Vaughnshire Farm

4 boys standing on the deck of their fort peering into a large box of leaves….

Can you guess?

They take “jumping into a pile of leaves” to a whole new level….

Although we have had temps drop below freezing already this Fall, we have not yet needed a full time or mostly full time cold frame. Broccoli, lettuce and cabbage are doing very well here thus far. I have tiny broccoli heads on my broccoli plants and am anticipating fresh home grown broccoli soon.

Today my husband and sons work on a more useful cold frame in preparation for the freezing weather this week.

Below is useful son #4 taking a break on his toolbox.

Scrap wood pieces from the house we are remodeling were used to build a rectangle frame that he will staple plastic to.

I have seen a variety of cold frames made from different items….old windows can be attached to wood frames with hinges with the ability to be propped open during nice winter weather and closed for freezing weather.

We just returned from Thanksgiving break spent with my family. I love having a big family…so many people to see! We had a rowdy good time around the family meal table laughing and talking about good times with brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandma’s and grandpa’s.

Our trip was short because of our responsibilities back here at home. Having animals to care for several times a day puts a damper on us just getting up and going to far away places for any length of time. However, thanks to family and friends here at home to care for our animals, we were able to get away for a few days.

Today was an eventful day. We were able to process some of our biggest birds but because of the weight not being what we desired, we decided to hold off for another week to process the rest. We invited over several families, some experienced and some first timers, and had a grand time putting chicken in the freezer. It wasn’t that processing the chicken was all the fun, but the community effort and fellowship was what was so great. Afterwards, we enjoyed fellowship over chili with cornbread and some hot apple cider.

I used my food saver to package the chicken and it did a wonderful job of vacuum sealing whole chickens.

We are grateful for our friends who came out to help us today! God Bless You!

Like many things in our culture, the Providential hand of God in the founding of our nation has been forgotten. For our family Thanksgiving is quickly becoming an important celebration that we plan on expanding to a 3 day celebration as we return to the focus our forefathers had on the first Thanksgiving. It isn’t just about turkey!

In our homeschooling these days, we have been studying God’s Providential hand in the Thanksgiving story.

Thanksgiving isn’t a localized event in history. It isn’t just about pilgrims and Indians, but about God’s sovereign hand leading and guiding his people throughout history which extends to us and the part we have to play in history.

Here are some talking points of discussion we have been studying:

1. The founding of Jamestown; the first permanent English colony in North America
2. Pilgrims and their Christian Character
3. Tracing the link of the providence of God through the Protestant Reformation (the Reformation study is mainly done in October for Reformation Day)
4. Holland as a place of refuge and the reasons why they ultimately left Holland for America.
5. The Mayflower Compact
6. God’s preservation through Squanto
7. The first Thanksgiving
8. 50 years of peace with the Indians
9. Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation
10. Instrumental men: The Rev. Brewster, William Bradford
11. Advancement of the gospel and evangelization of the Indians.
12. Our part to play in history. God’s providential hand upon our lives. Our lives are His instruments to use at His Will for His Glory.

Our version of a Where’s Waldo Thanksgiving picture?

A flock of turkey spotted in our yard as we were eating lunch — The boys immediately scramble from the table telling everyone to BE QUIET BECAUSE WE BETTER NOT SCARE THEM AWAY!

The turkey wander around for a while eating and gobbling. Excitement in the house is now uncontrollable. Thanksgiving is next week…..Lots of turkey in our back yard.

Within minutes the boys look like this: slingshot, bag of rocks, bow and arrow and a turkey call. They spent the next 4 hours in the woods trying to get a turkey for Thanksgiving. The entire flock of turkey unfortunately flew away after they tried to outflank them. One boy went sneaking up behind them with the bow, while the other boy army crawled across the field with a sling shot. Even though they came back empty handed, they were completely happy with their afternoon of hunting.

We love the Hospitality command!

Over the weekend we had company stay with us over night and for several meals. In the midst of our busy weekend, I was given very little notice of this quick company stop off, however, it was a wonderful time of fellowship with some old friends! I tested several “expecting company” tips that I thought worked well.

1.) The day before they arrived, I quickly made out meal plans for supper, breakfast the next morning and lunch. My goal for the meals was simple hearty food, nothing elaborate and time consuming. I also made sure I had sheets washed and extra blankets the day before.

Supper - We had already planned for another family to eat supper with us before we knew about our incoming company…so we had 20 people for supper! I made a big pot of venison chili, a pot of rice and and 2 pans of corn bread, a large chocolate sheet cake, a smaller chocolate cake.

The chili is easy to make and works great if you let it simmer a good part of the afternoon. Not only do you not have to worry about cooking, but it makes the house smell really good! No recipe, just put in a little of this and a little of that until it turns out to be a big pot of chili
I made the sheet cake the day before. Overall, my supper prep time was very minimal and consisted of mainly of whipping up the cornbread and the smaller cake and letting it bake.

2.) In preparation for breakfast, I took a few short cuts that really ended up saving me a lot of time. Breakfast needed to be enough to feed 13 people a meal large enough to do some “farm work” on. Because we were going to our friends house later on that day (with our company) to help with processing their chickens, I planned a big country breakfast.

I did as much prep work as possible the day before.

Thaw sausage - I laid out 2 sausage rolls to thaw in the refrigerator the day before.

Whip up eggs - I cracked and whipped up over 2 dozen eggs and put them in a plastic container the day before the breakfast. The morning of the breakfast all I had to do was heat up the skillet with a bit of butter and pour the eggs in. They were done very quickly without the added prep time.

