Today I'm dreaming of...

Spring!  I would take a few days like this...

Or maybe even a day like this...

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One week with the Kill a Watt

So, Jon and I decided that we should start tracking our energy usage to get an idea of how much energy we were using a month.  There are quite a few home monitoring systems out there.  We went with the Kill a Watt. 

It is a great little device that lets you plug in any device that you want to monitor.  It tracks power consumption, power quantity, voltage and current.  I don't know that much about voltage and current so I was only interested in the kWh.  If you remember from my energy post, at most the farmhouse will be getting 100-150 kWh per month.  And on average the typical American family consumes 750-800 kWh per month. 

The first thing we tracked was our tv.  And when I say tv, I mean also our Wii, DVR and blu ray player which is all plugged in to the same outlet.  I love our DVR, but man, that thing is on all the time!  So after 168 hours or one week exactly our tv setup used 9.98 kWh. 

So, in one month of typical tv usage we would be using approximately 40 kWh.  That's almost half of our electricity for one month on the farm!  We weren't planning on getting cable when we moved to the farm and this just reaffirms our decision.  Number one, I get addicted to reality tv shows very easily and number two, we won't have any time! 

Jon also bought four of Practecol remote control outlet strip.  One of the things that's recommended to help cut energy usage is to control phantom power.  Phantom power is the power that your appliances are sucking up without them being turned on.  With these power strips there is a remote control that lets you turn off the appliance when walking out of the room.  The next thing on our list to monitor is our computers.  We hardly ever turn off our computers, so this should be interesting!

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Someone had lots of fun today...

I wouldn't consider myself a dog person growing up, but this guy has captured my heart!

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The cows are here!

Or they will be in T-minus 26 days...which means we still have a lot of work to do.

1. Fencing (the perimeter fence is shot and interior fencing needs to be bought)
2. Watering system
3. Buy minerals
4. Buy cattle panels
5. Build a cattle chute
6. Buy supplemental hay

If you are familiar with cattle then you guessed it...we have nothing done yet.. and the cattle are coming in 26 days....gulp...

We are getting about 20-22 Dual purpose Shorthorns.  They are a good mix of cows, yearling heifers, a 2 year old bull and a yearling bull.

Oh and to complicate matters, this little snowstorm is hitting us as we speak...

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Time to order some seeds!

 I usually already have my order picked out by now, but I'm behind this year.  Most of my seeds last year came from Seed Savers. 

I had really great luck with my tomatoes.  I had three different kinds last year.  Italian Heirloom was by far my favorite.  If you are looking for a good canning tomato, this is it.  Most of the fruits were in the 1-1.5 pound range.  I even had one that hit over 2 pounds.  I took a picture of it on my phone last year, we'll see if I can get the picture off of it.  Chalks Early Jewel was a good slicing tomato.  It was perfect for putting on sandwiches and very prolific.  My favorite novelty tomato this year was a Green Zebra.  It was so much fun to watch them turn green with green stripes to yellow with green stripes.  Although I have to say it was a little weird eating a green tomato. 

Last year my tomatoes were out of control!  My cages were not sturdy enough for them.

These plants are a couple weeks old.  Potato bush right there in the front.



And the out of control tomatoes begins...cucumber plant down there at the bottom



That is not one big tomato plant, but rather about 8-10 plants.

Needless to say, I learned a lot of about the correct spacing of plants.  Although you can fudge a little from what they say, since most seed packets give directions for commercial plantings.

My absolute favorite veggie I grew last year was Amish Snap Peas.  Absolutely delicious and the more you pick the more they yield. 

And of course, I have to laugh at my potato snafu last year.  I bought both Yukon Gold and Red Gold (can't find it on the website) thinking that I ordered a good all purpose yellow potato and a red potato.  Wrong!  They are both varieties of Yukon Gold, except the Red Gold has red skin...duh!  If you've never grown potatoes, you definitely should.  They have great big beautiful bushes and they are a lot of fun do dig up at the end of the season. 

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Sorry...I was MIA...

I've been sick the past couple days and it's felt like a blur.  In the two years that I've worked as a pediatric nurse every time I get sick, my ears are affected.  Nasty nasty stuff...but I'm back and I feel much better!  More farm posts to come this week...

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Runzas

If you've ever been to the Midwest or lived in the Midwest, you might be pretty familiar with a runza.  It's typically a ground beef, cabbage and dough concoction.  There is also a  chain of restaurants in Nebraska and surrounding states called Runza.  If you are ever at a Runza restaurant get the onion rings, they are the best!

Anyways, back to making runzas.  I made the cabbage/meat mixture the night before because things were not going well for me.  And by not going well, here's what happened. 

Almost ran out of flour, thankfully realized that I had some downstairs...

Went to get some sugar and completely out!  Thanks heavens for good neighbors. 

Sugar is in the mixing bowl and on to add some yeast....and out of yeast. 

So, I threw in the towel and just made the meat mixture and the dough the next day.

Can I just take a minute to talk about how much I love dough? 

I

love

dough...

The end.



Stretch out the dough into a rectangle and put a heaping pile of the meat mixture on top.




Pinch the middle part together and then bring the sides up to meet the middle. 



Try not to drop any cabbage/meat mixture on the floor, because this dude will snap it up in a hurry.  You can just see the pleading on his face... 



And done!



Enjoy some runzas!  This version is slightly different from the restaurant version.  I keep wanting to add a little cream of chicken soup or something to make it a little less dry and I keep forgetting.  Maybe next time!  These are also really great to make with swiss cheese and mushrooms.

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