September 4, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
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We moved all our chickens up on the hill and out of the back yard! Oh, happy day! I must admit that I did enjoy seeing them up close every day, but I didn’t like them digging up all my potted plants, eating my giant hostas to nubs, and pooping all over the back deck and picnic tables. Friday, I heard a knock at the front door and, when I opened it, there was a big white hen pecking at her reflection in the storm door window! Enough was enough! Continue Reading →
August 28, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
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We love soup. Homemade soup, that is! I make it in huge quantities and can it, and I make it in smaller batches to enjoy all week when Farmer Bob is out of town. It’s an easy meal for me and I never get tired of it.
You can buy stock in a can or carton in the store, but there’s nothing like homemade, and it’s so easy. It’s the foundation of a good soup and the best thing about making it homemade is that you can add as little or as much salt as suits your taste. All the ingredients are fresh, and you control everything that goes into it. I’m going to show you an easy way to get the most flavorful stock ever. Continue Reading →
August 27, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
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I expected a fun day on Friday and it started out that way, with a couple hours of farm chores with all our happy critters, lunch with one of my farming/canning/quilting friends, Dee Dee, and then a trip to Home Depot for supplies for my next DIY project (more about that soon). I noticed the dark sky in the distance when I set out for home and, with Farmer Bob out of town, I always get a bit nervous about big storms that might blow trees down on our fences on Fox Trot Farm.
We live about 15 miles from town, so I had plenty of time to watch that dark sky the whole way home, and it was plain to see that I was heading for it. As I got within a mile from home, I started dodging debris in the road….tree limbs and leaf litter, and I got more worried. Around the last turn in the road that borders The Back Forty, downed trees blocked the road, so I turned around and headed for a gravel road to detour back to the farm and around the downed trees. Wow! Mother Nature had given all our trees a good sweeping, and everywhere there was a mess of twigs and small leafy branches all over the yard and on the back deck.
I started checking all our animals. Dog kennels fine, Claire & Avery (the petting lambs) and Rosie & Daphne (the dairy goats) fine, chickens and rabbits fine, cats fine, Turk and his rams looked good, honey bees in their houses and buzzing…..and then I went to The Back Forty. Here is what I found: Continue Reading →
August 22, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
3 Comments
Sunday was a busy and fun market day for us here on Fox Trot Farm. We love it when we have customers from other countries, so we were thrilled that our first customer was a Chinese family that drove the whole way from Charlotte to visit us, and the young children sure did enjoy seeing our animals and, especially, petting our bunny rabbits. As a matter of fact, every adult enjoyed petting the bunnies, too, and we know that some folks came out just to see them after shopping in our market. We sold honey and soap and spa cloths and soap savers, cakes and cookies and eggs all afternoon. Our visitors wandered through the flock of chickens to see the lambs and goats, Mr. Peacock, and even the honey bees. We really appreciate all our customers, old and new, and enjoy seeing folks from the community that we haven’t seen for a long time. It’s fun catching up on all their news!
Every morning, either Farmer Bob or I wander outside while the coffee is brewing to let the chickens out of their coops, where they’ve spent the night all locked up and safe from possums and raccoons. This morning was a particularly beautiful early start of the day. Maybe because I worked so hard over the weekend, I particularly appreciated the peace and quiet, and so I grabbed my camera so I could share some pictures with you. Continue Reading →
August 20, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
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Remember our friends Josh and Jason from Goat Daddy’s Farm, where we took our chicken processing class?
Well, I’ve been thinking for some time that our visitors to the farm might enjoy being able to see and pet and learn about rabbits, and having them wouldn’t add too much work for me during the day. I posted a request on Facebook to see if anyone might have a rabbit they’d like to donate to the farm. Josh and Jason sent me a message right away that they had two rabbits they would like to donate, along with their pens and feeders and waterers and food….everything! (You see, they are setting up a Grade A Raw Milk goat dairy and will have 60 baby goats to deal with next spring, and they decided that they need to down size some of their menagerie.) They gave Fox Trot Farm two of the most adorable bunnies…very tame, and both does (females)! Continue Reading →
August 19, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
2 Comments
One time when we were exploring Boston, Farmer Bob and I found a cute little breakfast place in the Italian section of town and tried an all-veggie omelet that was a specialty of the house and fell in love with it. I don’t know what made me think of that omelet yesterday morning….maybe it was the leftover corn on the cob in the fridge….but I decided to treat Farmer Bob to a nice, hearty omelet for breakfast, and I thought you might like to learn how to make it, too, so here you go! (Doesn’t this picture just make your mouth water?)
August 18, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
3 Comments
Farmer Bob and I weren’t happy putting Granny Bee’s super yummy cookies on a paper plate covered with plastic wrap….her cookies deserved packaging worthy of their chewy, honey deliciousness! We looked and looked and finally found the PERFECT bag for Granny’s cookies. Here it is! Continue Reading →
August 17, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
2 Comments
Sunday I had a large order for Granny Bee’s Cinnamon Honey Oatmeal Cookies, so I did a lot of baking over the weekend. I love to bake bread (you can see the cinnamon swirl bread in the picture below), and sold that a couple weekends at our farm market but, since I don’t want to spend all my time baking, I’ve pretty much decided to limit the baked goods to a variety of cookies and pound cakes for now. Maybe I’ll bake bread every once in a while when I have extra time. 😉
Actually, the oatmeal raisin cookies have become quite a big hit, with dozens being ordered as well as the little bags of 3 cookies for a dollar that the children who come to the farm market love. I’ve ordered some really cool packaging for the dozen bags of cookies, and I’ll show that to you just as soon as my order is delivered.
I told Farmer Bob that I was going to give myself a day off on Monday. Since my quilt guilds take a vacation over the summer and I missed seeing everyone, I decided to check out a new quilting group made up of some of my guild members and also new gals that I’d never met. It’s not a guild, and is so new that it doesn’t have a name, but I really like this group that will get together one day a month for a whole day of working on whatever projects we please. I don’t really have time for “just meetings” and being able to chat and work on my projects was a great use of my time, and very relaxing, too. I spent the day making HSTs (half square triangles), and will put them together eventually for baby and throw quilts. Here is my stack of completed HSTs, and another “charm pack” of squares to turn into yet more HSTs. It was a great day! Continue Reading →
August 15, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
6 Comments
When we moved here to South Carolina in the summer of 1985, besides my grandmother, the thing I missed most about Pennsylvania Dutch Country was the food, and scrapple was on the top of that list. Now a Greensboro, North Carolina sausage maker, Neese’s, makes delicious scrapple, but back then the only way I could get scrapple in South Carolina was to make my own. (I’ll give you the recipe towards the end of this post.) Continue Reading →
August 14, 2016
by Deborah Burgess
5 Comments
All the talk everywhere is about “man caves,” but what about the perfect “woman cave?” I’ve been sewing and crafting since before Farmer Bob and I got married, and always had to pull everything out of boxes and bins to work on a project on the kitchen or dining room table, then pack it all away again. Well, after all these years, Farmer Bob and I decided to turn one of the kids’ old bedrooms into my quilting studio! Yay! We gave all the furniture to our nephew and his new wife for the guest room in their new house, and I got busy! Continue Reading →
