Year In Review

Today marks the one year anniversary of Our Neck of the Woods! I'm really excited and thought it would be fun to look back over the past year and see what all we've accomplished. I was hesitant to start this blog, but my sweet friend Heather gave me the push I needed to put myself out there and I'm so glad she did. I've never been one for attention, so it was hard for me to express myself for the whole world to see. But now I can't imagine NOT doing it. Sharing bits and pieces of rural living through photos and words has become a passion for me and I am so glad I took the plunge one year ago. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

1) Discovered how much we enjoy exploring our woods and feeling like kids again when we discover amazing bugs and critters we've never seen before.

2) Learned more about foraging and went mushroom hunting in our woods for the first time. Figured out how to identify and cook puffballs!

3) Realized that it's important to take time every once in a while to treat yo self.

4) Made the discovery of a lifetime - banana ice cream!

5) Started a new tradition of Christmas tree shopping in our own back yard.

6) Waged a war on ticks with the help of a new flock of guineas.

7) Dealt with the worst heartbreak we'd ever experienced as homesteaders and learned to let our bad experiences strengthen us.

8) Eight new little pullets were added to our flock; one of which turned out to be a rooster!

9) Started a new series on the blog called Feathered Friend Friday.

10) Lots of progress was made with Duchess. She's so playful and happy now!

11) Started a facebook page for the blog and also registered a custom domain name for the blog.

12) For the first time ever, we witnessed eggs hatching and became proud grandparents!

13) Successfully completed the logging process on our 20 acres of woods. Still working on clean up, though!

14) Perhaps my favorite change over the past year - finally upgraded to a new camera!

15) Learned so much about gardening this past year and plan to use what we've learned to help us out with next year's garden.

This past year has been a wild ride. Can't wait to see what the next year brings!

~Tammy

Bee Tree

I first wrote about our plans to have the property logged back in February. Since then we have learned a lot and realized it's not nearly as simple of a process as we previously thought. We were just marking trees that we thought looked good and wanted to keep, but there is WAY more behind it!

A couple months ago I called our regional Missouri Department of Conservation office to get in touch with the resource forester in our area. He has been out to our property twice now, and most recently marked all our trees that we will get cut down (more on this in a future post!). He is such a smart guy, and pointed out lots of cool things to David about the types of trees we have out here. In particular, he found one very interesting thing on our property...

A bee tree!

We never noticed it before, but a colony of bees has set up shop in this old, hollowed out tree.

David has been talking about wanting bees for some time now, so he was pretty excited when they found this. We are going to talk to a local beekeeper tomorrow, but from what we understand, it is possible to move the colony from the tree to a different location. We can't harvest their honey as it is now, but if we move the colony to a beehive we can eventually collect the honey. I can't imagine anything better than having my own honey!

~Tammy

Heirloom Figs

One of my grandma's favorite things about her garden is her huge fig tree. One day I asked her about the history of the tree, and she said it's over 50 years old! Back in the late 1950s her brother moved into a new home and his neighbor had this amazing fig tree. When talking to the neighbor, Grandma commented on his fig tree and said she'd love to have one someday. Right then and there, he dug up part of his tree and gave it to her. She planted it in her back yard and it just took off!

I got a call from her last week that she had some figs already ripe and ready to eat. Usually they don't ripen until late in the summer, but with this year's crazy warm weather they were already prime for picking. She told me they were huge, some as big as lemons! I didn't believe her, so I had to see them for myself.

They were HUGE! Grandma said she has never seen them get this big before. I was more than happy to take a few off her hands!

Of course they are delicious eaten as is, but I wanted to try something different, so I found a recipe online for grilled figs.

I grilled them on my indoor grill pan, then drizzled with local raw honey and spread on some dairy-free cream cheese. It definitely hit the spot.

I still have so many figs that I don't know what to do with them! But of course that's a good problem :) Next I'm going to try my hand at drying them in the oven and maybe making some fig jam. Thanks again, Grandma!

~Tammy

Berry Overload Part II - Blueberry Bars

After last weekend, it seems like I would have had my fill in picking berries. But I was at it again this weekend! My pioneer women and I went to Iller's Berry Farm to pick blueberries.

We met up at 8:00 in the morning to pick because the forecast called for highs in the 90s. It was actually really nice weather early on with a good breeze. About an hour into picking it did start to get pretty warm, but we were able to finish up in about an hour and a half.

Everyone at Iller's was so friendly! We went up the hill to check in, then they sent us back down to the blueberry bushes were Steve was waiting to get us started. We were armed with buckets and given tips on how to pick the best berries. Steve said, "What you want to do is eat a lot of berries. Find out what the sweetest ones look like and pick those." I thought it was so cool that he said we could just eat right off the bush so we knew what was best to pick! The bushes were pretty full, but he said that later on this week (maybe Weds/Thurs) they will really be ripening like crazy, so heads up if you're in the area and want to pick blueberries!

When we checked out, they had a couple of recipe cut-outs that we could take. I saw one for blueberry bars and knew exactly what I was going to do with my blueberries once I got home (there was no author on their recipe, so not sure of the origin). Let me tell you, this was just about the best dessert I've ever put in my mouth.

Blueberry Bars
Makes about 2 dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon*
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter or margarine
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1) Preheat oven to 375. Line a 13x9" baking pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil, set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, 1/2 cup sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Using a pastry blender (or just use your fingers) cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. Press half of flour mixture into bottom of prepared pan.
3) In a medium bowl, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch. Stir in blueberries and lemon juice. Spoon blueberry mixture evenly over prepared crust. Crumble remaining flour mixture over blueberry mixture. Bake for 45 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool in pan completely (if you can wait that long!). Cut into squares to serve.
*The recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, but I'm not a big fan of nutmeg so I just used cinnamon and increased it to 1 teaspoon. You could just use the nutmeg, or use nutmeg and cinnamon.

