At least we think it has.

Our puppy turned 1 year old the end of January.   She has her good days and days where she is definitely still a puppy in so many ways.  One bad habit she has and we're not sure how to break her of it, is that whenever anyone comes to the house be it the UPS driver, mail carrier, neighbor etc. we cannot control her at all.  She gets so excited and jumps and tries to get into their vehicles to the point of it being just ridiculous.  Her ears are totally turned off to any command that we give her, and she knows commands very well believe me.  So, this sweet innocent looking face is not so innocent...LOL

Mari over at My Little Corner of the World, does a Cooking Thursday post where she shares a recipe.  I absolutely love it when she does these posts.  This recipe doesn't look exactly like her recipe, but I'll tell you it was very delicious.  I didn't use canned tomatoes; I used the tomato sauce I made last fall from the tomatoes I canned from our garden, and it made the texture a bit different but still very tasty.

With sugaring starting up milking will be a bit more challenging.  We live in dairy country, so we are very blessed to be able to find calves fairly often and last Friday we were able to acquire a heifer calf, she is the cutest little thing.  I took one photo of her, but I'll have to get another when she's outside and you can see her better.  

We tapped about 100 taps and this year after much thought and discussion, we decided to do bags instead of the galvanized buckets.  For one thing it was much faster hanging the bags over hanging the buckets, and we won't have to clean the bags at the end of the season.  I'm not sure how economical the bags will be, but it will be much easier at clean up time, the tubing we won't do that is for sure, and with the buckets we would lose some sap because the buckets are old and the sap would be rusty from the buckets so those buckets we would have to take off the tree and put them aside so we wouldn't hang them next season. 

So, we'll see how the syrup season goes.  For one thing with not having the buckets hanging, I'll miss the pinging of the sap dripping into the buckets, it's such a wonderful sound, and for us it's the arrival of spring.

Another month has passed and so much has been happening here on the homestead.  We lost one of the 3 pigs we are raising for meat, she developed pneumonia and we had to put her down.  We could have tried giving her shots but there was no guarantee that she would survive, plus we would not have been able to butcher her for a minimum of 30 days.  We got 3 on the chance of losing one, and even though she was going to be butchered it was still hard to put her down.  I will admit that I cried, she was a sick girl and it was hard to see her so sick like that, so I cried and when I was all done I pulled myself up and told myself it was okay to cry because as we don't want to lose any livestock like that I realize they are here to be butchered and fill our freezer.  So no attachment girlfriend.

When our Amish friends mentioned that they have this Devon/Jersey calf that was a bull but is now a steer and that they really don't want to sell him but just don't have the room to raise him until he's ready to be butchered as they had twins born this past spring, and would we be willing to raise him on our land and split the beef.  We of course said yes, so the day after thanksgiving Jim went and picked him up.  Once our fencing is done around the pasture he’ll be able to roam a bit more, right now he’s kept in a smaller area to help him feel more secure while getting used to his new surroundings.

We definitely did not plan on getting any sort of cow, milk or beef at this time.  Our plans were to get a milk cow this spring and raise a calf with it but the opportunity came for us to jump right in we just couldn’t pass it up.  He’s such a good guy and so far things are going well with him. 

The sunset the other night was just awesome.  I looked up from checking on the pigs that we had moved that day to their new paddock area and this is what I saw.  It was really nice to see after having such a difficult time moving the pigs from their old paddock to their new one.  I've come to the conclusion that pigs are not up for change and that they are creatures of habit.  I should have video taped the whole process but I didn't.

We also harvested our garlic and so far growing garlic has been going good (LOL).  It seems like it's been so long since we planted the garlic bulbs, in reality it's only been just over 8 months.  I would like to double our garlic harvest for next year.  Our onions are not quite yet ready to harvest, we planted them later than we usually do.

