Wednesday 10 August 2016

Stock piling and consolidating

After a few warmer spring like days, we've returned to wintry weather, rain and cold winds, much to my delight. I'm dreading the hot summer days, so these days of loading more wood onto the fires, drying the washing by the fire, gardening without flies, and stockpiling the freezers with baked goods, are heaven to me.

There's a one year old steer walking around the paddock which is booked in for butchering next week. I was losing sleep over how I was going to fit all that meat into the remaining space in our three large chest .freezers. Yes, I really was waking in the night and worrying about it!
So, in for the challenge went I.  With head down and bottom up, there were packages of meat, frozen tubs of cream, vegetables, and curious bits of jetsam (from flotsam and jetsam?)  flying from the freezer into the washing basket.  Everything was moved around, many bags of frozen "stuff" was cooked or used up, and I'm pleased to say that nothing was thrown out.  Well, actually, there was one bottle of Daisy's colostrum in the depths of one freezer, from two calvings ago. Kept to raise brought in calves, but never needed, so that got tipped into the compost heap.
The numerous plastic bags of bones labelled "bones for making bone broth" were tipped into my biggest stockpot with a splash of raw apple cider vinegar and Himalayan pink salt to simmer on the wood stove for a day and a night to make a fresh stockpile of Bone Broth. that I wrote about in a previous post.
After straining and putting in containers, the space required for storing it in the small fridge top freezer was far less than all those bags of bones, and I'm fully stocked up with tasty stock for another few weeks.

And all of those little containers of Lavender's cream that I've been saving to make big batches of butter, have become butter.  Many batches of butter!
Now that we have only one cow, I need to think forward to the two months that Lavender will not be producing milk during the weeks leading up to her next calf due in December.
So I'm making a stockpile of butter to get us through those weeks.
It keeps well in the freezer if it is packaged well.

Don't ever try to vacuum seal freshly made butter. You will end up with flat pats of gooey muck oozing from the vacuum sealing machine. A little like that lovely fresh cake I tried to vacuum seal once before... it went as flat as a pancake with all the air sucked out of it.   Oh well, we live and learn. So, place the packs of butter into the freezer in airtight bags until well frozen.

Once frozen, seal the butter in vacuum seal bags and put back in the freezer.  These bags had been used before for freezing something, washed out well and are perfect for using again.
Butter stored like this will stay as fresh as the day it was made for more than six months.
I don't want to buy shop butter during the time we're not milking Lavender.
Here's how to make butter that I wrote about some time ago.
All that moving stuff around, and making into produce that takes up less room to store I was able to squeeze everything into TWO freezers. Yes.... one freezer has been emptied out, turned off and cleaned out..!!
OK that may not be as exciting for you as it is for me, so I'll restrain myself now.

Still having lots of fun playing shops with the farm gate shop.

Power outages are becoming more regular in our area, and just as I was telling a friend that, so far, we haven't been affected, the power went off. 
Fortunately the milking had been done an hour earlier, and with our wood heater and kitchen wood stove, we weren't impacted beyond living in darkness for three hours. 
I made banana pancakes and we ate them by candle light with honey and fresh cream. 
I hope all is well wherever you are, and thanks for visiting.
X

19 comments:

  1. Actually I was really happy to read that you had reorganised your frozen goods so that one freezer is now empty and ready to be filled. I know the satisfaction of getting the freezer's reorganised. Sally I would be interested to know why power outages are becoming more regular in your area. Is the grid being overloaded? Thank you for the tip on freezing the butter before vacuum sealing, I doubt I would have thought of that myself. Not that I have a vacuum sealer but it is on my "must buy" list.

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    1. Sherri I don't understand why there are more power cuts lately. There are some theories going around though, about load shedding to sell our power elsewhere, and yet we in South Aust pay more for electricity than anywhere else in Australia. When I lived in Nepal we had load shedding three nights every week and it seems ludicrous that this can now be happening in our wealthy developed country. :( I bought my vacuum sealer second hand on our local Facebook buy and sell page. Actually, I swapped it for some honey. lol It's turned out to be very useful, but I lived most of my life without one.

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  2. You have been a very busy girl. Thanks for the info on butter, I like you, would have made it flat. I'm glad I am not the only one to try the cake into pancake trick, it wasn't funny when it happened but the next day I had a good laugh. Thanks for sharing. Guida

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    1. Oh so it's happened to you too Guida. I can't forget the cake having all of the air squeezed out of it. Couldn't help but laugh.

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  3. super woman!!

