Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Blueberries and Muffins

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It’s Blueberry Picking Time!!! 

Even though our bushes are not fully mature, we are picking about a quart of berries each evening.  That is certainly enough to snack on and make muffins:


Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Streusel Topping:

  • 2 tablespoons cold butter
  • 1/4 cup of flour
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cut the butter into remaining ingredients until coarse crumbs are formed.  I use one of those small, pulsing food processors, which really speeds this process up.

Muffin Batter:

  • 1 cup milk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 egg

Beat the above ingredient in a large bowl with hand-mixer, until well mixed.  In a separate bowl, combine the following ingredients:

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

Using a fork, stir the above mixed dry ingredients into the mixed liquid, just until the flour is moistened.  DO NOT OVERMIX!

  • carefully fold in 1 cup of fresh or frozen blueberries

Divide batter into 12 greased, paper-lined muffin pan.  Sprinkle with streusel topping.  Bake for 22-24 minutes.

Bottling More Wine

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We spent a good part of this weekend (the hottest parts of both days) bottling wine:

  • Strawberry
  • Oaked Chambourcin
  • Oaked Blackberry
  • Blackberry “Delight”

This was the first time we used our automatic bottle filler, which worked great.

    Also sorted more of the empty, washed bottles by color and style.  These were then packed into tubs and stored in the barn shelf.

    Hoping that this will make some space in the garage – which is really Jeff’s workshop.  Organizing all the tools is one of those dream projects for a rainy day….

    Grapevines and Birdnests

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    We are still working with the grape vines every day – right now, our mature Chambourcin grapes need to be thinned out (again).  Apparently, the late frost we had in May caused all the cordons to sprout new shoots and now we have way too much vegetation, too little sunlight and not enough airflow going on.  While we’ve been thinning and tying away, we discovered several bird nests:

    Nest with 5 eggs inside a
    flower pot in the tractor shed
     
     
    This nest actually had an
    outside ring of grapevine
    branches for camouflage

    Tiniest nest ever, with a very
    small egg – just one!

    “Mulch” Hay for Vegetables

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    We are trying something different this season – mostly due to the fact that we got a whole load of “mulch” hay, courtesy of Caleb, who donated it for our vegetable garden.   Mulch hay is hay that got wet and started rotting, so it is no longer good for animal food or even bedding.  Hay, unlike straw, contains a lot of grass and weed seeds, but we are using it anyhow.  We’ll see if it does more good than bad later this fall.


    Today, after weeding the tomatoes and peppers, we spread over a dozen bales of old hay around the plants, ensuring that the irrigation lines are still close to the stem of the plant before covering them up.   Much of the hay was rather matted together, so it made  a pretty solid cover.  We carefully spread the loose hay around the plants, making sure that all the leaves were above the hay.

    The amount of hay we used barely made a dent in our large pile, but then again, we only covered 2 rows of vegetables in the garden so far.