About Maisy

I'm a 40-something female, Wife of one, and Mother of 4 whom are 14 to 3 years in age. We home-educate in the old sense of the word "educate" with a Biblical Agrarian Worldview. We live on a 1/2 acre plot of land, not a farm, but it's an Agrarian worldview that I have, hence "pastoralfarms" beautiful land (garden), in other words. Hope for the future.

On Taco’s and Farmers Breakfast

We are having Taco’s for dinner tonight. I’m not making them, the children are. I have recipes on this site, things I make up, and they use either that, or a printout of it to make dinner.

This is the recipe link … pastoralfarms.us/2009/09/18/taco-ground-meat-filling/

We still make it the same way, only I have a preference for pure ANCHO chili powder instead of “any old mix of chili and spices that is sold as ‘chili powder’ ” Ancho is a type of chili, not a brand.

I also put a healthy dose of Tabasco sauce in for a bit more zip. As time goes on we’ve grown to LOVE Tabasco sauce in Taco’s as well as in a breakfast that I call “farmers breakfast” which I am not sure if I’ve written it down in a post here or not. — I’ll have to write it down, it’s not something I’ve posted the recipe for (though I know my son did on his blog ;) )

It’s something that my eldest son and I enjoy having every so often, not every day, nor every other day. Basically something that many would have a problem with: potatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, butter, sea salt, tabasco sauce, eggs, cream, tabasco sauce, tabasco sauce, and cheddar cheese. So it’s something we really like, and others would think “How strange for breakfast, garlic?!!” Yeah! :)

I’ll post a link here when I write a new post for it.

Spring Report

It’s April now. Spring is moving on. The Apple trees have already finished blooming mostly. They are our last spring blooming trees every year. Both the Yoshino’s and the Apple trees were very early this year. Usually the Apple trees don’t START to bloom until sometime in April.

The Yoshino’s usually last until nearly April, so they were very, very early since that was so long ago now that they had blooms. :(

My Peonies are setting buds and getting bigger (peonies regrow the bush every spring, btw)

First Peony Bud

My Knockout Roses are really getting full, setting a ton of buds, with many opening and already open and already spent already.

Here’s one photo I have on Flickr of one particular … with many more photos there … go ahead and click through them all by clicking on the photo which will take you to Flickr, find the Set and comment on any you wish to there.

Shy Beauty

Eastern Redbud in Full Bloom

This is a partial view of our Eastern Redbud tree in the backyard. It’s in full bloom, has been for a few days now. It’s absolutely gorgeous. The trunk is visible, somewhat. It’s twisted around like that due to a dog we had chewing the sapling to a nub, then I let it regrow and it grew two distinct trunks, I trained them to curve around each other. I really like the look, and it’s only like that due to a dog.

I guess others would have given up on it, but I don’t cull unless there’s a really good reason to. This being the only Redbud tree we have, it was worth it in the end.

My Yoshino’s Full Bloom!

My Yoshino's Full Bloom!

Originally uploaded by CrazyMaisy.

The tree on the left is past peak already, and the ones to the right are right at peak bloom now (started yesterday afternoon).

Usually these trees are in sync with their blooming periods but the one to the left was way ahead of the other two this Southern Spring March 2012 with first blooms opening March 10th.

Roast Chicken & Stuffing

I’m roasting two organic chickens right now, stuffed with white spelt bread stuffing.

The stuffing is my own recipe.

I made a loaf of bread in my Cuisinart bread machine on Friday for this purpose. 3+ cups of White Spelt Flour, 1 1/2 tsp. yeast, 1 cup water, 1 Tbsp. Honey, 1 egg, 1 tsp. salt, 3 Tbsp. butter. I added more flour as needed for the dough. I used the 1. White Bread setting, med. loaf size and med. browning.

The loaf was perfect, so much so I wished I had made it for sandwiches, but so it goes.

I’ll try to make it again and get the same result for other uses later.

I cubed the bread using a bread knife after the loaf cooled down, then put the cubes into a gallon freezer bag. I put that into a deep drawer until I needed it for the stuffing.

Today I diced 1 sweet onion, melted 1 stick (1/2 cup) of butter in a large saucepan, added the onion and let that simmer until softened. I also put in some celery seed (I guess about 2 tsp.) and a lot of dried rubbed Sage (1/4 cup or more!) then the bread cubes and a pint of Chicken Stock. Stirred it around well.

A little more than half of that fit into the chickens. The rest will be baked in a casserole dish later.

I didn’t add any salt to the stuffing since the bread was nice bread and I used commercial Organic Chicken Stock. To the out of the bird stuffing I did just add a little bit of sea salt, and a large handful of raisins and half an apple chopped. That’ll bake until it’s done.

I’ll make chicken gravy using more Organic Chicken Stock, butter & flour, and sea salt to taste. Basatmi Rice, and either peas or green beens.

We’ll also have white spelt yeast rolls, thanks to my daughter taking over that duty. She does an excellent job making clover leaf rolls, as I used to do when I was a teenager too. :)