Queen's Edge Farm: Regular Monday

Monday, July 16, 2007

Regular Monday

Today is just a regular Monday. I spent the day picking up from the weekend of everyone being here, and have been doing laundry and hanging it out. The weather is hot, humid with the occasional cloud darkening the sky and threatening rain. It rained really bad last night, and the wind was blowing something fierce. Found out that a tornado touched down in town last night, which was a surprise. I definitely want a tornado shelter before next year's season rolls around.

Ran a few local errands to the post office to mail some seed orders, to pay the water bill, and to the local dollar store to see if they had more Zote soap. They had seven bars, I bought six as I didn't want to appear greedy. This is the soap that is the base for my laundry soap. The funny thing is that this store doesn't stock this soap with the other soap or with the laundry/soap powder, it is right next to the measuring cups, and cooking utensils. It took me a while to find it.....

Mulched the garden and pulled a few weeds. My cucumbers or herbs haven't sprouted yet. It's been a week. That is kind of odd, but I will give it another week or so before replanting. Checked on the chickens. I really need to bleach their water container but I forget as soon as I come in the house. The plan is also to clean out the chicken house, bleach the floor, nesting boxes and roosts before the chicks hatch, if they do.

I am getting ready to sew curtains for my dining room, which I will post a picture of once they are done. I am also sewing one of my pajama bottom orders.

Gotta go and get dinner started.

After dinner I worked in the garden, spreading hay around my remaining vegetables. Picked all the corn off my corn stalks. Only have the stalk is filled with corn. I pulled the husks back off the cob and am letting me dry, and then will feed them to the chicken later. I got about 10 ears of corn. I will be using different corn next year, I haven't any luck with this one at all.

Got a handful of beans and one of jalapenos. I only have one dill plant doing good, the others have died, my sage is looking sickly too. The cucumbers have a lot of flowers, as well as, the bean plants. Hope I can get enough out of them to can some beans. Picked a half pitcher of wild mustang grapes, actually Lauren did that...we need to go back out tomorrow and get all the ripe ones, and I will start on making jelly. My figs aren't ready yet, but once they are I plan to make jelly out of them too.

Came inside itchy from pulling weeds, and covered in blood from all the mosquitoes I kept slapping at......

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Grandma's Yummy Cinnamon Rolls

2 pkgs active dry yeast or 5 tsps if using bulk yeast
1/2 cup warm water (not too hot)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening, butter, margarine
2 tsps salt
2 cups milk, scalded
1 1/2 cups cold water
10 to 12 cups flour (white or whole wheat)

Yield: 4 loaves

Soften yeast in warm water, springkle in a tsp of the sugar
In LARGE mixing bowl blend sugar, shortening, salt and milk until shortening is melted. Add cold water, cool to luke-warm. Stir in yeast. Gradually add flour to form a stiff dough. Knead on floured surface until smooth and satiny, 5 to 10 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turning dough to grease all sides. Cover with foil or damp towel. Let rise in warm place (85 to 90 deg) until light and doubled in volume about two hours. Punch dough down by plunging fist in center. Knead dough for about 5 minutes.

Roll out one fourth of dough to a 16 X 12 inch rectangle. Brush with 2 TBSP of melted butter. Combine 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 1/3 cup sugar and 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (or more to taste). Sprinkle mixture over dough. Starting with 16 inch side, roll jellyroll fashion. Either cut into 16 1 inch slices or leave as a whole loaf. Place on a greased pan, cover and let rise in warm place until light, about 30 to 45 minutes. Bake at 375 degrees about 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Mix one box 10X sugar with 2 tbsps water. If too stiff, add more water until icing consistency, add a drop of vanilla too. Spread on baked bread while bread is still warm.

2010 Homestead Stats

Laundry Soap

Homemade Laundry Soap:
1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above
½ cup washing soda
½ cup borax powder
~You will also need a small washpan or bowl that holds about 2 gallons.

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the washpan. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Transfer soap (using a funnel if necessary) into empty plastic laundry holders, milk containers (I use my empty glass milk bottles and old Fab containers) Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

Wild Mustang Grape Jelly

Wild Mustang Grape Jelly

5 cups grape juice (about 3 1/2 pounds of ripe grapes)1 (1 3/4 ounce) box of sure-jel pectin7 cups sugarBefore getting started it is best to clean the entire kitchen, making sure the sink is empty. Bleach the sink and all utensils used in making jelly (I do this as I sell my grape jelly as part of my homesteading business.)

Wash the canning jars in warm soapy water, and rinse well. Set off to side.

Place a large pan of water on the stove to heat. Once it starts steaming, place lids and rings in the bottom, and 2-3 jars (depending on if you use actual jelly jars or pints) to sterilize.

Next make the grape juice using clean washed grapes (make sure you use rubber gloves when picking or washing wild grapes)To 3 1/2 pounds of clean grapes (6 cups of grapes) add 1 1/2 cups water.Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 10 minutes.Strain and squeeze out all of the juice with cheese cloth (see paragraph below)
I didn't have cheese cloth, so I poured the grape mixture into a large spaghetti strainer with a large pan underneath. I had to stir it around some as the skins and seeds would sink to the bottom, and clog the colander up. Stirring allowed the liquid to drain out. I then used a large metal spoon and squished it some to get more of the juice out.

In a very big pan, put 5 cups of the juice (it’s okay to add no more than ½ cup water to even out amount)Add the fruit pectin to the juice.Mix well.On high heat, bring to a full rolling boil, and boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly.Stir in sugar all at once, and bring back to a full rolling boil, again boil hard for 1 minute stirring constantly.
Remove jelly from heat, skim off foam
Use a large spoon inserted inside the jar to lift CAREFULLY out of the water. DO NOT TOUCH THE INSIDE OF THE JAR OR THE RIM WITH YOUR HANDS.
Ladle jelly into hot jars, place a lid and ring onto jar (do not tighten yet).
Set jars to the side. After a while you should start hearing “pings” as the jar seals.
When jars are completely cool, tighten rings and store on pantry shelf.**SIDE NOTE: Wild Mustang Grapes are normally ready the end of June, so be prepared. Keep an eye open for vines on the side of the road, or any that friends and family may have growing in their yard. Many people just let them grow and don’t do anything with them, so it shouldn’t be hard to find a good supply. Also, the more you pick off the vine, the more the vine produces new grapes, so you probably won’t EVER run out of grapes to use until the vine dies or you get sick of making jelly. Good luck and feel free to contact me at queensedgefarm@yahoo.com for questions.