A Simple Prairie Life

In The Kitchen

Coconut Bark…

May 11, 2010May 11, 2010 Gretchen

Coconut Bark:

6 T coconut oil, virgin, expeller-pressed

1 t vanilla extract

1 ½ T unsweetened cocoa powder

1-2 T pure maple syrup

2 T unsweetened shredded coconut

¼ c pecans

Melt coconut oil in a small pan over low heat. Add vanilla extract, cocoa, and maple syrup. Mix with wire whisk until completely dissolved.

Add remaining ingredients and mix well.

Pour into a 9×13 pan lined with wax paper. Place in freezer for 15 minutes to harden.

Once it hardens, break it into bite-sized pieces. Keep in freezer.

The recommended dosage for coconut oil is 3-4 Tablespoons a day. This is best divided and taken three times a day before each meal. It’s best to start out with smaller doses of coconut oil to prevent die off. Die off is the result of toxins being removed from the body. Diarrhea may result, but this is not actually a bad things as this is a sign your body is being flushed of toxins and offending organisms.

Health Benefits of Coconut Oil “The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc.”

“The human body converts lauric acid into monolaurin which is claimed to help in dealing with viruses and bacteria causing diseases such as herpes, influenza, cytomegalovirus, and even HIV.”

Here is where I buy my coconut oil and the best price I have found.

I cook our eggs in it, spread on toast or biscuits, use it as a lotion and night cream, mix into smoothies, anytime I need to oil a pan for cooking, and of course in coconut bark.

It is delicious and nutritions. It heals cuts on hands, good for chapped lips, rub on scalp to help fight dandruff. The list goes on and on.

Animals, In The Kitchen

Llama Treats…

May 10, 2010February 19, 2012 Gretchen

Hank gives these treats two hooves up….I got the recipe from Gentle Spirit Llamas . I adjusted my recipe below.

Camelid Cookies

1 c shredded carrots

1 c uncooked oatmeal

1 c flour

1 t sea salt

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1 T sugar (I omit the sugar)

1/4 c molasses

1/4 c water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix sticky ingredients in a bowl. Measure out balls about the size of a teaspoon and place on a foil covered cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

**As always, be mindful of any possiblity for choke. While some do feed whole apples and carrots, cutting them into smaller pieces is a good idea. Additionally, be knowledgeable around what plants or garden produce might be poisonous such as potato and tomato vines. (from Gentle Spirit Llamas website by Cathy Spalding)

In The Kitchen

Dark Rye Bread…

May 6, 2010January 17, 2020 Gretchen

I found this recipe on All Recipes. I made a few changes and it turned out WONDERFUL. I love this bread.

I used my bread machine. It is important to put the ingredients into the bread machine in the order listed below or follow your bread machine guidelines.

Dark Rye Bread

1 1/8 c water (I use warm water)

1 T vegetable oil (I use extra-virgin olive oil or coconut oil)

2 T molasses

1 t salt (I use sea salt)

3 T coconut sugar

1 T unsweetened cocoa powder

2 c all-purpose flour (unbleached)

1 1/2 c rye flour

1/4 t caraway seed (I don’t love them, so I skipped them)

2 t yeast

Set bread machine to dough cycle. Let rise once in machine. Remove from machine and place in oiled bread pan. Allow to rise another time until doubled in size. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Animals

Sheep…

May 5, 2010May 3, 2010 Gretchen

I spent the morning taking photos of our sheep out to pasture. They are so wooly and cute right now. I just love the way they look out on fresh spring grass.

Texel Ewe

Usually hair sheep can keep their tails, unlike wool sheep. Here is Paige. She was once a bottle lamb at mom and dad’s who made her way to our farm.

Dorper Ewe grazing. (Shorty)

Dorper Ram Lamb

Dorper Ram Lambs headed out to pasture.

New hair sheep, Dorper, baby nursing.

The two proud papas.

Merle is up front and Cash is in the back.

Romanovs are flighty little sheep, but really make for nice lambs. Here are two Romanov/Dorper cross ram lamb twins.

Texel Ewe munching. (Burns)

Texel Lamb

Texel Ram Lamb

Texel mama and baby

Texel ewe grazing

Texel ewe lamb…you want to talk about a stout little critter. Texels make for some hefty little lambs.

Texel ewe lamb

Another chunky little Texel ewe lamb by her mama’s side. Texels are nice heavy milkers who can provide milk for their lambs for many weeks.

