Our processing day on the farm started as usual today with an early morning start, filled with routine chores and breakfast. Everyone works together to ensure everything gets done as early as possible on butchering day. The animals must be taken care of as usual, the garden watered and plants inspected for bugs, and the house cleaned and organized. The cows must be milked and moved, the sheep and cows get herded to fresh grass, layers get moved every other day and fed and watered, cream is taken off the gallons of milk and excess milk is given to the pigs along with their organically grown feed and pasture, cats and dogs are given scraps of meat, eggs, or cream produced on the farm, and the horse thinks she needs to eat as well.

We picked our first apples of the year at a dear friend’s house two days ago and this fruit drip has been a popular treat at our house again. Along with making apple juice, apple cider vinegar, applesauce, fruit leather, apple butter, and more, we have been enjoying them fresh and this dip makes it a very special treat. This is not super sweet, but with the right ingredients it has great flavor and doesn’t make you feel bad. It’s best if eaten right away. We love using our homemade vanilla, and you can find the recipe here, along with flavorful, high quality vanilla beans here. We have been using frozen strawberries from our beyond organic garden and frozen Aronia berries that we picked from a local farm not far from our home, called Homestead Aronia. I highly recommend them! The Aronia berries could be left out of the recipe too if you don’t have access to them. Slices of apples are our favorite, but there are other fruits like strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and more that would work too. I might even try it with homemade sourdough graham crackers too! You can check out our recipe below.

What are you harvesting and enjoying right now? We love to hear from you!

By Caleb Mentink

“What? What do you mean I might go to jail if I sell raw milk?” “Do you mean to tell me I could get charged with murder for protecting my family?” “They can close my church down at their whim and fancy?” Unfortunately, these are all questions we are forced to ask all too often of our federal and even state government these days. “I thought this was a free country” you say, and you would be right, this was a free country. The truth is, we have made about as far a slide as Israel made after the divide of the kingdom. The good news is we don’t have to continue down this plunging spiral. We can turn back to the Lord and confess our sin and reclaim our responsibility from the federal government who was never meant to serve in the capacity it serves today.

To understand this fall from freedom, it is imperative we examine what made us a free nation in the first place. As a matter of fact, the story of our independence began long before the declaration of independence or even the first continental congress. Any attempt at “liberty from England” would have proved futile or at best resulted in an “independent American tyranny” had not a firm Christian foundation been laid by the first colonists who came to America.  These colonists were largely comprised of Christians fleeing from persecution. Along with having firm biblical beliefs, these Christians had witnessed tyranny firsthand and knew of its devastating consequences. They were determined from the start that the same would not happen in each of the separate colonies they established. The principles of biblical government were being played out in each of the colonies to the best of their abilities even before they were united into an independent nation. They soon recognized, however, that England felt threatened by this independent mindset. They also soon found that the English government   cared little for the needs of the American colonies. It wasn’t long before England began cracking down on their most basic fundamental rights evincing a design to reduce them under absolute despotism.

By soaking pecans we can make them more nutrient dense, highly digestible, and the buttery flavor will also be enhanced. Pecans are a very nutritious and easily digested snack, as long as they are properly prepared and sourced correctly. If we don’t take the proper steps to make them more digestible (which is very simple), they can be very hard on our digestive system. They are a good source of omega 3 fatty acid, vitamin E, folic acid, potassium, calcium, and phosphorus. They are a great source of magnesium and have been my favorite food source to correct my magnesium deficiency. Since we always use food to correct deficiencies, we try to eat a big handful of properly prepared nuts daily, along with taking Epsom salt baths.

If nuts are not properly prepared, our bodies will need to use up a lot of enzymes in order to neutralize their enzyme inhibitors. Most Americans are already deficient in enzymes because of the dead, processed food that we eat so often, so it’s important not to stress our digestive system even more by not properly preparing our nuts. Studies also suggest that soaking them will make the nutrients more available.

We will be pausing our Tuesday and Wednesday posts for now. I will be sharing more recipes and farm happenings instead. I hope to come back to this in the fall, Lord willing. I still have several more weeks planned to share. Thanks for all of your encouragement with this!!

Science is not objective. I know, in the theoretical sense, science is objective. Your run the experiment, measure the results, record the data and analyze with no bias. The problem is we are biased beings. Every one of us. We come to every situation with predetermined ideas. How many times have people looked at the same data and come away with two completely different interpretations? How many times do scientists set up experiments within the framework of their own predilections? An old saying goes something like this. It’s hard to get people to see things that might jeopardize their paycheck.

Joel Salatin

Last week I shared the problems of Teflon, and this week we are going to look at aluminum. While aluminum might seem like a good alternative to Teflon, since it is light and transfers heat rapidly, aluminum is known to get into our food, especially when cooking something more acidic like tomatoes.

The amount of aluminum getting into our food is probably small each time, but in our modern world we are bombarded with aluminum in so many products that the risk of our bodies not being able to excrete (or get rid) of this toxic metal is greater. Then it ends up accumulating in our tissues. According to the Weston Price Foundation, “In Alzheimer’s disease, alu­minum accumulates in brain tissue to an extent that the brain’s coping mechanisms begin to fail . . . aluminum is everywhere throughout the body and is more than capable of contributing to most chronic diseases, including diabetes, autoimmunity, multiple sclerosis and other neurological conditions.” 

“Fake food is being poised as a panacea to end world hunger and food shortages, but there’s nothing miraculous about synthetic, lab-made food. It can’t compare to food that comes from nature in terms of nutrition or environmental protection, and as we’re seeing with the mysterious infant formula shortages, when you’re dependent on fake food, your very survival is also dependent on the handful of companies that manufacture them.With parents getting desperate in the search for infant formula, it’s eye-opening that campaigns haven’t been started to encourage new mothers to breastfeed — the best food for infants and one that also happens to be free and readily available in most cases.”Dr. Mercola While breast milk is best for babies, if you are finding yourself in need of formula, the Weston Price Foundation offers a very nutrient dense, homemade baby formula. It was a great option for one of our babies after I was misled by the status quo. Without getting into any details, she thrived on it, and we didn’t have to worry about the horrible ingredients found in all infant formulas. Here is the recipe that we and many parents have used successfully.

https://www.westonaprice.org/…/formula-homemade-baby…/