Spring activity!

Wow.  I gotta say, I am ready for spring to be here.  The random warmth we had this weekend got me itching for more.  The children and the animals are done with it being cold and gray, too.  I decided that this past Saturday was the day to really get into the beehives to see how they were fairing.  I was quite pleased to see that 100% of our hives have survived to this point.  The bees were very happy to have the sun and warmth.  At the peak of the day the bee yard was filled with bees flying around.  I did give each hive a pollen patty and some syrup just to make sure we're doing everything we can to help them survive.

Happy bees soaking up some sun. 

Raziel, Gandalf, and Agatha are looking forward to more sun also.....With more sun and warmth comes more fresh grass that they can fill up on.  As you can see, their wool coats have grown quite long.  Anytime now we will be getting them shorn. 

 

The chickens have really started to thrive.  We are getting eggs again!  Our hens are 100% free-range.  Because they have access to all the good things chickens should have the yolks are a very vivid orange.  It is so nice to have really fresh eggs again.  We are Ohio Department of Agriculture inspected and approved for eggs.  If inrerested, they are $3/doz on a first come first served basis.  If you contact me ahead of time I can set some aside for you.

Happy chickens picking over some spinach.

And finally, my wild girl just loves to play in the dirt.  I sure did too at her age.  Heck...I still do today.

Miss Willow

As spring gets here we'll be more and more busy.  With that comes more for blog posting!  So yeah...stay tuned!

Seeds, Seeds, and More Seeds!!

It's that time of year again.  Seed order time!  It's an exciting time of year for me.  I love getting to sit down and look through all the colorful pictures and start planning for the upcoming garden season.  I don't have quite as much time this year with another little one to look after, but we'll get there!!  We're planning a few new heirloom tomatoes, hot peppers, and greens this year.  I'm also hoping to add some new flower and herb varieties.  Let's hope 2013 is a better gardening year than 2012 turned out to be!

Canaan and Momma looking at tomatoes.

  

Lovely Lemon Pound Cake

Hello folks!  So it seems that I am finally starting to find the time to sit down and actually get some new posts up for you all.  We've been getting Christmas cookies made, mixing up candies, getting ornaments up...Christmas around here is so much fun with the children!  I decided that to get back into the swing of things I would share my Lovely Lemon Pound Cake recipe that's always a huge hit.  With all the holiday parties and get-togethers going on this time of the year I've had a few people come to me looking for ideas of something relatively easy to make that tastes great.  This cake never disappoints.  And to top it all off.....it's made with honey!!

Lovely Lemon Pound Cake

Here's what you'll need.....

Cake

1 3/4 cups unbleached white flour, spooned in and leveled
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup honey (preferably from your local beekeeper)
5 eggs
3 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Icing
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp. milk or fresh lemon juice

Preheat your oven to 325°F and prepare a 9x5 loaf pan by lining it with parchment paper and then buttering the pan.  The paper helps you to lift the cake right out of the pan.  It'll look something like this... 

Lined and buttered cake pan ready to be filled.

Now you're going to want to combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl.  Whisk these together to mix well and set the bowl aside.  Your dry ingredients are now ready.  Now in another large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer add the butter, sugar, and honey.  Using your mixer (or a really strong arm!) beat these together until very light and fluffy.  I normally use my stand mixer for this, although when I was getting the pictures for this posting I was using a hand-held electric mixer due to the fact that a certain husband of mine managed to break my very nice and very pricey KitchenAid stand mixer.....ehem.....

Mmm...butter, sugar, and honey.....

Now you're going to add the eggs, one at a time.  The reason for this is you want to be sure that the previous egg is well incorporated before the next goes in.  The mixture will loose the "wet" look that it takes on immediately after the egg is added and then you'll know it's time for the next one.  After the eggs it's time to add the lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla.  On another side note...there is something quite wonderful about the smell of lemon zest.  Can you tell I love lemon yet??  Matthew keeps teasing me about all the side note tangents I get on while typing up these posts!  I'm so sorry you poor reader....  

So pretty in it's own special way.....

Anyways!!!  Gently add the dry ingredients patiently waiting aside for their turn to your sweet, buttery, lemony concoction (aka wet ingredients) and mix until well blended.  Use care not to over mix the batter or your cake will turn out a bit tough due to excess gluten development.  Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for about one hour, or until a cake tester JUST comes out clean.  Let the cake sit in the pan for about 15 minutes.  Prepare the glaze.  If you want an even bigger hit of lemon use lemon juice for your liquid.  If you want a milder lemon cake experience, use the milk.  You can add more or less liquid depending on how runny you want it.  I like my glaze on the thicker side so it coats the top a bit more heavily.  Once you have your glaze ready pour it on top of the still warm cake.  Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan.  The glaze will firm up as the cake cools.  Once cool, carefully remove your beautiful culinary creation from it's pan with the help of the parchment paper and place it on a pretty plate to serve.  Store it in a container you can close to keep the cake from drying out if you won't be devouring it right away ;).  I will say, it tastes even better when you let it sit overnight.  The flavors come out even more.  

