New farm slide

New farm slide or so to speak. The above picture features little miss E trying out or new calf hutch as a slide. We could not convince her that it was actually a shelter for the animals.We purchased this at an auction this past weekend for a steal. We are very excited to add it to the pasture since temperatures here are dropping fast lately.

Sweet Potatoes; like you have never seen before.

These above are sweet potatoes that you may find at your local grocery store. 

These are Branch Farm sweet potatoes. Can you see the difference? I hated to put my foot in the picture but I wanted to show just how big these potatoes really are. 

Here comes the wheat

 After many hours of plowing and scraping Farmer D was finally able to plant some wheat on this new pasture at the farm. Here are some pictures of Little Miss E inspecting the sprouts last weekend. She acted like she knew just what she was doing.

Once this wheat is about as tall as Miss E it will be ready to turn the sheep out. We will enclose this area that will allow for additional food gazing through the winter for the animals.

This is her best fish face as she was running to tell me all about what she saw.

Down on Branch Farm

Among the many wonderful things down on Branch Farm I must say that we have the most beautiful sunsets. Not sure if you all can tell but our cow and sheep are in the dim background. This was the wonderful view we have this evening as well left the animals before dinner. Even the dog was enjoying the beautiful sky. It won't be long and I will be able to put a saddle on him and ride him around. As you can see he likes to squeeze between my legs and get a good neck scratch when we are around. He's only five months old and already nearly to my waist. We were told that he should be around 150 pounds full grown. So at that size I am defiantly thinking at least little miss E can learn to ride him around to keep us from having to get her a pony.

Cooking on the Farm

I wanted to share some tips on farm cooking. Now please note that I do not profess to be a good cook but I do enjoy doing it. We have had some wonderful greens start coming into the garden over the past few weeks and I wanted to offer some tips on getting them from the farm to the table.

Green Beans: the Fall green beans we planted are called blue lake. These beans require only snapping prior to cooking. (which is wonderful as oppose to hours for having to get the strings out of them). I usually will cut all the ends of the beans and snap into two maybe even three sections before throwing into the pan. Fill the pan with plenty of water to cover the beans adding lots and lots of salt and garlic salt as well. Then adding chicken broth if you have some or a half a bouillon cube if you don't have the broth. Now most of the time I will bring the beans to a rolling boil and then turn the heat all way done for at least one hour usually two hours being careful to add water when needed.
An easier and faster way to enjoy these beans is steaming them. This works if you are in a time crunch it take around 30 minutes start to finish. Be sure to season them before you eat with salt and garlic salt.

Turnip Greens/Mustard Greens: Cleans leaves well and place in boiling water on the stove. Add a side of fat back. Let cook for 30 to 45 minutes until greens are tender. These are best seasoned with salt, pepper and a tad of butter.

Broccoli: Clean and remove stems. (keep stems if you are in the mood for broccoli and cheese soup you can them to it). Place broccoli in steamer and steam for 20 minutes. Be careful not to over-cook this can cause the broccoli to completely fall apart making for a very messy side dish. Top with salt and butter or Miss E's favorite top with grated cheese.
I have also used the broccoli this week in a stuffed chicken recipe and topped some on a twice baked potatoe. All were delicious. Or I almost forgot the easiest way to enjoy Branch Farm Broccoli is raw with ranch dressing. YUM!

More ideas and tips tomorrow. Sorry I'm tired :)
To be Continued...

In the rear view...

Even though we have sheep this is a first for me. Little Miss E and I drove to the farm the other day and decided to stop and see the sheep. I quickly became aware that we were going to be there for a while... Our sheep whom at first didn't want to be near us now have a sparked interest and are very curious in us. As soon as we opended the door we realized we were surrounded on all sides by them. It appears as if this is the first time they are even encountered a truck... They quickly learned that it made a very nice back and side scratcher for them. Little Miss E and I sat on the tail gate and got a nice rocking back and forth from all the frenzy going on with the sheep.

In the Kitchen continued

Branch Farm Eggs make everything taste better!

We are at it again; baking up a storm in the Branch kitchen this weekend. Add pumpkin muffins, chewy chocolate cookies, zucchini muffins, and french breakfast puffs to the list.

Playing hide and seek

Over the past few days Farmer D has taught little Miss E to play hide and seek outside in the trees. I have to admit I was not happy about this at first thinking that she may choose to hide from me whenever we were not actually playing the game. But after seeing how cute and excited she gets about it I let the fun continue. We are doing some Fall cleaning around the barn this week; (yes I know it's called Spring Cleaning but we are running a bit behind) and when we ventured behind the barn yesterday. This is what we found.

Twenty one egg were pushed in the back corner of the barn in a straw made nest. I guess the chickens have been watching Little Miss E and decided to do some hiding of their own.

Broccoli Bouquet

Thinking back this would have been a much cheaper option for my bridal party to walk down the aisle with. :)
This week we pulled and cook our first head of broccoli harvested here at Branch Farm. This was an exciting event for little miss E since she likes to consume pounds of this stuff per week. Farmer D and I are so proud to be able to feed her some of our very own broccoli. With the increasing number of vegetables coming up this week we will soon have the Fall CSA information up and ready to view. Some of you have been patiently waiting for us to release all the information and we thank you for that... we just wanted to be sure the garden would provide some "Branch" worthy baskets for sale.

In the kitchen...

It happens often that we become over run with eggs and vegetables from the farm. I am quite thankful for it but when I can no longer see the counter tops in the kitchen I know it's time to do some cooking,

Little miss E put in her order for some "choc-cake". Above is  a yummy sour cream cake about to be iced with cream cheese. This helped use some eggs we had sitting out.

Welcomed with my love are our green beans. These are one of my favorites from the garden. With a little snapping these guys are ready to go.

All Natural Pasture Raised Ossabaw Island Pigs

Do you want to be confident in the origin and quality of your food? You can, we are currently selling a total of 8 Ossabaw Island pigs. There are 4 adult males for sale that are all healthy grass fed and great foragers. The adults are priced at $300 each. We also have four male piglets born May 2012 that are ready for a new home. They are $175 each. The Ossabaw Island pig is easy to keep and doesn't require any additional feed if given good pasture to graze on. All of these pigs have been raised on our pastures, grass fed, no chemical, and no antibiotics. You can purchase any of these as breeding stock or we can arrange for delivery to a processor to fill your freezer full of fresh naturally grown pastured pork! This is some of the best pork around, you won't be disappointed.

Please email katiebranch@att.net with any questions or call 706-769-2756 to schedule a time to see them in person.

Stringless Please.

Yup, those are some pretty nice green beans you see! Farmer D brought in this bag as a surprise the other day. We were not expecting these blue lake stringless green beans to come in for another week or so. But to his surprise and mine they are here early. I was so excited to see them that I immediately stopped what I was doing to cook them. These beans I am so pleased to say are stringless meaning all you need to do is wash them, snap them, and cook them. Oh how wonderful that is after years yes years of stringing beans for hours only to eat them and find more stings. Thankfully Farmer D was so kind to plant a new variety this year for us to enjoy! My fingers and my mouth are forever grateful.