Butternut squash mash with....

Paprika pan fried deer chops and topped with....

a big ol handful of alfalfa sprouts. This is a picture I took this morning, we had way more than this...until we ate them. I can never have enough sprouts on the go. I love eating a big pile of them as a side dish either plain or tossed with a quick dressing, although mostly just plain. I find they have a really nice, crisp flavor on their own and always use plain sprouts or microgreens to top meat. 

Grape Vines.

When we picked all the grapes we made our wine with, the owner of the vines informed us that he was going to do some major pruning on the plants and pretty much hack them down. The vines were never trellised our pruned and it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Still kicking myself for not taking the camera, I'll never forget what we saw. The grape vines had completely taken over a corner of his property. They had climbed the trees, as they would naturally do, and completely covered them with vines that were just loaded down with grapes. When they had bought the property there were some grape vines there that had to be removed in order to build his home. The grape vines he had this fall were not planted by him, they were assuming they may have been spread by birds. We easily picked two five gallon buckets of grapes in an hour, after they had picked bucket upon bucket themselves and made lots of juice and jelly. His plan to hack the plants down is an attempt to tame the vines and get them to a more manageable place and size. 

Normally one would take grape clippings in the early spring months when pruning is normally done, for propagating. Since these vines may not have been still there in the spring months we took woody cuttings in the fall, about the thickness of a pencil, cut them appropriately and rolled the end in some rooting hormone before placing in this sunny window above the nice, warm heating vent.  Recently two of them have shot out leaves, probably not the most desirable since they are supposed to be dormant right now, but also probably a good sign they have rooted and are growing. I'll harden them off outdoors in the spring before planting with our other grapes. Or....we're toying with letting them swing from the trees.

Veggie retrieval duty. Digging a couple feet down to find....

two beautiful rutabagas. I thought these were toast for sure, we had meant to dig them up and store them before they were covered in snow but we have had several feet of snow completely covering the garden since before Christmas! John dug down under the snow and found these guys were still covered with air trapped all around them under the insulating layers of snow. They were not frozen at all, I can hardly believe it. 

He also grabbed some carrots. 

With some shallots from our garden and a deer roast from the freezer we threw together a pot roast. Perfect for this time of year and the frigid weather we have been having. 

Keeping the cats in supply of constant cat grass this winter. 

Hardwood.

Yesterday's project of planing hardwood for our basement renos. My boyfriend handpicked these logs out of our winter's wood about three years ago, some is rock maple and the lighter wood is ash. He bartered with a friend to have them milled up and then they stayed in our shop until we could use them. This is, maybe, a quarter of the hardwood but probably not even that much. We planed these boards yesterday and then brought them inside. When the moisture level gets to the desirable point, we will be sanding and finishing them. I will post a picture of the finished product when they become the new ledge at our basement entrance. Lots of work although very, very much worth it in the long run. We have all kinds of this hardwood now for building some deck furniture, a new tv stand and new shelving in several rooms. If we went and bought the hardwood, it would have cost us a lot more than any of the labor has.  

Quick note!

In case anyone is wondering, our naturally fermented wine, although not finished, has turned out amazingly well. The batch not spoiling was satisfying enough but when we tried it the other night to see if we thought it was ready to bottle we were floored by the taste. Although much different than commercial wine and a bit of an acquired taste, we liked it immediately.  I did not take a hydrometer reading, although I would guess it's likely around 10% alcohol content. 

Holiday Hiatus.

I'm back! I never intended to be away so long either.  We had a really relaxing, stress-free Christmas holiday, although it was really busy. The weeks leading up to Christmas were busy for us and then Christmas was non-stop with all that good Christmas stuff. We are trying to put our heads down and really tackle our basement renos now as there was no time for that leading up to and surrounding the holidays.  

We are still eating all kinds of good foods we have grown ourselves. Here's the contents of a stir fry I made all from the garden with carrots, bok choy and celery and our own chicken breasts. Sadly, we've come to the end of our own potatoes and garlic and are mourning our loss. 

We ate our last pumpkin and saved the seeds, just scoop out and dry in a single layer. These ones of the plate had already been dried on paper towel and moved to the plate for further drying. 

We bottled all of our cider, pictured to the right of the dog here, and gave lots away as gifts that were gratefully received.

We are still eating lots of squash, like this misshapen butternut, carrots, onions and shallots from storage. As well as scallions, kale, spinach, tatsoi, bok choy and radishes all from the cold frame (when we can get to it, we've had tons of snow!) We were enjoying garlic and potatoes up to last week. I have frozen tomatoes, hot peppers, fiddleheads, tons of wild blueberries, two deer, five turkeys, less than our initial thirty chickens, a couple partridges and grass fed beef, including liver my favorite, from Frank Foster at www.lindenleas.ca. I have a lot of broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts under the massive amount of snow in my yard that may just be toast. It's untypical for us to have this amount of snow so early in the season. The brassicas have been covered for the entire month of December, when we would normally be enjoying them. I'll keep you posted when I'm able to dig them out of the snow. Thankfully next year we should have our greenhouse in case this weather becomes a trend. We are supplementing with lots of sprouts these days. Mung beans, alfalfa, red clover and broccoli are always on the go for use in soups, stir-fries, sandwiches and wraps or just served on the side, straight up.

I know I'm a bit behind here, however I just love the promise of a new year. It gives us the opportunity to be better and do better. What better time to rejuvenate my blog!