Third times a charm right? Not.

   I attempted twice now to pick and can poke.  I know I've mentioned poke on here before...
Lands Bounty is from when we first learned of how to eat and prepare poke.  DO YOUR RESEARCH! Never eat poke raw and NEVER eat the ROOT!
Poke aka Poke Salat is a southern dish that has been enjoyed for years.  Depending on who you talk to they all prepare it a little different.  After much of my own reading and research this is how we eat it. 

First, Pick a lot! It cooks down a lot like spinach and if you plan to can it you will need three times as much as you need.   Go to above link for pictures of the plant.  I pick them smaller leaves and when they are young is best but I continue to pick smaller leaves from large plants too. 
If we are just going to eat it I wash then boil it.  About 10 to 15 min.  Then pour off the water.  Many recommend that you boil it twice or even three times.  Do your research and decide.  After the first boil it tastes best sautéed in some butter or bacon grease.
My attempt of canning poke did not go well.  After picking and washing a ton of poke I loaded it all into the biggest pot I had full of boiling water to cook..

After it cooked down I used my pasta fork there to move it to my next biggest pot of boiling water.  I put it though a very short second boil and packed it into jars.  I didn't worry about water from the second boil getting into my jars.  The first boil is what boils out all the toxins in poke.

I packed my jars full of poke added 1/2 teaspoon salt and put into my pressure canner.  Here's where everything went wrong. When my jars came out of the pressure canner they had no liquid left in them.  So I figured it was the canner.  I had issues getting it to the right pressure.  I tested my canner and it seemed to work fine so I tried again.  And again failed...
So after two days wasted I gave up on getting any poke canned this year.  I will try again next year. 
So still in denial that my canner was at fault I attempted to can some green beans and again did not get good results.  Seemed to suck the liquid out of my jars. So I think my canner needs new seals as it doesn't want to get to pressure very quickly.  I will not be using it until I get new seals for it.  Hopefully soon.  So this all gets chalked up to Live and Learn.  :) 

There's a Buzz in the Air.

Where has the time gone?! I can't believe it is June already.  Our laid back pace has gotten hectic lately.  Super D got a new job and our schedules are not very together right now.  But life marches on and we are keeping up at the moment
. 
  A few weeks ago I went out with the girls to pick poke and while we were at the other trailer I heard this loud buzzing.  I looked up to see where it was coming from and walked around the trailer and the garden area was filled with bees in the air.  It was honestly a little creepy.  I yelled at the girls to get in the car and we closed all the doors.  While there we watched a cloud of bees flying in the garden area. At first I didn't know what to think.  There were enough of them I didn't really want to walk through them! So I drove through the woods a bit to check our hive.  I thought maybe it was knocked over and our bees were lost of something.  But our drive showed it was intact and busy with bees in and out.  So I drove back around and the bees were gone. ???? 

So I ventured out of the car to investigate.  I could still hear the buzzing a bit and low and behold we had just witnessed bees swarming.  I know many call a bunch a bees a swarm but really bees only swarm when they are looking for a new home.  When a hive gets too big and out grows it's home the bees make a new queen who then takes half of the hive with her to find a new home.  We were witnessing this.  The bees hadn't left they had just settled down for a rest with the queen.

Is that not cool?! So I got our empty hive box out and put under the bees. I wanted to catch the swarm.  If you get the queen in a suitable home they will stay with her there and set up house.  I attempted to knock these bees out of the tree several times but was not successful.  Swarming bees don't really look to sting anything as they aren't guarding a home.  They are just following the queen and I've been told you can put your hand in a swarm of bees and not get stung.   I was not brave enough to try but was amazed at how close I could get with them really not paying any attention to me.  I had a bee or two run into me but not sting me while I was trying to get them.  Anyways, I failed and decided to wait for Super D to get off work to help me.  I hoped I had tired them out enough that they would stay put long enough for us to get back. 

They did.  With Super D we managed to get them into a hive box.

 Super D helped and was tall enough to cut the branch they were on so they would drop into the box.
At least most of them were in the box.



Really we needed to have the queen in the box.  If she stayed they would all stay.  But finding the queen in all those bees is not something we are good at. 
We left the bees to settle in and came back a couple hours later and every bee was on the out side of the hive box. We had missed getting the queen in the box.  So we moved it and tried again.  We really shook up those poor bees trying to catch them and in the end I was stung twice and Super D three times.  
We finally had almost all the bees in the box and were confident we had the queen.  So we left them for the next day to let them settle in.  I went back a day later and I guess they didn't like that home because they were gone.  Not a single bee left.  So we gained some good experience and learned a bit. But didn't end up with a new hive.  I'm sure some expert could tell us what we did wrong and what to do next time. I have my own ideas too.  Seeing a swarm like that was a really neat event that was cool to catch.  Had we not gone over that day we would have never seen that swarm.  I am disappointed we weren't able to catch it.  
     Just another adventure for the S Family in the Ozarks.  

Sassafras Tea

Nothing says summer like Sassafras Tea.

This is a Sassafras sapling.  Sassafras is a type of tree, not just my oldest daughters alter ego, it used to be used commonly for tea and making root beer.  The roots of the tree smell a bit like root beer.  I have more pictures here from a post I did our first year. The Lands Bounty
Like with anything you pick from the wild be sure of what you are getting.  Don't use my site alone to identify and do your research.  Sassafras does contain a chemical that the FDA determined was dangerous which is why root beer is no longer made with Sassafras. I talk about it more on The Lands Bounty post.