Visiting with our Amish friends last week they gave me some eggplant.  I have never ever had eggplant before and thought I would try some when they offered it to me.  I have to say that I am not a fan of eggplant.  It could have been the way I cooked it, and I will say it won't be something I would be planting in the future, we both actually didn't care for it.

We have been dealing with hornets when we sit out on our back deck, to the point that I'm getting stung when I hang my clothes out on the line.  Well we found the source for all those hornets, I will tell you this was HUGE that we had to take it down for our safety.  Looking at it though it really is a beautiful piece of work done by the hornets.

Well our little Noki is down to 8 lives now.  We are not sure how it happened but she somehow got hurt to the point that we thought she wasn't going to make it.  Noki had crawled up into our ATV and Jim's not sure what happened, his first thought was that he had run over her with the ATV but I don't think so, she hurt her right back leg and could hardly walk for a few days.  I think that she had gotten thrown off of the vehicle and somehow her leg got twisted and sprained.  Here she is a few days ago and today she is starting to jump and play with Smoky our other barn kitten.  Poor little Smoky couldn't figure out why her barn mate wasn't up for playing anymore, but she's back and I am glad.

There is never a dull moment here on our homestead and I like it that way.

It rained and it was supposed to be a whopper of a storm with 50 mile per hour winds...ha...that didn't happen, but we did get rain and it was windy a bit, but not 50 mph winds.  I thought that popcorn would be a great thing to have for lunch.  I recently bought a whirley pop popcorn popper and I'm here to tell you it is an awesome way to make popcorn.

And as always when it's bad weather either snow or rain I always want to bake or make homemade pizza, so of course that is just what I did.

I just had to sneak a peek at the doughs rising.

Living where we live here in Wisconsin we cannot find a place that makes a good pizza.  So since we can't go to the pizza I decided to bring the pizza to us.  Over the years I have used many different crust recipes and this crust is from Jill over at The Prairie Homestead.   It's a flavored crust and the last time I made it I didn't put the seasoning in the dough, this time I did and it was delicious and very flavorful.  The recipe was enough for 2 crusts and so what did I do, I made 2 pizzas.  We love leftover pizza.

I made sourdough bread but not my usual sourdough recipe.  I used Kate's over at Venison for Dinner sourdough master recipe.  I made the sandwich loaf and the cinnamon rolls.  I did not frost the cinnamon rolls and don't think I will, there is enough sugar in the rolls that make them sweet enough. 

I will confess that I messed up on the roll dough.  I have been having trouble getting my sourdough to pre-ferment and ended up with 2 ferments so instead of tossing one out I decided to make bread and the rolls.  But, and that is a big but, the cinnamon roll dough I missed a step..oops, but I thought I'd try making them anyway.  There wasn't any difference in how the doughs rose but I think the rolls ended up being just a tab bit heavier than the bread, although they are still delicious.  

I hope I didn't get you too hungry with all the baking here on the blog.  I have to tell you about the plates the pizza and cinnamon rolls are on.  Believe it or not they are not paper plates.  I bought them a few years back down in Texas.  I don't remember the cost but they are from a company called  One Hundred 80 Degrees. I don't believe you can directly buy them from their website.  I love eating certain foods on them especially in the summer months.

It's hard to believe that we are smack dab in the middle of July, one more week and we see if we get any chicks hatching...stay tuned.

I know, there is a bite out of the cookie :)  I just couldn't resist taking a bite before I took the photo.   I didn't bake, we bought some bakery over in Iowa from an Amish bakery the other day when we went to do some shopping.  We have been having some really beautiful weather here in Southwest Wisconsin and any chance we get we will take our coffee outside on either our front or back deck.

It seems like it's slowing down some here now that the gardens are doing good.  It's like a lull in the storm, because I know it will get pure crazy when it comes harvest time.  I am slowly taking from our garden, onions, some peppers and lettuce so far.

