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Farmer Harrassment – Wordless Wednesday

Yesterday we received something in the mail. I knew it was something to do with our farm when it was addressed “Resident” in sloppy handwriting. You have to understand the location of our farm to get why we receive these kinds of things. We are on a very busy rural road. It was one of the pitfalls of moving here. We almost didn’t move because of how close the house is to the road and the traffic we get here.

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. This is what we received:

FFR Farmer Harrassment-edit

This isn’t the first time something was dropped in the mail or mailbox but part of me wonders if it doesn’t constitute “farmer harrassment”? Have these people actually raised poultry? Have they tried a free range, no soy, organic egg? Or are they just being an overly concerned suburbanite? It baffles me the nerve of some people.

Our chickens and turkeys quite often are out of their portable coops. They have been getting braver or more curious and going closer to the road – silly things! Otherwise they are happy as they free range around the property all day. We have people telling us our eggs are some of the best they’ve tasted and we’ve been selling out of eggs for weeks. There’s a reason for that….they are not cooped up all day on a dirt floor because we have space for them to roam. They get fresh air, sunshine and all the pasture delights they can find! We haven’t seen but two ticks all year and we believe our chickens are the reason.

P.S. The FDA is trying to force free range egg producers to restrict hens from outdoor access or go out of business. Read more at Cornucopia Institute.


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Recipes Using Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar #HeinzVinegar

“I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Heinz Vinegar. I received a product sample to facilitate my review and as a thank you for participating.”

We like using vinegar for many things around our home, not just for cooking but also for cleaning. Did you know if you sprinkle baking soda and then pour vinegar over it and scrub it whitens and cleans like a chemical cleaner but without all the harmful fumes or potential side affects? We use apple cider vinegar for our horse and cows intestinal needs (the nice way of writing about it since I will be talking food in a few minutes!)


Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar

We recently tried a couple of different varieties of Heinz® Vinegar: Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar and Heinz® Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar. Pretty similar products except the unfiltered apple cider vinegar is cloudy and thicker. Both have similar tastes and results in the recipes we used them in, in my opinion. I had never tried either of these products before, just Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar. They also have a few other varieties as well.

Heinz® describes their apple cider vinegar products in this way:

Bottled at the peak of freshness, Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar begins with fine quality apples and crystal clear water to deliver a mellow flavor ideal for brightening up salads, flavoring a main dish, pickling or topping off a cool beverage. For vinegar in its most natural and wholesome form, , check out Heinz Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar. It retains the “mother” of the vinegar – a compound created naturally during vinegar’s fermentation process, and is best used in cooking to bring out refreshing flavors, as well as other unique uses.

Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar 1

Badly Burned Pot Cleaned Up Using Vinegar

Heinz Vinegar Cleaning Test-edit

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

Sweet and Sour Meatballs-edit

adapted from Ruby Hatfield’s recipe in one of the Cooking for Miracles cookbooks I purchased as a teenager to support the children’s hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Serves 4-6

Meatballs

1 lb ground beef
1 egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
1 small onion (small or fine)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1-2 tablespoon ground sage

Mix all ingredients together and form into balls. Brown, pour off any excess fat.

Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 cup water
1/3 cup cane sugar
3 tablespoons Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar or Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar, whatever you have on hand.
1 can pineapple chunks with juice included
1 tablespoon soya sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Amino
3 tablespoons ketchup

Add together. Simmer for 30 minutes. Thicken with 2 tablespoons cornstarch, mixed in 1/4 cup cold water. I often double this for more sauce. Well, now we probably triple or quadruple!

Sweet and Sour Meatballs and Rice-edit

We serve it with rice and veggies or a salad.


Berry Vinaigrette

from Heinz Website

Apple Cider Vinegrette 1

A light and refreshing dressing. Also a wonderful accompaniment to grilled salmon or chicken. Can be made a day in advance. We added sunflower seeds to our salad.

Heinz Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing 1

Ingredients

2/3 cup Heinz® Apple Cider Vinegar** (we used Heinz® Unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar)
1/4 cup sugar**
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 cups cut berries (raspberries, strawberries or blackberries)

Directions

Whisk all ingredients together in a medium bowl. Cover and store in refrigerator. Serve at room temperature. Can be made a day in advance. **If preferred: Replace with Heinz® Distilled White Vinegar Use 1/3 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup Makes about 2 cups Prep Time: 5 minutes.