A lost little soul up in the lots. He misplaced his mama.

Texel ramb lambs

We had an SUV stopped out on the hill overlooking our pasture just watching them. They sat up there for 20 minutes or so…taking it all in. Hank the llama and over 100 sheep grazing away.

We will be holding on to our lambs until fall in hopes of a good market. Until then we will try our hardest not to get too attached and take good care of them.

Animals

Free-Range Chickens…

May 4, 2010May 3, 2010 Gretchen

Our chickens have the run-of-the-house so to speak. They can go anywhere on our farm and even off our farm if they chose to. Luckily, the road and the neighbor’s fields haven’t occurred to them yet.

Our banties are generally our most mobile. They would rather forage than eat dumb ol’ chicken feed any day.

A few Rhode Islands have made their way into the bantie coop, so the little blonde chickens are rubbing off on the red heads.

They just work and work…and throw mulch everywhere all day long.

Let the destruction continue.

We may not have mulch around our blueberry bushes, apricot bushes, etc. but at least there shouldn’t be a bug to be seen either.

Around the Homestead

Dad’s Building…Bad Weather…

April 30, 2010May 3, 2010 Gretchen

With high winds for two days in a row and then possibly a tornado touching down at mom and dad’s there is a lot of cleanup and rebuilding to be done.

Dad lost one of his new sheep buildings. It blew all the way over onto it’s roof landing on some of his sheep. Him and mom went outside at 5:30 am and with the tractor lifted the building up. They were able to pull four lambs out alive, but 2 ewes and 2 babies weren’t so lucky.

This is the front entrance to the building.

Where the forks of the tractor buckled the roof trying to get the babies out.

More holes in the roof.

Here is the foundation where the building used to set. It just broke off at the ground and blew over. It could have been a lot worse with so many sheep laying behind the building out of the wind that night. It was a huge loss, but still grateful it wasn’t any worse.

With forecasts for extremely high winds on the way again, Dad went out early and pulled all the pro-panel off by himself to try to salvage as much of it as he could to rebuild. The roof is still underneath all the wood frame. He will have to pull it off also to see if he can’t salvage some of it as well.

Until then the mamas and babies are out in the element with no shelter from the cold spring rain, hail, and storms that come with spring in Kansas.

Around the Homestead, Gardening

Spring Weeding…

April 30, 2010May 3, 2010 Gretchen

I am not proud of this, but this is what happens when you use straw mulch that hasn’t aged for a year:

All the straw had sprouted and was starting to choke out my new plants.

This is what it looks like after nearly three weekends of weeding and tending to everything.

There are gallon cans around nearly every small plant on our property. The chickens get to roam and do as they please so we have to protect small plants from their rooting around.

Animals

Orphan Lamb…Growing up so Fast…

April 28, 2010May 3, 2010 Gretchen

Remember this little lamb?

Well here she is now:

We named her Annie and she is now like a puppy to us. She comes when she’s called, cries when we pull in the driveway, follows us around in the lots and when we walk the pasture.

It’s hard to take pictures of a bottle lamb. Generally they are at your feet and when you back away to snap a picture they are step-for-step with you.

Here is what most bottle lamb pictures look like. We just love her and so glad she grew up big and strong!

Animals

Grandma’s Cats…

April 19, 2010April 19, 2010 Gretchen

Sunday was cat trapping day at Grandma’s. She has 13 cats and wanted her females spayed so the cycle would not continue toward an uncontrollable number of cats. You think 13 already sounds uncontrollable. Try thinking about 5-7 females having litters of 5 or so kittens. Boo….population explosion! We just could not let that happen.

Grandma actually caught the first two in this dog crate. They went crazy spilling their food and trying to find a way out.

With all the comotion from the first two there was no way the other cats were falling for that trick. So we had to break out the live traps. Randy got the traps all set, and I put some sof t food at the back of each one. Then we headed inside and Grandma, Randy, and I watched as the cats slowly crept back around the feeding area and one by one got locked in the traps.

We marked the males with purple marking paint and let them go and moved the females one by one into the dog crates and loaded them into the back of Grandma’s pickup. They spent the night in the garage, and Mom took them to the vet first thing this morning.

One apparently got loose at the vet’s office, but all have been recovered and all is well. We will pick them up tomorrow for a new life on the farm.

We still have 4 more to catch and either take to the vet to be spayed or if they are male mark them and let them go. Our vet is also marking all the females once they are spayed so we won’t accidently haul them back in to her.

Have a great Monday!