We've had a heck of a time growing corn this year.  With the drought the birds hammered on the tender corn that were just starting to sprout up out of the ground.  But, we did manage to get some to grow, we even replanted a couple of times.  I think we have enough though for what we are wanting it for.

My sunflowers are coming along, we did plant them just a tad later than we probably should have, they are planted along side the corn.

The incubated eggs are still incubating.  The nineteenth I will lock the incubator down and hopefully about 3 days later we'll hear chicks peeping in their shells and then trying to peck their way out.  I've got a few things more to do to get ready for them, but I've still got just over a week and we'll see what we have. 

Some other exciting news on our homestead/farm here is that we are doing work in preparation in getting a milk cow, more fencing is going to be put up, and a cow barn is in the planning stages.  A lot of good things happening around here.

I hope all is well with you, take care.

How are you all?  We are well into the month of January and it's been a few months since I've posted.  We stayed home this winter instead of going to Texas, Jim was hit very hard with pneumonia this past October and it actually had taken a few months to finally get his strength back and is finally almost 100%.

We got 15 chicks this past September and they are doing awesome and are 17 weeks.  When we got the 15 chicks Jim was hoping that one of them would be a rooster.  Well sure enough, I informed him after feeding them one morning that I think he got his wish, one was indeed a rooster, one of the Delaware's was a roo and he seems like a very nice fellow and should work out just fine.

We have gotten down to 0° during the night a few times and they did just fine.  I actually think raising chicks in the fall/winter months is much nicer.  We do not heat our chicken coop and don't believe in doing so, it's just how we feel about it.  If you do that's fine you have to do what works for you and your chickens. 

We plan to integrate both the "bigs" and "littles" as we call them.  Right now they are separate, but they have been able to see each other on a daily basis looking at each other through the fence.

Last spring when we got our batch of chickens we got 6 roosters but one of the hens ended up being a rooster.  Our plan was to pick a rooster to keep so that we can hatch our own chicks and the others we would butcher and put in our freezer.  After seeing how the roosters did one-on-one with the hens we ended up with the rooster we have now and we named him Rudy.  Long story short, we cut up two of the roosters (they weren't that big) and I made chicken stock with what was left of the carcass.  There is nothing more tasty or nutritious than stock you make yourself.

Let's see what else has been happening since I've posted last.  Our cook stove isn't looking so new anymore and I will say it makes an awesome woodfired pizza.

I wanted to grow pumpkins so that I could either can or freeze the pumpkin to use later in the year.  I ended up with only 2 pumpkins and probably got 6-7 cups of puree, but I was able to make a couple of pies with it over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and still have some in the freezer to make something else with it.

Back in August we drove to Iowa to pick up this beauty.  The top of the cabinet needed some work on it, and Jim with a little bit of help from me got it looking pretty nice.  We cleaned and oiled it and she runs like a top.  I couldn't believe how nice she sews and I can't wait to start sewing on her.

Life is treating us pretty good here.  We have totally embraced winter and even read a Little House on the Prairie book called The Long Winter, out loud to each other.  That was quite nice and I couldn't imagine going through a winter like they went through.  I recently bought a t-shirt from The Prairie Homestead which is a place I love to visit, but the shirt reads Old Fashioned on Purpose, and that is how I live my life now, I'm Old Fashioned on Purpose.

You all have a wonderful day.

I don't usually use sugar in recipes, so when I find a recipe that uses not only maple syrup, but only has 4 ingredients in the whole recipe I just have to try it. These are called Blue Dory Cookies. I have to say these are a pretty good cookie. I did cut the recipe in half, figuring that we didn't need to have 40 cookies around the house tempting us.

Are you getting tired of seeing eggs or chickens on the blog yet? LOL...Today Jim found the tiniest of eggs in the chicken run this morning after letting them out of the coop.  It was the absolute cutest egg I had ever seen.  I did crack it open and the whites were there and just a little bit of what was the yoke.  I had researched why it happens that a hen lays a very tiny egg and it just happens.  One website called it a fairy egg.