You can gather more recipes here, as well as visit the Heinz Vinegar Pinterest board.


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Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

Our 18 month old puppy, Padfoot, loves to eat. We try to eat as much organic as possible ourselves and try not to leave our pets behind in that process. All of our animals are fed organic feed, with the exception of our horse but we are not going to eat him or products produced by him. We tried him on an organic grain briefly but because of how worn down his teeth are he couldn’t chew it properly.

Be_Pawsitive_logo


Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats

BePawsitive 1-edit

When we were invited to do a review of Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats we were very interested trying these for our pooch.

Padfoot BePawsitive-edit

Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats are loaded with rich fruits and berries. When you buy a box of Be Pawsitive treats you provide a box of treats for a shelter dog too.

Customers can choose from one of three monthly subscription options for as low as $18 per month. Subscription plans are as follows: monthly plan at $24/month, $66 for three months ($22/month) or $108 for six months ($18/month). Customers can also give the treat box as a gift. For more information or to order Be Pawsitive’s monthly treat box, please visit www.bepawsitive.com. The “Buy One, Give One” campaign is part of Be Pawsitive’s company philosophy, and is available at all times.

Be Pawsitive Organic Pet Treats Review

Padfoot responded really well to the treats we received from Be Pawsitive. Our daughter used them only for training. He has been sitting when anyone comes over to him, he is coming better and listening more.

He loved the rawhide card and had so much fun with it! We think he thought it was a toy at first because he acted really fiesty and wanted to play, as you can see from his playful stance in the photo below.

Padfood with Crunch Card-edit

Padfood with Crunch Card 2-edit

Padfoot BePawsitive 2-edit

Padfoot BePawsitive 3-edit

We also received “power berry” dog biscuits. Not only did Padfoot love them but our cats also liked them! The ingredients are all natural and organic and almost all the ingredients except the olive oil and bananas come from the USA – yay!

Be Pawsitive organic pet treats gets two thumbs up from us!


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Shopping for a New Tea Kettle

This is a featured post.

We drink a lot of tea in our house. Since we mostly drink decaffeinated tea, the children also drink it. I’ve never owned an electric tea kettle, we’ve always had one that you heat on top of the stove. My parents always had one electric kettle and one for the stove, if I remember correctly.

Here’s a photo of our two year old tea kettle. I really like it, but it’s missing the knob on the top cover and wait until you see inside! The outside will actually clean up for the most part with a good scrubbing.

FFR Tea Kettle-edit

The inside of the tea kettle seems to have a lot of salt or sediment build up making the kettle that much heavier. It’s all around the sides and on the bottom. This photo does not really show the full extent of the build up but gives you a good idea:

FFR Inside Tea Kettle-edit

I like a nice looking tea kettle and I really liked this green one, but I have no idea what kind I would buy next so I am appealing to all of you for recommendations! What brand, style, electric or on the stove tea kettles do you recommend? Leave your recommendations in the comment section!


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TWR360 Free Christian Programming

TWR360 Faith For Your World 2

Even though TWR is the world’s largest Christian radio broadcaster with missionaries around the world and has been around for nearly years, I think this is the first time I have heard about it. They have created a brand new beta consumer platform TWR360 and are harnessing the power of technology in the digital age to reach new listeners for Christ. As I stated, the site is currently in beta and the official consumer launch is January 1; new programming is being added between now and the end of the year. What a great free Christian programming resource.

TWR360 Free Christian Programming

Like any other online account creation, creating a TWR360 account is very easy.

Here are my favorite programming:
Unshackled!
Adventures in Odessey (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Bible Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Children’s Story Hour (listed under the program schedule)
Family Life Today

I found the site a little hard to navigate and the search engine for the site didn’t seem to bring up programs I searched for that were on TWR360’s programming schedule. So I think that is something they should improve upon during this beta stage before their official launch in January 2014. Otherwise I thought it was a resource Christians and others should know about as they have a decent variety in their programming schedule.

You can find TWR360 on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.


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BabyGanics

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.

I am what you may consider a “Clean Freak.”  With a toddler and an infant in the house I am always trying to clean to keep the germs away.  Normally I have to wait until my kids are in another room because of the chemicals.  Not anymore thanks to BabyGanics.

