Folk Remedy for a Bee Sting or Wasp Sting…

The Little Farmgirl was playing outside a few days ago and she got stung by a wasp.  It was hiding inside the tire swing and she put her hand on top of it and the rest is history…

We had some friends over, so she didn’t come inside right away.  By the time she showed me about half an hour later, her hand was very swollen.  I mixed some baking soda and water and put that on her hand.  Baking soda will neutralize the venom in people who are not allergic to bee stings.  (In other words, if you’re allergic to bee stings, don’t think baking soda can replace your Epi Pen… But for the rest of, baking soda works great in a pinch!)



You’re supposed to put the baking soda and water paste on the sting as soon as it happens.  In this case, she didn’t tell me about it in time and the baking soda wasn’t all that helpful.

But then I got a crazy email forwarded to me the next morning.  I wasn’t sure if it was true or not, but it suggested putting a penny on the bee sting.  Apparently the copper in the penny draws out the venom. 

So we tried it!
 

And it worked!  Who would have guessed?

Breakfast Pizza!

Farmgirl created a “new” recipe a few mornings ago that she wanted to show you…

Here it is!  Breakfast Pizza!

First, she got a waffle and spread peanut butter on it.  (Papa the farmer makes great gluten free waffles!  I keep telling him he needs to write a cookbook!)  Over the peanut butter she put Peach Sauce.  Peach sauce is just my simple way of preserving peaches from our trees… I blend them up, pour the puree in mason jars and voila!  Peach Sauce.  On top of that she sliced bananas and strawberries, then she drizzled a little applesauce over the whole thing (like the cheese on a vegetable pizza)…

She was so pleased with her creation that she asked me to take pictures and share them online! 

Now let’s take a closer look at her handiwork: 

Garlic Spaghetti

 

When I first got married my mother in-law brought our niece for a visit.  This little niece is so super-duper cool that I was pretty much willing to bend over backwards and do anything she wanted.  (Bad aunt!  Spoiling the 7 year old!)  Every night I would ask her what she wanted for dinner and make whatever her little royal highness requested.  (This was obviously in the days before I had children!)  One night she asked for spaghetti.  Easy-peasy, right?  So I cooked the noodles, poured the canned spaghetti sauce over it and served it.  And my sweet little niece looked…. disappointed.  “That’s not spaghetti” she duly informed me. 

Um… It’s not?  Let’s see… Noddles… sauce…  Looks like spaghetti to me.  So she and her grandma taught me how to make “real” spaghetti… And let me tell you… It’s pretty good!

First, you boil the noodles according to package instructions.  Please don’t use plain white noodles… It will taste good, but it will hurt my feelings.  My favorite pasta is quinoa pasta, which is gluten free.  If you must use plain white noodles, would you please mix it half-and-half with multigrain noodles, just to make me happy?  Thank you! 

So, after you drain the noodles, saute some chopped garlic in the bottom of your noodle pot.  Pour the noodles back in and add a little olive oil.  Then add about a teaspoon of salt and a handful of fresh, chopped parsley.  Lastly, add 1/4 – 1/2 cup of Nutritional Yeast Flakes.  Then tell me if this isn’t one of the most delicious noodles dishes you’ve ever had!

Red Clover Drink

I mentioned in an earlier post that we've had a lot of red clover this year.  One of my readers suggested making juice out of it.  We know – from trying the Red Clover Rice the other day - that the flowers are sweet, and my reader said that the chlorophyll in the leaves is excellent and not to be wasted.  So we tried it.  We picked some red clover and washed it, then put the clover in a blender with water:



We added some honey and some lemon juice and blended it all up.  Then we strained all the pulp out of it:



With the right combination of honey and lemon it turned out pretty well… and it was very pretty with the red flowers in it as a garnish!

How to Make Sushi - vegan sushi, that is!

Ever wondered how to make sushi?  Well, here's an easy way!

First I take a sheet of dried seaweed and fold it in half.  Then I bend it backwards and fold it in half again, along the same fold.  This creasing and re-creasing will break it in half.

Then I take a scoop of warm rice and place it on the seaweed.  Seasoned rice is delicious!  In this example I have used leftover red clover rice that was featured in a blog post earlier this week.

 

Then I just slowly begin to roll... The heat from the rice will help the seaweed to stick to itself.  If I wanted to get really fance I could put avacado and vegetables inside like raw carrots, onions, cucumber cut julienne-style....  But in this case, I was hungry and just wanted to eat so nothing fancy here.  Sorry about that!

And before you know it, you're done! 

 

The only problem at our house with making these is that the Little Farmhands really, really love them!  I can't seem to make them fast enough!  In fact, the first "rule" that I had to lay down with they were babies was, "No eating seaweed between meals!!!"  That's probably not typical and I can't guarantee that your children will like seaweed and "sushi rolls" as much as mine do, but at least they can have fun making them!