I picked about 6 pounds of blueberries, and even after making these bars I still have a lot of berries left. I'll most likely freeze the rest -- if there's anything left after snacking on them this week!

~Tammy

Berry Overload

I picked a lot of berries this past weekend!

Saturday morning started early - met Heather at 6:45 to pick cherries in Fruitland. The cherries are small, about the size of marbles, with such a sweet taste. I pitted them all and put them in the freezer until I figure out what to do with them. Nothing was wasted - I collected about 1/2 cup of cherry juice in the pitting process! Will probably end up freezing the juice as well until I find a good drink recipe that calls for fresh cherry juice.

Next up, I met my family for some berry picking at Blue Berry Hill Farm in Cobden, IL. We picked strawberries first and I got almost enough to fill a flat! Then we went up the hill to pick blackberries. Next weekend we plan to pick blueberries if they are ready!

We've been gorging on the strawberries and blackberries the past few days. Nothing better than hand-picked fresh berries!

~Tammy

Guinea Toast

Since the guineas have been laying for a few months now, we've really been enjoying the eggs. When we can find them, that is!

The guineas free range so they don't lay in nesting boxes like the chickens do. Basically this means every so often we have to search for their eggs. They are getting really good at finding genius hiding spots and keeping the eggs away from us. We have to be careful, because if we mess with the nest and the guineas see us, they will stop laying there and make a new nest elsewhere (this has happened a few times already).

It is fun to go searching for them and when we find a nest like the one above, it feels like we've hit the jackpot! The only thing is, we don't know how long the eggs have been there, so we have to (very discreetly) take a few to test them out first and make sure they are still good. We can't take them all, though, because then the nest would be moved and we'd have to search yet again.

All the fuss is worth it because guinea eggs are the best tasting eggs I've ever had in my life. They are about half the size of a chicken egg; mostly yolk with very little white. The firm yolks are a very bright orange and have such a rich, buttery taste. Lately we've been eating lots of what I have dubbed "guinea toast." Here's the recipe -

Guinea Toast
Serves 1

Butter for cooking eggs (I use dairy-free Earth Balance)
Couple splashes of water or milk (I use Silk unsweetened soy milk)
3 guinea eggs (or 2 chicken eggs)
1 piece of bread, toasted (I like Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted whole grain bread)
Cream cheese or goat cheese (I use dairy-free Tofutti spread)
1 scallion chopped (chives would work really well too)

Heat a non-stick skillet over medium low heat (I set mine on "3" and let it heat for a few minutes). While the skillet is heating up, break the eggs into a small bowl. Add milk, lots of salt & pepper, then scramble the eggs with a fork until the yolks are completely broken up. Put butter in the skillet (about 1T) and wait til it melts and starts to bubble up, but don't let it get brown. Pour in the eggs and don't mess with them! (I have found that instead of traditionally scrambling the eggs into small bits, it works best if I keep it in one big circle then cut to fit my bread. It's a lot easier to eat and looks better on the plate.)
 

Let the eggs cook about 2-3 minutes until they are set. Then using a spatula, flip over on the other side for just 30 seconds or so to finish cooking completely. Fold or cut the eggs to fit your toast. Spread cream cheese on the toast, then add the eggs and scallions.

Best enjoyed outdoors on a warm spring day with a good magazine, but tastes just as good inside. :)

~Tammy

Our Foray into Foraging

Last weekend we went hunting. The only type of hunting I will ever do - mushroom hunting!

Of course we had our foraging feline with us. Baby followed us around the whole time! Looks like she's trying to sniff out some mushrooms for us.

David has been researching the different types of mushrooms so we could identify the edible varieties on our search. We went out after all the rain we had last week and there were mushrooms everywhere! Unfortunately, most of them were inedible.

Not sure what these are called, but pretty sure they are inedible. Better safe than sorry, so we left them!

Based on what we've read, these look inedible as well. Boo!

 

Found these cute little spiky things. Even if they were edible, they were only about the size of a dime.

Finally, we got lucky! Found a bunch of puffball mushrooms. Definitely edible! Hooray!

 

Apparently, puffballs can reach the size of a basketball! Didn't find any near that size, but this one was pretty big.

At a certain point, puffballs become inedible. You have to cut them open and inspect the inside. If it is all white and fluffy looking, you are good to go. If there is any yellowish tint at all, scrap it. Eventually puffballs start to grow spores inside which can be harmful. The yellowish tint is the first sign that spores are starting to "sprout" inside.

This one was good!

We looked up how best to cook puffballs, and one method is to saute them in some butter or olive oil. Another option, which seems to be the most popular, is to dip in egg, coat in bread crumbs and pan fry.

The first step in preparing the mushrooms is peeling off the tough outer layer of the mushroom. You can eat it, but we read that it may upset your stomach because it is hard to digest. Then slice about 1/4" thick and prepare how you like.

We tried both methods, and frying is definitely the best!

When I ate these fried puffballs, I was immediately transported back to a memory from my childhood. When I was little, my grandma used to pick wild mushrooms from her yard and fry them for us. These tasted exactly like hers! I remember one time she got pretty mad at my grandpa because he mowed over some mushrooms she wanted to pick. :)

I'm hoping we'll find some morels next spring! Until then, we'll study up on mushroom identification. Especially false morels. Yikes!

~Tammy