BabyGanics1

BabyGanics has a complete line of household and personal care products that are safe and effective to be used around babies.  All of their ingredients are plant based, making them non-toxic and hypoallergenic.  I had the pleasure of trying an All Purpose Cleaner from BabyGanics.  I was anxious to start spraying, and I did not even have worry about where the kids were since it had no Parabens, Sulfates, Phthalates, or Toxins.  I sprayed my kitchen counters and was pleasantly surprised by the smell.  Some cleaners can be so overwhelmingly strong, but the BabyGanics All Purpose Cleaner in Lavender scent was light and fresh.  Compared to my usual All Purpose Cleaner, I did not have to use as much of the BabyGanics cleaner to get the job done.

BabyGanics2

This cleaner was great.  I cleaned my entire kitchen including counters, appliances, and highchair with my son running around.  I cannot wait to use it on everything else in the house.  BabyGanics sells everything from Household Cleaners to Baby Washes and Creams.  Their products are made in the U.S.A., completely recycable, and never tested on animals.  BabyGanics products are available online as well as many stores including Target and Walgreens.  Check out their website to see all they have to offer!

www.BabyGanics.com


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Turkeys, Turkeys and More Turkeys – Wordless Wednesday

Last week one of our customers on our farm Facebook page shared this video:

I was laughing a hearty laugh by the end because we technically started with a flock of 30 laying hens….Well, we actually started with a 27 year old horse, but he was not onsite until THIS year. Then we got our dog, our turkeys, rabbits, ducks, cats, a cow…..and there we have it a complete farm!

Since we lost 70% of our Narragansett turkeys, I went on a hunt for more locally. I found nine poults, plus five eggs, which we are hatching out. An Amazon gift card helped pay for an incubator. You know you are farm-crazed when your spare money and gift cards are spent on farm stuff! We also have some Midget White eggs in the incubator too. Our hen, Brownie, is also sitting on three. I want to see if she can hatch some herself since she’s so broody.

Here are our 6 week old Narragansetts, probably closer to 8 weeks now, we purchased from a local farm who hatches out their own eggs, quite successfully I might add:

FFR Narragansetts 1
The first two…

FFR Narragansetts 2
The last two…

Then we got 2-3 week old Narragansett poults a week and a half ago from a little farm that also hatches out their own eggs:

FFR Narragansetts 3

This next photo is of Junior holding one of the 2-3 week old poults:

FFR Jr. with Narragansetts 4

Our Bourbon Red turkeys have finally started laying. I believe we have a 2-3 eggs to add to the incubator, making that a total of 13-14. We’ll see how many hatch.

Never thought I’d become a heritage breed turkey farmer, but here I am with 25 turkeys, plus the additional 13-14. Turkeys, turkeys, and more turkeys! They sure will be tasty this winter!


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Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review & Giveaway

Faith and Family Reviews received the following product in exchange for writing a review. While we consider it a privilege to receive products to review, our reviews are our honest opinion and thoughts of the product.


Flourish Magnetic Schedule Review

Do you desire to be more organized before school starts? Is summer getting away from you without getting daily tasks accomplished? I discovered a handy little tool to help me keep our children on task and to know what to expect each day in our daily routine. It’s the Flourish Magnetic Schedule.

It is very easy to use. Open it up and stick the magnet on the back of the main card, put it on the refrigerator and add the task magnets in your preferred order….ta-da! Done!

Our children like to put the magnets back up after their little brother initially took them all down and stole the task magnets! So far it is staying in place and after the novelty Junior (our youngest) has left the magnetic schedule alone.

Both the children and I like to work with lists for daily tasks and scratch them off when complete. This magnetic schedule allows us to use less paper and gives the younger children who cannot read a little visual of what they need to do.

We’ve only had the magnetic schedule for a couple of days but I like it. The magnets and schedule are made of sturdy material. My hope is it helps the children have something to refer to and learn what needs to be done when and where they should be. I haven’t added any times or anything. I try to be flexible or else I get bogged down by the actual schedule.

Magnetic Schedule for Kids 1

Not only does Flourish have this product but also other products helpful to all moms – because the products have been created by moms.

About Flourish

Moms Flourish is a new direct sales company providing innovative products for moms and kids. To make life just a little easier. Moms can also earn a little extra money for their families by joining for as little as $59.

