Mother Hen Homestead

14/12/2023

Gingerbread night around here

29/09/2023

Nothing beats the smells of fall. Crisp sweet and warm. What a beautiful evening to run with the sun setting after a great day at work. 😊

14/09/2023

Every day getting this beautiful haul …

14/09/2023

Just so happened to grab the perfect colour basket today. 😍 filled with tomatoes and jalapeños today… oh and some dinner plate dahlias 🌸

14/09/2023

I’ve canned tomatoes and I will@never can tomatoes again. The amount of work involved…. Forget it!!!! This way is tried and true. Grab your days collection of the garden. Rough chop. Add an onion, garlic and fresh herbs from the garden. Fill the freezer. In the fall/winter…. Let it half thaw (or not) and simmer for a few hours. Immersion hand blender at the end. Best sauce ever!

14/09/2023

07/09/2023

Todays yard basket ❤️

04/09/2023

Piling up my tomatoes today made for a pretty picturesque moment 🍅

25/08/2023

Officially ready!!! 💚

19/07/2023

Someone is fully committed to be a mom. After sitting on infertile eggs for a month. I’ve given her some fertile ones and now I wait on her hand and foot lol fresh water feed and corn hand delivered lol I better be able to touch those babies!!!

05/07/2023

Using up a harvest of currants today with currant cake and jam!

03/07/2023

Lots of rain here for a couple days. Cozy smells in the lazy house.

01/07/2023

Already missing my peonies….

16/06/2023

YAASSS….. 🌲🌊🐝 S

14/05/2023

Looking for some hive action in all the right places….

09/05/2023

Swarm caught and settled into a new hive ✔️ let me know if you find any more around town! I’m ready for this now!!!

05/05/2023

💕

20/12/2022

We’ve got some baby pigeons ❤️ ❤️

08/12/2022

And both loaves are almost gone…. Such a simple crowd pleaser. Warm. Cozy. Defines hygge.

08/12/2022

Letting some bread rise anticipating the smell of freshly baked bread to go with borscht tonight ❤️ winter vibes!

23/10/2022

Fascinating 🧐

Another unique Irish culinary invention , that I mentioned in an earlier post ,is buttered eggs, a unique and tasty way to preserve eggs.

Invented in time immemorial , probably due to the proliferation of butter on the island, the Irish developed this way to preserve eggs. It became so popular that exportation of buttered eggs to England numbered in the tens of thousands of dozens every year during the English colonial times .
Rubbed over freshly laid eggs the butter will melt forming a thin protective layering

Because the shell is porous, it absorbs the butter to form a more protective seal. Curious, I took one home. Soft-boiled, it tasted fresh from the hen, the yolk the color of sunshine, the white carrying with it a whiff of cream. Today buttered eggs are a delicacy, largely vanished from Irish farmyards and pantries. You can't butter eggs by machine, as it’s an intimate practice involving the hand . Every one needs to be done by hand. Farmers' wives used to say it was a task most difficult to execute in winter, when the butter was harder and their hands were colder. So perhaps in addition to the egg and the butter, what I taste is the memory of an Irish woman whose palm coaxed butter lovingly all the way around a fragile shell, hoping to preserve it for as long as she could.

That might seem counterintuitive. Why waste butter on the outside of an egg? But clever Irish farmers had hit on buttering eggs as a way to preserve them during winters, when hens produce less. Taking freshly-laid, still-warm eggs, farm families rolled them in their buttery palms. The butter helped solidify the hot, brittle shells, sealing off the yolky contents from the outside air.

Buttered eggs take on a shiny gleam. And, as an added bonus, the taste of butter permeates the egg, making it even richer when cracked opened and cooked. Eggs preserved this way keep for up to six months in a cool place and I have had them last even longer . It’s not surprising that buttered eggs were a Cork specialty, seeing as it’s also home to the Cork Butter Museum, a tribute to the region’s status as a butter-producing powerhouse.

They can be found at markets in Ireland and I make them regularly as a homestead speciality. If you keep chickens or know someone local who does , then you can too !

20/10/2022

I’m going to be so sad that this is coming to an end. Can a basket bring anymore joy….

23/09/2022

Found something pretty and as big as my old noggin’

08/09/2022

A sign of a healthy garden is a HUGE yellow garden spider with its classic zipper web. I have never seen one in person until today. ❤️ stunning.

01/09/2022

Some pickled tomatoes to add to the bunch like a Russian momma in full effect. Flip upside down and get out the blanket!

01/09/2022

Best grocery store ever. my nans garden.