Still on our lock down over here.  Just read tonight that we had one death in our county.  I'm not sure if it was related to Coronavirus or not the details of the death are not released yet.  It's starting to hit pretty close to home, especially when we live in such a small location.

Stay healthy everyone.

How are you all doing? Sugaring is in full force up here on the ridge in Southwest Wisconsin, we are also now hunkering down now that the Coronavirus has made it's appearance here in the United States.  We are well stocked here and just planning to stay put for awhile.  Nope we didn't go crazy with the toilet paper, we are good on that. 

You could almost say this was mud season as well as sugaring season (LOL) but last night we got some snow after most if not all of our snow had melted, not sure if we can call it a sugar snow.  We have gotten some really good syrup so far though and we are quite happy about that.

St Patrick's day came and since the bars and restaurants in Wisconsin are closed and only doing take out (by the way we don't have too many restaurants to choose from near us anyway) so I decided to make corned beef and cabbage at home instead of not doing it.

I hope you all are staying home and healthy.  It seems our lives for what we once knew may be forever changed.

It's a few days into March already and spring seems like it's just around the corner.  I'm sure though we'll be getting another snowstorm at some point before winter decides to make it's departure here in Southwest Wisconsin.

Are you a tea drinker? I only started drinking coffee about 15+ years ago and did not drink tea, that is until I had a cup over at a friends cabin in upper Wisconsin, and I have been hooked. I'm not a fan of just straight black tea or green tea.  I love the one that we've been drinking in the evening. It is a bit more spendy but seeing that we only drink one cup in the evening I figure I deserve that pleasure.

Oh my goodness, I am totally in love with the whole sourdough baking process.  I have finally started to master sourdough baking.  I don't use any commercial flour in my bread recipe, we grind our own flour, which has actually taken me a while to figure out.  The bread I made the other day I used half fresh ground rye and half fresh ground wheat, with the sourdough starter.  Both breads turned out absolutely beautiful and delicious.

Sugaring season is upon us and it's going to be the first time without our Sadie running around the sugar bush, or trying to drink up the sap that is running over the side before it hits the ground as Jim is pouring it into the tank we use to gather the sap.  Sadie loved this time of year as well as the snow, she was a good companion out in the bush.  Especially like tonight when the sun is going down, and darkness has crept up on us, and hearing the coyotes in the distance, I definitely feel the void with her gone.  We sure do miss our Sadie girl.  Despite missing Sadie it feels really good to be sugaring again.  It feels so good to smell the air after being cooped up in the house during the cold winter days that sometimes prevented us from venturing outdoors, at least preventing me from getting outside as much as I'd have liked to.

Here's an update on my sourdough starter that I had started.  As things were progressing along or not progressing I made a few adjustments.  My starter on the right is a totally new starter and it's made with Wheat Montana unbleached all purpose flour. The one on the left is one of the original starters that I started with, the flour was 1/4 cup Wheat Montana unbleached ap flour and 1/4 cup of our Wheat Montana berries that I freshly ground each time I fed the starter.  But, it wasn't moving a whole lot, it was starting very slowly.  I figured it out though.  Many people said that they would weigh the flour and water and many people said that there was no need to do that.  I did a bit of checking on the amount of flour I was putting into the starter and was adding a lot less flour to my starter.  I'm guessing I wasn't adding enough flour for the wild yeast in the flour to start moving.  When I started to weigh my flour and adding only my fresh ground wheat and no all purpose flour my starter really took off.  Last night it had risen so high I put it into a bowl incase it overflowed, it didn't but I will be putting it into a larger container from now on.

Last night I started an easy overnight bread dough which is much like the crusty bread I had made a few years ago. 

I love the bowl that used to be my grandma's bowl that she used to make bread in.  I think of her every time I use it for bread.

Yummy bread, I can't wait to try it.

So this is my results of making sourdough starter and the results are wonderful.