Rutabaga in the pot

Chopped up rutabaga about to boil.   The rutabaga is lighter in color than the photo appears.

I pulled a couple of rutabaga a few days ago - much later in the season than usual.   They have been sitting on the kitchen counter, and I noticed they were starting to get soft.

So, they are now in a pot on the back of the stove, and will boil for awhile.

I like mashed rutabaga.   I'm also a mashed potato fan, but sometimes variety of flavor is a good thing, and rutabagas have a distinct flavor of their own.    I don't know how to describe it, but the flavor is stronger than  potatoes. 

Rutabaga (northern grown) and turnips (southern grown) used to be winter staples, and I've read that there used to be lots more varieties available through seed catalogs than there is now.   Maybe with more people interested in local foods, and more people using root cellars, and maybe even more people saving seed, we'll get some of that variety back. 

But, for now, I'm growing one, basic rutabaga.   It keeps well in the root cellar.   I can cook it almost any way I can cook a potato, and it is a nice change in flavor.

The only thing I don't like about rutabaga is that it takes longer to boil to softness than potatoes do.   George and I were discussing this the other night.   Taking longer to boil means  using more gas (we cook with gas), which costs money, and uses a non-renewable resource.    I love our soapstone wood stove for heating the house, but the stone means the stove is not good for boiling things.   If we ever get a second wood stove, I'd really like a small stove that was good for a pot or two.

I wonder if the fact that this rutabaga went through some frosts, and got a bit soft sitting on the counter, will mean it cooks up faster?   How will it taste?  Good?   Bad?   This is my experiment for the day.   It is good to try to do at least one scary thing per day (assuming that category has not already been forced upon one), and have one experiment per day.   Today, the goals do not overlap.   

Later edit:   Tastes good, and cooked more quickly than usual.   Why?   No idea.   That's the problem with running an experiment with two variables.   Oh well.    Beef and onion over mashed rutabaga is also a good way to end an experiment.

When the onions don't turn out quite right

As mentioned before, a lot of the garden got buried in weeds when I pulled my back this summer.   Some of the onions started to grow, then lost their access to sunlight.

Those onions stayed small, and I didn't bother putting them into the cellar with the big onions. The little ones dried out nicely though. 

I've been gradually working through a large bowl of little onions in the kitchen.     

After sloppy joes yesterday, I'm down to the last few.     I put them in the small, red, plastic colander.   I like the way they seem almost luminescent. 

Things from today.

1.  The cats knocked a big, blue pan full of onion peels on to the kitchen floor sometime during the night.  George found it in the morning.

2.  The sheep started drinking out of the electric water bucket.   It always takes them a couple of days to get used to drinking warm water after the weather turns cold.   I left out a cold-water bucket the last couple of days, in case. 

3. I ordered a twin-sized wool blanket from LLBean.   It was the last day of the 15% sale, and we also used 3 coupons.   This will be an extra blanket for the coldest upstairs bedroom, and it should last.

4.  My sister Cate in California told me that she wants a large, square pot-holder, with a hanging loop, for Christmas.  Cate and I have a tradition of sending each other Christmas boxes, and hints help.   We don't always manage to get the boxes done, and sometimes boxes arrive in January or later, but we still enjoy it.  

5.  Movie and hot buttered popcorn tonight, after showers.

Sink that equipment in....

Whew....a celebratory post.    After tucking the hay rake behind some trees, and parking the hay wagon on high ground, we sank the last of the heavy equipment under cover. 

Getting the hay baler into the metal garage is always interesting, because the garage door opening is barely bigger than the widest part of the baler.   The baler is very long so it has to come in at a sharp angle, and the baler is difficult to back up. 

George drives and I make various hand signals from the ground, indicating if he is about to run into something, like the side of a building or another piece of equipment.  He is largely backing up blind, given the tight space.

This year, we not only got the baler into the metal garage, but the farm tractor too.   In previous years, we parked the farm tractor in the hay barn for the winter.  Since the farm tractor is now in the metal garage, I will not be running into this tractor in the dark, on the way to feeding the sheep....all winter.   I have tended to do that in the past.  Whoo hoo!!    My knees are already feeling better.

I am reaching back to November 1 for this photo, as I didn't have my camera with me today.

Yesterday, we met friends for Thanksgiving - really nice to see them.

Later, George and I stopped in Freeport at LLBean to pick up some bedding and Christmas snow shoes.  

Today it was beautiful and mild.   I brought in a couple of rutabaga to see if they were still good to cook, and we started putting away the hay equipment.   The ground has been so soggy that we've been putting moving off equipment around.   But, today the ground was better.   It always takes a bit of fiddling by the both of us to get the disc mower safely under the overhang behind the barn, but that is done now.

I didn't get nearly what I expected out of the gardens this year, due to problems with my back and leg, both of which are fine now.   I thought that we hadn't made the amount we needed for agricultural land classification purposes this year, which includes both products sold and value of products used on farm.

But, I added everything up today, and we just made it.    Hooray!    Turns out that since I planted more than in the past, I brought in a decent amount of food for our own use, even with losing quite a lot to weeds and lack of picking.   We also sold more hay than last year, which is good.

Things that one does not expect

Beam and metal rod

(1)  Never know what one will find when open up a wall.   This house was built in the 1930s.   The slanted beam may indicate that this side of the house was originally a shed, which was enclosed to expand the house.    Several vertical metal rods appear to be there for structural reasons, but exactly why they were added isn't clear.


(2)  Every so often, I find a mouse in one of the water buckets in the barn.  A mouse falls in during the night, can't get out, and usually drowns before the next morning when the buckets are checked.   It is sad, but I've kind of gotten used to it over the years.

This morning, there was something bigger in a bucket.   A large rat fell in sometime during the night and drowned.   He was floating with his face up and tail down, under a thin, clear layer of ice.    I don't like rats generally, but this was a handsome rat.  

We don't live near a stream or pond.   I sometimes wonder what the wild creatures do for water around here.   There were night-frozen puddles just outside, because of all the rain lately.   But, I guess the open water in the bucket was tempting.   He was trapped in that icy water in the dark.   Sad.

First snow and the vote

Snow on the rose

Snow and roses is a good combination.

Maybe I should tidy up the porch before we trip over things under the snow.      And, we need to...bring up the table by the road; bring in the heavy equipment; oil/grease the tractor; trim hooves; pull up the temporary fencing; bring in the last rutabaga; get snow tires on the car and new tires on the truck; move hay that needs to get moved in the barn; put away pallets; put away tarps; bring in the farm sign (needs repairs); clean out more of the sheep pen....

But, the list of inside-the-house chores looks good this morning too.

Maybe I'll try a bit of both.  But, the important thing is to remember to vote.

Colors

Sticks for kindling

I was out back for a walk, and picked up some sticks.   They have lost so much bark that they look like drift wood.


Quiet day here.   We were supposed to do some equipment maintenance, but decided to give most of the day over to work-related paperwork, along with spaghetti and a wood fire to take off the chill.

With any luck, we'll get to the maintenance next weekend.

Weed shrub fruit

 

Sun out

Nothing like the light after a storm. 

We only got the edge of Sandy here:  puddles, soft ground, and oddly warm wind from the south.