Clover Rice

Over the past couple of weeks I have been reflecting on our farm's first year.  Life has gotten in the way this week and I won't be continuing the series of articles I have planned.  Don't worry, I'll come back to it (because I still have some fantastic giveaways in store!).  But for now I want to change gears and share some great recipes with you over the next few weeks.  Ok, some of the posts aren't about great recipes... but they're still good posts! 

Last winter we (ok, not me – it was Papa the Farmer) planted crimson clover in the vegetable beds as a cover crop.  So right now we have an abundance of these beautiful red flowers!  I know just enough about herbs to know that I have something really special here, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. 

So I did what any modern, self-respecting Farmlady would do.  I posted the question on Facebook!  And here are some ideas I came up with:



Red Clover Rice:
I was a little bit unsure about this, but It turned out really good!  It was a bit sweet and it would make an interesting breakfast dish.  First I put a pot of brown rice on the stove to boil.  (I used 6 cups of uncooked rice and 18 cups of water).  In the meantime I went down to the garden and picked red clover blossoms.  (Note to self:  Good thing I had a visitor here to turn down the stove!  It took longer in the garden than I expected and I could have had a big mess!)

When the rice was almost ready I added 1 1/2 cups of olive oil.  I think I probably should have added half that amount… or maybe even just a third or a quarter of that amount.  Anyway, I also added 3 tsp of salt.  Then I just poured the flowers in the pot:

and stirred…

The flowers got soft and sort of broke apart, but it gave the rice a lovely, slightly sweet flavor.  We ate the rice as a side dish the first day…



The second day we rolled it up into sheets of seaweed  and made “sushi.”

In a few days I’ll be posting instructions on how to make your own sushi, so be sure to check back!

Living The Dream Part 1: Setting Goals

To celebrate the Good Old Days Farm’s 1st Birthday I have been writing about how we decided to leave corporate America in favor of farming, and the spiritual journey I have taken since we made this decision.  
 
But a spiritual journey is never without its practical implications. 

Our farm’s first birthday is a good time to evaluate how far we’ve come and where we want to go.  I’ve been thinking a lot this past week and I have some exciting surprises up my sleeve!  While I work at getting those ready for you, I am going to be posting a series of articles on some of the practical steps we have taken to bring us where we are today.  These steps have been so helpful to us and I know they could help anybody!

My life changed dramatically when Papa the Farmer came home.  Suddenly I went from being a housewife and mother to being a housewife, mother, homeschool teacher, FarmLady and student!  (I had realized that with more knowledge and skills I could really help to support Papa the Farmer’s dream and so I signed up for some fabulous courses in Nutrition, Herbalism and Holistic Health!)  With all this going on, I needed to get organized!  After all, a big goal in having a family farm was to simplify our life… and for a while, my life wasn’t feeling very simplified.

Over the past year, Papa the Farmer and I have gone crazy reading and studying about how to take a crazy idea and be successful at it.  This coming week, I would like to share with you a little of what I have learned. 


#1 – Set Goals.  Write them Down.  Be Detailed about HOW and WHEN You Will Achieve Them.
If you don’t write down your goal, the 3D’s will hit you:  You’ll get distracted, you’ll be derailed and then you’ll be discouraged.  The mere act of writing your goals down on paper cements them into your brain.  Life will throw distractions your way, but it will be easier to get back on track if you have taken the time to think through your new plan.

Being detailed about how you will accomplish your goal makes the difference between having an achievable plan and having a pie-in-the-sky plan. 

One of my goals is to raise Godly children.  Ok, that’s a great and lofty goal, but how am I going to actually do that?  Well, I have a basket prepared for our family worship times.  Each morning I sit with my children and we study one page from a book (with accompanying flashcards) called Proverbs People (by Rick and Marilyn Boyer).  My Bible is in the basket too, so it is handy for reading the passages in Proverbs to the children.  The other thing we keep in our basket is our family’s Blessings journal so we can discuss what we have to be thankful for and record it together.  By putting everything in one place I have set myself up for success!  We won’t get distracted by looking for the book we need and a pen that writes….  it’s all in the basket!  I have also made a commitment to myself to only discipline after I have consulted a book called For Instruction In Righteousness.  This is a book that helps me to direct my discipline to the specific area that I am trying to correct.  I don’t keep this book on the bookshelf, where it will get mixed up with other books.  Instead I keep it inside one of my kitchen cupboards where I can grab it quickly and easily.  You see?  With an actual plan to implement, each day I am able to take another little step closer toward reaching my goal!

Papa the Farmer used to be good friends with Kalpana Chawla (the astronaut who died when the Columbia exploded.  For a neat YouTube video about her life, click here).  She would always tell people “Reach for the stars!”  Now there’s advice from a lady who knows what she’s talking about!  Who would have thought that a little girl from rural India really would grow up to realize her dream of flying through the stars? 

What are your goals?  Do you have a plan to achieve them?  Please leave a comment telling me about it!  Hearing from you would make my day!