I really do hope you will give this cake a shot and that you enjoy it as much as my family and friends do.  I should also say that you could make this cake with orange juice and orange zest instead of lemon.  It makes a wonderful variation of the original lemon should you want to try something a bit different!!  Feedback is always welcome!  I'd love to hear some of the variations you come up with.

We here at the farm wish you all a very blessed and warm holiday season.  From our family to yours, Merry Christmas.

  

We're good!

I know people have been wondering what's been up with us lately.  Well, we're good!  Just so very busy.  Fall is now here and that comes with so many new projects and adventures.  I have so many blog post ideas jotted down and pictures have been taken, it's just a matter of finding the time right now.  With each new child brings less "other stuff" time.  I just get a little less sleep now!  I promise to have a proper posting up in the near future.  On a side note, I'm so very happy that fall is here.  I love this time of the year in our little nook of Ohio.  It just gets so very pretty around here.  The farm sits on a little over 200 acres that line and sit close to the Big Darby Creek.  As a result we're in this area with our own little micro-climate.  We have some of the most lovely trees and forest.  We have some really good soil here.  There are many sugar maples and oaks here and the color display in the fall is fit for some of the finest photography.  We've had a really lovely fall this year.  Alright.  Until next time...  

Baby has arrived!

Welcome to the world Canaan Oak Najjar!  He was born safe and sound at home on September 19 at 9:05pm.  He weighed in at 8Ib15oz and was 21.5 inches long.  He's a very peaceful little guy and we're all very smitten with him!

Flaming Hot Pineapple Jam!

I just had to share.....Matthew made his very first jam tonight!  I'm so proud!  Matthew being the chili-head that he is decided on an ULTRA hot pineapple jam.  It has some of the hottest peppers in the world in it...Ghost, Fatalii, Caribbean Red Habanero, Lemon Drop, and Red Cap Mushroom Peppers.  So hot but man...SO GOOD!  They blend so well with the sweet pineapple.  It also has some sweet onion, lime juice, and brown sugar.  We're going to be bringing this to market for those who have a brave palate.  It's certainly not for the faint of heart, but I know there are plenty of people out there who love their heat.  We'll see which one Matthew decides to make next!

Pineapple and Hot Pepper Jam

It's like he's been canning for years.:)

Summer Honey and Bee Clean Up

Hello!  It seems to be taking me more and more time these days to keep up with getting postings up on this blog.  I'm sorry!  Things here have been slowing down a bit farm-wise, only to be replaced with getting everything ready for basically the imminent arrival of Baby 3!  Yeah...I'm kind of just waiting.  Even though I have two other little children and I basically know what to expect, I still feel like I'm just not ready.  Oh well!!  We're very excited and Willow and Ronan are anxious for the new arrival.  Tick tock...
Summer honey is in!  Well, it's been in for a few weeks now but like I said, I've been a bit behind.  Sorry!  It's a really nice batch this year.  Very bright yellow with a crisp, almost sharp taste to it.  I don't mean that in a bad way either.  This time around we started to extract the honey right as the sun was going down.  We don't have an enclosed honey house and if we tried to extract during the daylight hours we would be surrounded by a giant swarm of bees.  They catch scent of the wonderful honey, go back to the hive and signal that they've found a nice food supply, and before too long they're bringing all their friends from home to help suck it up and take it back to the hive!  Now, needless to say this is not very condusive to a smooth extracting session.  Once the sun goes down the bees have gone home to their hives for the night and we can extract without having them surround us!  Here is the most recent honey flowing out of the honey extractor into one of the 5 gallon buckets.  Yum...

And on another note, we had someone ask us what we do with the boxes of frames once the honey has been extracted from them.  Well, one option is to simply put them right back on the hives.  Let the bees start working on putting more honey in them right away.  When we pull the boxes off of our hives we replace them with empty frames right at that moment so the hives are never without a honey super (the box the honey frames are in).  Sooo, when we extract we place the empties boxes close to the hives for the bees to clean.  Again, they catch the scent of that yummy honey and before long the boxes are swarming with bees cleaning out every drop of leftover honey to take home.  This works out for us because we eventually get to get that honey back the next time we extract.  It simply goes back to the hive.  I actually got a short video of the bees cleaning out the boxes the last time we extracted a few weeks ago.  This was the next morning.  It's quite a sight to see.  Oh, and yes.....you do hear my sheep in the background!