybody gets a good tiring out. A tired dog is a well-behaved dog.

Next week: Poultry processing, smoking and making holiday plans and menus are next on the list. I was horrified to realize there are only 6 more weeks until Christmas.

Seasonal observations: Snow is in short supply on the mountains. By now they should have been more than a dusting that melted weeks ago. Even so, the cold has pushed the animals into their seasonal movement downwards. The deer are thick in town, grazing on the stubble in hay pastures and hiding in thickets of trees, ready to dash out at unsuspecting drivers. No time of day or night is safe; they are brazen and reckless. A friend saw a mountain lion kill about a quarter mile from our house, a natural result of the human-wildland interface we call home. I hope it moves on, for the sake of our goats and itself.