Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

Ridgetop

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Occasionally we miss a zucchini in the garden and end up with "war clubs". I split them lengthwise, remove al the seeds and pith, leaving only the flesh. This makes a trough in the center of the long zucchini. I put them in a pan, and pour spaghetti sauce over them. cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes to 1 hour - till the zucchini is tender. Cut the zucchini into serving sie portions and spoon additional sauce from the pan over the top. Really good and no pasta calories.

You can also grate those huge zucchinis (less the inner seeds and pith) then measure for use in zucchini cake, bread, etc. and freeze in those increments with note on bag as to measurement. When using them frozen I drain some of the liquid off before putting them into the batter. I also use zucchini instead of spaghetti occasionally with just putting the sauce directly on them if I don't have "war clubs" or time to prep.

As to pasta, if it is not egg pasta, it will store dry indefinitely. Kind of like dry rice and beans as long as bugs don't get into it.
 

Mike CHS

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We have just about used up the allotted space in the freezer for tomatoes so we canned a bunch of pints today. I just finished filling up gallon zip lock bags of sliced okra and chopped bell peppers. The okra can go straight into one of the freezers but the bell peppers we chop and freeze them on flats and then add them to a bag to keep from having an icy block of peppers.
 

Mike CHS

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Teresa and I have watched a few episodes of Clarkson's Farm on Amazon that gave us a bunch of laughs. The new farm guy made a whole bunch of errors in starting and it didn't get a whole lot better after that. We had a lot of laughs since we made a whole bunch of the same mistakes. :)
 

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Is that the show where the English fellow loses his farm manager and decides that it looks easy so he will just manage his farm himself with no experience? I have it marked to watch on Brit Box when I get back to CA. I wasn't sure it was funny so didn't start watching it yet. I enjoy British comedies.
 

Mike CHS

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Is that the show where the English fellow loses his farm manager and decides that it looks easy so he will just manage his farm himself with no experience? I have it marked to watch on Brit Box when I get back to CA. I wasn't sure it was funny so didn't start watching it yet. I enjoy British comedies.

That is the one. We fast forwarded through the first few minutes of the first episode so we didn't know how he wound up in that situation nor did we think we would enjoy it. I'm not sure anyone that didn't have some exposure to learning about farming would appreciate it as much but we are enjoying it.
 

Mike CHS

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We went into Pulaski this morning to pick up a prescription and figured we had plenty of time to feed Mel and Maisy on their normal time. We were about half way home and the car just shut down but we were lucky enough to be on one of the few spots on this road that had a place to pull off the highway. I tried several times to crank the engine but it has an obvious fuel problem so it might be a fuel pump and we called a tow. We called a friend for an assist and they came and got Teresa and the tow truck showed up about 20 minutes later. We dropped the car off at the CO-OP shop and Teresa came to pick me up and the dogs didn't seem too upset that I was late with their feed.

Mel and I have been working on our contact permissions and he is doing good. Right after Barb dropped him off here I was walking toward him and did a little shuffle back and forth like I wanted to play wrestle. I don't know if Barb or Joe did that with him but when you do it, he literally looks like a puppy bouncing around (although a giant puppy). He has done that a couple of times when I wasn't expecting it and since he is bigger than I am, that can be problematic. :) We have been working on toning it down and he is doing good.

An update on Cooper. Most of the ewes look bred and in the process of going through the breeding season Cooper has become about as calm as Ringo always was. I have been the same way with all of the rams we have had and I spend a lot of time in the paddocks with the sheep watching how they are grazing to see when to move them again and in the process, Cooper has decided that I'm not going anywhere so he doesn't react to me being there. Since he has an awesome love for having his ears scratched at the base, that is about all he wants now. The only issue I have with him now is that he will come up and lean against me while I run a brush down his back and since he weighs more than I do we still have to work on that. The farm that Maxwell went to has told us they are amazed at how calm he is. Matt lets his young daughters in the field with him and he said he never did that before.
 
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