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Muddy Valley Farm

~ Life on a tiny west coast hobby farm

Muddy Valley Farm

Monthly Archives: June 2019

Rubber Fruit Jar Rings

21 Friday Jun 2019

Posted by Jodi in Farm Produce, Reduce, reuse, recycle

≈ 1 Comment

 

A few years ago my sister and I found a box of mason jars with the old-style glass seals and extra-wide silver rings at a garage sale. Enchanted by their vintage charm, we bought ‘em, and split ‘em.

Shortly after we had found our first jars, perusing my local grocery store’s canning section one day, I had noticed and bought a little box of rubber fruit jar rings. Mostly because the box looked cool, and partly because I knew one used them with glass sealers.

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Give me modern metal sealers for REAL canning, but for storing dried foods where a good seal is less important, the glass lids are prettier. We both use them quite a bit in the kitchen.

Since then, we have added to our collections from time to time, and last spring we picked up some glass seals for a very good price at a vintage goods store. We soon found out why; the darned things didn’t fit any of the jars either of us had! I slipped one of them into my purse so it would be handy for trying on mason jars when I found them for sale.

Last weekend in Courtenay we found nine milk crates full of mason jars at the Sally Ann. A few even had glass seals. Then I remembered my odd sized seal, pulled it out and tried it on an old jar (1976) and IT FIT! One whole milk crate had these odd sized jars so we each grabbed enough to fit our lids.

Today I packed up my garlic scape powder into a couple of the vintage jars. I remembered the rubber rings, pulled them out and to my surprise, they perfectly  fit those odd sized glass seals . So my 1976 jars from Courtenay, with their lids from Brentwood, and their rubber rings from Royal Oak, filled with garlic scape powder from this year’s garlic patch in Prospect Lake, are stowed away in my dry goods drawer in my kitchen. It’s funny how things can just all fall into place sometimes isn’t it.

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Scape Season

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Jodi in Farm Life, Farm Produce, Gardening

≈ Leave a comment

Garlic scape season and what to do with five hundred scapes, all ready at once?

Other years, I’ve chopped and frozen them in ziplock bags, grabbing handfuls all winter long for stir fries and spaghetti sauce. Or I made and froze pesto in ice cube trays (water based and olive oil based, the water based was better). This year, inspired by my sister who used her dehydrator to make garlic powder last year, I dried them and made garlic scape powder.

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It’s really good! A more subtle garlic flavour that, as DH says, “creeps up on you”. I imagine it would be great on popcorn, as well as making a good cookery seasoning. Two big brown paper grocery sacks full made about six cups of powder. That means it takes up WAY less space than my other methods. Plus it doesn’t depend on a freezer. 

And if we don’t get through it all before next spring when the scapes are ready again, it will be great to sprinkle over my chickens’ food as a spring tonic. 

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Barnyard Under Siege!

08 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by Jodi in Chance, Chickens, Farm Life, Wildlife

≈ 1 Comment

K and Liza the LGD left on Thursday for a well earned week off and it didn’t take long for the neighbourhood raptors to figure out that the livestock guardian dog was gone.

We have chicks of all sizes running around the barnyard – it’s that time of year – and lots of predators skulking around the edges too, because who doesn’t love a tasty chicken dinner when they can get it?

 

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With Liza and Chance on the job, we’ve enjoyed zero losses for the past couple years. But of course Liza is away, and poor Chance the emo-dog has a bad case of barnyard PTSD due, we think, to a recent wasp encounter. He hasn’t figured out quite HOW the barnyard bit him, but he isn’t looking for a repeat, so he’s avoiding the area as much as possible. When I coax him out there, as I do once a day at least (exposure therapy works for dogs too), he sits and trembles until we let him go back to the house. The poor little guy has absolutely no appetite for guarding chickens. As far as he is concerned, they can fend for themselves.

 

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So as far as I’m concerned, they can just stay locked up, unless I can be out there with them. But I do feel bad. Chickens love to free range. The daily happy drama as they burst from their coop, beating their wings and shouting with joy at their freedom, makes it obvious. And at dusk, long after the staid old hens have taken to their roosts, settling down to digest their crops full of green grass and bugs, the teenagers hang around outside, chasing bugs and each other through the gloaming, bumping chests in mock battle, relishing every minute and ignoring their momma’s summons until forced in by the inexorable darkness.

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The raptor populations in our area are thriving too. Lots of bunnies, rodents and chickens to eat around here. At least five of the ten families on our road keep chickens, and we see bunnies everywhere. A group of four turkey vultures has been hanging around our valley for weeks, and one recent morning K was awakened very early when a large young female eagle perched right on top of the coops. The eagle didn’t wake her, but the chickens screaming bloody murder at the monster on their roof did.

 

Eagle thru my binoculars
Eagle thru my binoculars
Eagle, Vulture, Vulture, Vulture
Eagle, Vulture, Vulture, Vulture

Today a pair of gorgeous bald eagles 🦅dropped by to check things out at the same time as the vultures were visiting and I was cleaning coops. I guess they’d heard about Liza’s holiday. One stayed on patrol, circling so high up it was the size of a swallow, while the other perched regally in one of the tall Douglas firs overlooking the barnyard, ignoring the vultures and reviewing his options.

 

Vulture reconnaissance
Vulture reconnaissance
Vulture on a stump
Vulture on a stump

The four vultures, who divide their time at our place between a stump behind the manure pile, the poplars south of the barn and the Doug firs, weren’t too happy with their white-headed compatriots, so after about half an hour of uneasy co-existence they ran the eagles off the place. I was surprised the eagles went.

Liza will be home in a few more days, and Chance will slowly get over his barnyard aversion, and the chickens will again run free. But I’m afraid it is going to be a long few days for everyone except Liza.

 

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K is talking about getting a pup soon, so Liza, who is nine now, has a few active years left to whip him into shape and teach him her wisdom. Maybe I will get one too, and we can send them both to Liza school. If she can teach Chance to guard chickens, she can teach anyone.

And Chance would be beside himself with joy if I got him a puppy. He loves them almost as much as he loves babies.

 

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