    All that bone broth looks amazing! How do you do it all sally? You really are amazing. and I'm so pleased you got to the bottom of that freezer, I know it had been bothering you. :)

    xx

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    1. I can imagine bone broth will be simmering on the side of your wood oven soon Emma. Empty freezer ready and waiting to be filled up with beef.

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  4. I can tell you are not looking forward to the heat of summer, Sally. I find I have more energy in winter don't you? That must feel good now that you have reorganised your freezers. We often lose power on our side of town for some reason. We are never told why.

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    1. Energy to burn right now Chel, but come summer it's a different story. Maybe I need to start talking myself into loving summer, mind over matter, but those long days of outside chores aren't fun.

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  5. Bravo! loved this post. It spoke to my soul :-)

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    1. Haha glad you could relate Mr HM. There's a certain kind of Zen to freezer etiquette. Perhaps I should have named this post "Zen and the Art of Freezer Maintenance" ;)

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  6. I know that freezer stress! Glad you sorted it out :)

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  7. Hi Sally, I understand that dread Summer feeling to well, we shifted to Sth Tas to escape, the hotter temps yes but the bush fire alerts no. I know what you mean with that skippy happy feeling of a clean freezer, all the eggs used up, freezers re-stocked, re-organised, the house clean, no back log of washing, the wood fire burning, its the simple things in life........ my husband came home pleased as punch announcing "I've got you a present, its in the back on the ute" ....27 bags of horse manure for the garden.... the best kind of present ....... Enjoy creating your day, Jude

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    1. Jude I would move to Tasmania in a heartbeat, if only we didn't have our network of friends and family here. Your husband sure knows his way into a girl's heart...lol :)

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  8. You did so well to re-organise the fridges. I always thought bone stock and broth were essentially the same but I can see they are not. Such an important element to have in a healthy diet these days but sadly is missing from most people's diet. I am envious of your homemade butter. I bet it tastes the best!

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  9. Well done on the re-organisation of the freezers, like you I would be SO happy with an empty freezer to turn off and knowing that the other ones are nicely stocked with things that were now ready to use.

    Was it very wrong of me to actually laugh out loud at the thought of your cake having all it's air sucked out of it when you vac-packed it ..... sorry ;-)

    It's a brilliant idea to stockpile the butter while you can, butter freezes so well, as does cream in little blobs ready for use. You should be able to ride out Lavender's 'dry' period quite easily with all this forward planning.

    I love your little shop, you're giving me ideas for the future. I think I will save all my Flower and Agriculture Show prize cards to decorate mine with. And selling little plants in cups is genius :-)

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  10. Oh Sue you should try it some time. It's magic the way the cake reverts to being a flat bit of dough. ;)

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  11. Hi Sally,
    I've just discovered your blog, I came across it looking for information on house cows. My daughter (14) really wants a house cow, she wants to make cheese and butter and I'm all for giving her the opportunity. My mother had a house cow when I was younger but isn't around to give me any I formation on the 'hows'. Can you tell me what you feed your milking cows? I want to keep things as natural as possible. We have 7 acres in North west Tas, our pasture isn't great but we are working on improving it.

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    1. The house cows that we raise and train from youngsters, are not used to getting grain in their diet, but the first cow we owned had been one of a dairy herd. She was a pure Jersey breed and because she had been fed grain all her life, required quite a lot of grain from us too, although we did reduce her grain intake somewhat. I prefer to keep beef/dairy cross cows for my house cows now because they are easier to look after and can milk quite well without grain. Although in mid summer when it has been exceptionally dry for a couple of years in a row, there is no feed around and my cows are losing condition, only then will I slowly introduce a portion of grain to their diet at milking time. But is not necessary at all in a good year of average rainfall. A close watch on their condition, will tell me if I need to increase their rations. They get hay grown here on the property, and we use our old chaff cutter to turn some of it into chaff for use in the dairy feed bin while milking. To a large bucket of chaff I add a third cup of Dolomite and some diluted molasses. If I have carrots or apples I chop and add to the feed. If we can get lucerne hay cheaply enough, we cut it into chaff and add a big double handful. When needed we are able to purchase crushed grain from a dairy friend who leaves out the urea for us. Urea is not suitable for natural (organic style) feeding of a cow. This mix is given only at milking time when she is standing in the dairy while you are milking her. The rest of the day and night she should have access to grass and hay. The milk you'll receive will be like no other if you keep the feeding basic and all natural. I have friends who can't tolerate milk for various reasons, but can drink our natural organic milk with no ill effects at all. Keep working on improving your soil. Pat Coleby books "Natural Farming" and "Natural Cattle care" are invaluable for knowledge of natural care of your land and animals. Good luck Flowerpetal with venturing into life with a house cow. You won't regret it.

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