JHP Homestead’s Journal

[greybeard]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. I do love strawberries!! Your strawberries look much more appetizing than these strawberries:

 

[JHP Homestead]

Those strawberries look tasty. We were going to have some, but DH left them outside overnight before it was warm enough for them
We’ll try again next year...perhaps go to a pick-your-own place this summer

Haha, whoops. I see you’re in Canada. Is it too cold for strawberries to be a perennial up there? Or was it just that the plants weren’t acclimated to the cold?

 

[SA Farm]

Haha, whoops. I see you’re in Canada. Is it too cold for strawberries to be a perennial up there? Or was it just that the plants weren’t acclimated to the cold?

The plants weren’t acclimated to the cold. We don’t have a strawberry patch yet, but once set in they shouldn’t have too much trouble weather-wise

 

[Baymule]

Nice batch of strawberries.

 

[JHP Homestead]

Had a pretty good weekend. Saturday DH trimmed our horse’s feet, then butchered a few rabbits for the dogs. Froze most of it, so the dogs are set for a few weeks now. During this time I had our 8 week old in the baby carrier so I just puttered around a little.
Saturday afternoon it was DH’s turn to carry the baby, so he brushhogged our pasture with her in the carrier, while I picked 10 more pounds of strawberries. It rained in the evening so we watched a movie and played with DS.

Today it rained off and on all day, so other than going to church and checking on the pig who’s about to farrow, we stayed inside. I made a small batch of strawberry jam and made some Angel Food cake to go with beef short ribs for supper tonight. I hulled the rest of the strawberries from yesterday but didn’t do anything else with them yet. I think I might try making some fruit leather with them tomorrow. I think there’s probably 10 or 20 more pounds of strawberries out in the patch. Any recommendations of other ways to process them?

 

[AmberLops]

Strawberry sorbet? Strawberry lemonade/limeade?

 

[SA Farm]

There’s always freezing them. My Mom would cook them up with rhubarb (and sugar!) and can it for a dessert dish. Went really nicely with tapioca pudding

 

[JHP Homestead]

It’s been a busy week. Our pig Gert farrowed but had a stuck piglet. Neither of us or the vet could get it out, so we ended up butchering her for meat and are raising her 5 live piglets ourselves.

We process our meat ourselves, which is much easier when planned in advance. We usually do it in the cool weather, on a weekend, after sending our 3 year old off to relatives. This makes it so we can do a whole pig ourselves in less than a day and a half. This time, since it was an emergency with hot weather and we had several previous obligations, it’s taking about a week.

We have the ribs and pork chops to cut up, then will be done until next week when the hams and bacon are done curing.

30# maple sausage:

Temp fridge. This is most of the pig minus the hams, which are curing in coolers with ice.

We’ve still been picking strawberries from our patch too. I think DH picked 15 pounds or so the other day, several pounds of which I gave away to a friend. Then I made some more fruit leather and popsicles. Also freezing some in ice cubes to put in lemonade. After the unplanned pig butchering, I don’t have much space in the freezer, but I think I’ll freeze some too, for making mixed berry jam when the blackberries are ready.

 

[Genipher]

It’s been a busy week. Our pig Gert farrowed but had a stuck piglet. Neither of us or the vet could get it out, so we ended up butchering her for meat and are raising her 5 live piglets ourselves.

We process our meat ourselves, which is much easier when planned in advance. We usually do it in the cool weather, on a weekend, after sending our 3 year old off to relatives. This makes it so we can do a whole pig ourselves in less than a day and a half. This time, since it was an emergency with hot weather and we had several previous obligations, it’s taking about a week.

We have the ribs and pork chops to cut up, then will be done until next week when the hams and bacon are done curing.

30# maple sausage:
View attachment 63632

Temp fridge. This is most of the pig minus the hams, which are curing in coolers with ice.
View attachment 63633

We’ve still been picking strawberries from our patch too. I think DH picked 15 pounds or so the other day, several pounds of which I gave away to a friend. Then I made some more fruit leather and popsicles. Also freezing some in ice cubes to put in lemonade. After the unplanned pig butchering, I don’t have much space in the freezer, but I think I’ll freeze some too, for making mixed berry jam when the blackberries are ready.

Sausage!

All this talk of strawberries reminds me... I think I missed strawberry season here on the Oregon coast.

 

[JHP Homestead]

Sausage!

All this talk of strawberries reminds me... I think I missed strawberry season here on the Oregon coast.

I don’t know if Michigan and Oregon have similar weather, but our strawberry season is about 2 weeks behind this year. Maybe there’s still a chance.