Flourish Giveaway

Right now there’s a contest going on, which ends August 7th, the winner will be announced during the Twitter party on August 8th at 6pm PT/8pm CST/9pm ET #momsflourish. You can enter the giveaway below or visit their Facebook page. Look at all the products offered in the giveaway!

Prize_Flourish_Aug8

a Rafflecopter giveaway


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100 Baby Chicks: Cornish Rock and Freedom Rangers

Another big day here at the Gould farm. 100 baby chicks arrived…all ALIVE at that. That’s impressive. We were expecting the worst to be honest, especially when the Postal worker mentioned they were not doing very well when we received the call. These cuties are just a day old and made their journey in the 90 degree temperatures we’ve been experiencing here in Chicagoland.

We purchased 50 more Freedom Rangers, which did really well growth wise, except for that last day, and of course our first batch’s journey was not quite so successful. Here’s to hoping and praying we don’t lose a single one! Freedom Ranger broilers take 12 weeks to mature, so are a little slower growing than their counterparts, the White Cornish Rock.

FFR Second Batch of Broilers Collage

The White Cornish Rock are what you would find in the grocery store. These will take about 8 weeks to mature and be ready to be processed. You will never taste a better chicken until you’ve tried free range, pastured chicken. I don’t want our family to go back to store bought chicken after tasting our first batch of Freedom Rangers. We’ve tasted friend’s pastured chicken and that is pretty much what got us turned on to raising our own.

Our children delight in the arrival of new little fur babies.

Here’s to truly all natural, farm fresh poultry! Cannot wait to have a freezer full of these…yummy!


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Summer on the Farm – Wordless Wednesday

We are having an extremely busy summer. So busy that I am taken aback that we are nearly half way through July! Summer has always been my favorite season, though I enjoy the others. My birthday is during the summer and my mom always made birthday time FUN! From sleepovers to camp outs to a day on the lake, I always had a blast. Summer on the farm is fun too or not so fun in some instances, as we’ve had a couple of disasters (our sized disasters that is, as we realize there are much worse disasters happening). We lost 17 of our 29 broilers on the way to processing due to them overheating – expensive. Our new batch of turkeys were shipped over the 4th of July and we lost over half of them. Now I am struggling to find a local source for turkeys to save on the stress of having them shipped.

On the brighter side, our egg business is growing. We have been selling out of eggs for the past 3 weeks. So we started to increase our flock again. We purchased 6 month old Rhode Island crosses, much like our Red Sex Links. Not a heritage breed like our original flock but very good producers. We also purchased 13 Silkies. They have poofy hair and feet. Our youngest daughter asked for the baby chicks, who are not so little, so she’s been taking care of them. The mamas are very broody so we are hoping to hatch out some more eggs! Here’s to hoping for the best.

FFR 6 Month Old Laying Hens_edit

FFR Silkies_edit

Due to the shipping fiasco with our turkeys, we purchased a breeding trio of Bourbon Red turkeys. This is a heritage breed and may be a little bigger than our Midget White turkeys. We now have five “pet” turkeys. Our neighbor hatched two of our Midget White eggs and we would have had an additional two turkeys, but during a mating session the Tom smothered them beneath Brownie, our hen. :( Lots of death around our farm lately. One of my children’s words not mine. But I quite agree.

FFR Bourbon Red Turkeys_edit

Animals are not the only thing that has been keeping us busy. Berry picking has too. We found some mulberry bushes (more like trees to be honest) at the back of our property and we’ve been picking those pretty regularly.

FFR Mulberries_edit

Then we have been visiting area berry farms to pick strawberries and raspberries. Next on the list is blueberries! Next year we are planning on planting more berries here on the farm, as most of our plants did not produce much due to us moving them from the townhouse to the farm in the spring.

We have also been working hard to get all our fall planting done or most of it, as we will be planting more greens in a month’s time. We bought some transplants from friends’ farms to make up for our spring greenhouse disaster, which will hopefully help us have some veggies in late July/early August. The pepper plants are from one friend’s farm in Wisconsin. They were a little stressed since we did not get them planted right away. Our little ones even help in the garden.

FFR Pepper Plants_edit

We enjoy growing our own organic meat and vegetables, but it certainly is not without its challenges and hard work!

How’s your summer going?


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