Okay on to tea...Girls and I picked a bit of the leaves for our tea.  I just get a good handful and tear them up a bit and put them in a pot with water and heat.

I bring the water to a boil then turn off the heat.  Let it steep for a bit.

We like this tea cold so I stain and pour over ice.  I usually pour while it is still hot so that it dilutes is a bit. 

This batch was very green but I can come out a more yellow color too.  We decided the tea smells like fruit loops.  We usually sweeten it just a bit.  It has a very light, sweet, vanilla like flavor. 
Enjoy!

In the Ozarks 2 years!

  Hard to believe we've been here just over 2 years now.  The time has flown by for me.  I'm often asked if I still like it. Yes, I love it here.  I have yet to grow tired of the beautiful views God has created.  I love looking out the front window at the green hills and the life they contain.  I love sitting in my living room looking at my wood stove and seeing the fire twinkling as it warms our house. 
I am truly blessed! 

But, while blessed I am we have had trials and those trials have made us stronger.  With each new improvement and advance I am thankful for the accomplishment. 
One such improvement is that after 2 years I no longer sleep on the floor!  Yes we always has a mattress so really it wasn't that bad. But that mattress was just on the floor. 

Both in the fifth wheel trailer. Like above and you couldn't stand up in the space. So we crawled into bed literally for the first year and a half. 
Then we moved and had a real room but no furniture so we were still on the floor. 
But no longer!

Super D built this amazing bed for us.  I hesitated sharing it as it is still unfinished but couldn't wait any longer.  Now we have to climb into bed but it is in progress.  Still needs stained and some more additions.  It is amazing though and I am happy to be up off the floor!

While we are on beds I'll share the girls beds too.  These have been built quite a while.  They got up off the floor much sooner. :)

Super D calls these floating bunk beds.  He plans to build a desk under each one for them.  But we'll see if that happens.  It opened up their room quite a bit so they have some space. 

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms.  (I know I'm a day late)  Thank you to my family for showing me a wonderful day even though I had to work. 

Fun in the Sun!

Wear sunscreen!  I got the first big sunburn of the season. For the record mom I attempted to put on sunscreen but should have had the kids help me.  Hence it fades from white to red.  And the tag on my tank top was up so I got a lovely square in the middle of my back.  *rolling eyes*

These are our new summer toys! Super D and the girls have gotten to take them out a couple times.  I got out with them once.  They are so much fun and relaxing.  I envision many trips on them.

I staked out our humming bird feeder to get you all a picture.  But when I got the camera out they got shy.  Couldn't get a picture of them at the feeder go figure.  This guy landed on the volleyball net. 

Here's my attempt at a picture.  See the tail? Sugar bug has taken to filling up this feeder and keeping it full for our Hummers.  I love sitting out on our deck and watching them buzz by. 

That's the start of our warm season.  We are looking forward to more fishing, hiking, kayaking, and even bike riding.  Taking time to do the fun stuff is essential to my sanity but is hard to do with us working and keeping the farm running. 

Have any good plans?

800!

That is the beginning of almost 800 plants for the garden.  Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cabbage, tomatillos and more.  Sugar bug helped me one day and we got these all started.
  Why so many?? Well, one we plan a big garden, two not all of them will survive, and three I like being able to share and trade when we have extra of something. 

 I'm loading up our trays with soil to plant in.  Normally I would use seed starter that you buy but we couldn't find any around here so I made my own using potting soil and soil that we had delivered for the cold frames. (below)

Now I'm sure one of you with more plant expertise can tell me why this was a bad idea.  I must say I don't think it's worked as well but sometimes you work with what you have.  I started all these a couple weeks ago and now I have several small spouts coming up.

Aw there so cute :)
 Now that it's warming up I have all the plants outside sitting in the cold frames we finally finished.

Got the dirt in and a few things planted.  Lots to do still!  I'm starting feel a bit overwhelmed to get it all in and planted. We still need to work on our garden plot.  We wanted it at the old spot we had last year but don't think we can get a way to water it so we'll need to put it closer.  I'm sure we'll get it figured out.  Every little bit counts.  
Things are always coming along around here.
How's your garden growing?

Goodbye...

Rest in Peace Sweet Pea....

 Yes we lost Sweet Pea.  We woke one morning to Sweet Pea mooing incessantly and pacing the fence line, this happens once every month or so.  We thought she was in heat and immediately arranged for a "play date" with a bull.  We loaded her up and took her to the dairy farm down the road. (extended families dairy) We dropped her off in a field with cows and bulls and she looked happy as she went to meet them. 
  Well, we left her for 3 days and couldn't find her when we went to pick her up.  Super D's cousin found her a week and a half later and she was dead.  (sorry to be so blunt but that's life on a farm sometimes)  We don't know how she died as she was half eaten by scavengers when found.  There are several possibilities, but most likely she was sick and we didn't know it. Her bellowing that we interpreted as her being in heat may have been pain.  Only God knows. 
At the end of the day we are out of a milk cow but Thor is doing good.  We plan to sell him soon and will put that money to another cow.