Premake pancakes - The morning before I also quadrupled my pancake recipe and cooked a ton of pancakes the day before. I wasn’t sure how the pancakes would do, but they ended up being very tasty and worked great! I heated them up by placing them on a cookie sheet and with foil wrap over the top while I was cooking the eggs and sausage.

I quickly cut up a fruit salad as a last minute thing. However, you would be able to premake some of the salad by cutting the oranges and grapes up. I would add the bananas and apples just before serving or else they will brown.

Mix Juice the day before.

3.) Now moving to lunch. Tomato soup is easy to make and it was a big hit on a cool fall day. I did not premake it but in the future this would be something that could be pre-made.

A large can of tomato juice will make a very large pot of soup. I use a big can, enough milk to make it a creamy coral reddish pinkish color (really have no idea how much…just eye it and add more if it doesn’t taste right I also add heavy whipping cream and about 2 Tablespoons of butter, a couple of teaspoons of salt, grind some pepper, crush a small clove of garlic, add some parsley. The MOST important thing when making tomato soup is to add the tomato juice first and then sprinkle some baking soda BEFORE adding milk or cream! If you do not do this your milk will curdle. You have to neutralize the acid in the tomato juice before adding the milk. Also do not let your soup temperature rise above a simmer, heat slowly and use whole milk.

I cooked the grilled cheese and then placed them in a covered cookie sheet to stay warm. I have been told that making a bulk amount of grilled cheese in the oven is a easy time saver as well. I have done this in the past but didn’t think of it then.

Overall, with a little prep work the day before, hosting and feeding guests can run even smoother. Any other ideas or tips?

After all this, we were quickly off to our friend’s house to help them stock their freezer with their home grown chicken.

I finally figured out how to get back in shape. We have a beautiful sprawl of wooded acres behind our house and now that the temperature is cool and the leaves are falling the threat of snakes is behind me, I promised the children a hike in the woods. Last night I mentioned that after we got things going in the morning and breakfast cleaned up that I would take them on a hike.This was all they thought about…so when morning came they were exceptionally helpful with breakfast and clean up! One of the boys came in from feeding the chickens and said their water was frozen. GREAT!!! Nice morning to take a hike right!

It was cold outside for sure, however it was just what I needed. A cold brisk morning hike in the woods perfect for getting the blood moving!

Fall and Winter time is a highly anticipated time of year because that means hiking in the woods!

As we were getting dressed, their giddy excitement was making me laugh.

I think my children think we live in the Hundred Acre Woods with Pooh Bear. You know how when you were little and everything seemed bigger than what it really was.  They talked of fighting off bears and using their sling shot to shoot the attack buck were it to jump out in front of us.
So off we go:

The first obstacle was going between the chicken fence and an old barbed wire fence. Some passed with flying colors.

Others didn’t fair so well.

Now that we are all up on our feet again…..onward we go, down the hill.

At the bottom we found some interesting things. Here the boys inspect a squishy tree. It was a fallen tree that had been there for quite a while and was decomposing. After all the rain it felt like a sponge.

They uncovered big rocks that had carpet layers of brilliant green fuzzy moss. We also found all sorts of strange looking mushrooms growing off trees. (no never eat the wild mushrooms–they hear that thousands of times)

As we headed back up the hill, the 4 year old gets a “great idea” to use the turkey call he brought. We do occasionally see wild turkey, but with the noise we were making, I am sure we scared everything off. He was hopeful though, however the only thing he managed to call was a howling dog.

Back up the hill. Now here is the part about getting into shape– a great workout that just might become part of the morning routine.

Gardening, along with bread making, is easily passed by as something those other people do, or use to do.  I realize now that much hard work went into gardening not as a hobby, but a vital part of family life that determined if you ate or starved.

I talked to a grandmotherly woman recently and she was telling me that when her 5 boys were young and at home, she grew a 1 acre garden for her family!  Wow, that amazed me.  Now my garden is nothing massive and doesn’t even come close to feeding us, however the thought of gardening enough food to feed my family is very much what I want to do.

First though, I must figure out what I am doing before I attempt anything more.  So far broccoli and cabbage are doing great with the cool weather.   The lettuce is not growing like it does in the spring, however this week I did pick a bunch of it to add to a salad.   This morning the plants looked a bit frigid, if you can imagine what a cold plant looks like ;-)  I am hoping that they do well with the cold temps.

Here is my sourdough starter.

The brown liquid is called hooch. Hooch is the watery layer that contains alcohol. It smells beer like because it is a bit like beer. I read that some people use to drink it…however until you have made your own sourdough hooch, you will never know how disgusting the thought of drinking that stuff is.

It doesn’t hurt your sourdough starter. Before using it, I would just stir the starter to blend the hooch with the flour mixture. However, this particular day, I have too much hooch, so I would drain some of it off before stirring.

Through this Sourdough learning process I have come to learn a few vital things about myself. One is……if we were immediately required to live a 1800’s life, we would die because I am homemaking challenged
I started out with regular bread flour and had the process running smoothly UNTIL I decided to switch to whole grain. I had ordered 50 lbs of grain and once it arrived I gradually started switching over my starter. Well, that didn’t work so well. My bread immediately went flat and gained a stronger sour flavor. I have since learned that you are NEVER supposed to switch food on your starter. If you start out feeding bread flour, don’t switch to another type of flour.

With that, I am trying not to despair. I have since made wonderful sourdough pancakes out of my starter, however I think I will start a new starter just on bread flour again since I know that works. I need to do further research on freshly ground whole grain sourdough and which type of grain would work best besides the recommend Rye grain.