The Harvest Festival at Hawks Landing Farm is a much anticipated fall tradition with families coming all the way from Portland and Beaverton to attend. Crafts people and vendors, most from the local area, enjoy sharing their wares with the public. One of the most visited booths is the Woodville Garden Club’s Cider Stand. Kids and adults have a blast working the hand cranked apple press and enjoying a fresh, frothy glass of chilled cider. As the day wanes and the air takes on a decided fall crispness the spiced hot cider is much in demand. I asked Tina, the garden club’s reining Cider Queen, to share with us what makes their treat so tempting.
Enjoy!
~ Sophia
Sophia, thank you so much for asking me to share the Garden Club’s, not so secret, hot cider recipe.
NMW
It’s really quite simple and so much better for you than the artificial flavor sugar laden packets of “cider” mix.
Gather a few ingredients:
A jug of cider (fresh pressed is best but any kind you like will work)
An orange
An apple
Whole cloves
Cinnamon sticks
Whole allspice
NMW
With the peal ON cut a few slices from the orange.
Insert whole cloves into the orange slice (this is a great thing for little ones to help with)
Place the allspice in a loose tea holder.
NMW
Cut a few slices from the apple, cross-ways so the little star shows.
Pour the cider into a pot, add the clove studded orange slices, apple slices, allspice, and cinnamon sticks.
Let simmer on low until warm.
The longer it simmers the more intense the flavors will become.
NMW
If you are serving a large crowd or want to keep the cider warm for hours use a crock-pot set to warm. If you have leftovers remove the spices and apple and orange slices. When cool pour into a container with a lid and keep in the refrigerator. It’s easy to warm up a cup when wanted.
Happy Fall!
~Tina
Do you have a variation on a hot cider recipe? Feel free to share it.
By this time of year the Harvest Festival is well over and the boys and I find ourselves in the familiar rhythm of home school lessons, sports, and getting the place buckled down for winter.
NMW
Being that we live in the Pacific Northwest, our summers are mild and the windows are open pretty much day and night. Between that and all the going in and out [especially since some people – Aaron and David –don’t always remove their shoes] by fall the house has collected a layer of dust and grime that only a deep cleaning will take care of.
I’ll spare you the details of our cleaning route, but the nitty-gritty day-to-day happenings of farm life is far from glamorous. Stella keeps trying to get me to hire her cleaning lady, who is wonderful, but there are some things I feel I need to do myself. Besides, there have been too many sleepless nights over the past three years and vigorously scrubbing at that grout line around the tub at 2 a.m. may have been one of the things that helped me keep my sanity.
NMW
What I will share with you are my all natural, super cheap, cleaning recipes. Be warned, the disinfecting spray contains vodka and if your liquor store is on the main street of a small town and your pastor sees you coming out of it one day with a brown paper sack, and he knows you don’t drink, you might get some raised eyebrows and concern that your new Hollywood beau is a bad influence on you. Just saying – you might want to go to the next town over to get the least expensive vodka you can find. For goodness sake don’t waste money on the higher priced brands, you’ll be spraying this stuff around your toilet after all.
A note about essential oils:
-they are optional
-I like to use orange oil (reminds me of a special someone)
-use the scent you like
-many have antiseptic and antibacterial properties among them: cinnamon, clove, lavender, lemon, lemongrass, orange, oregano, rosemary, thyme, and tea tree
NMW
Disinfecting Spray
(spray on grime free surface and let dry)
Mix in a spray bottle:
1/4 cup vodka
1/3 cup hydrogen peroxide
1 cup water
20 drops of essential oil
All-Purpose
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon Citra-solv
1/2 teaspoon Castile Soap
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 teaspoon essential oil
Glass
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon Castile Soap
1 3/4 cups water
8 drops essential oil
When I need scrubbing power I use baking soda or Bon-Ami cleaner
What are your favorite natural cleaning products?
What tunes to listen to when tending to household chores?
Put on your favorite play list, round-up your helpers, and make it a cleaning party.
Hi All! Last week I promised you a way to use up those piles of leaves you just had to rake up. As a bonus you’ll also end up with a new useful spot in your yard.
When Michael and I bought Hawks Landing Farm it was run down. We moved in during the fall so as to have the winter to get the outbuildings and house fixed up. Not only did we have the huge expanse of pasture, but surrounding the house were acres of lawn. This would have been great if we wanted a soccer field or to do as one neighbor did and put in a baseball diamond complete with backstop and benches. We had another vision, creating a working farm.
That lawn needed to go.
There are several methods to use for lawn removal. Being dedicated to sustainable and organic practices we ruled out chemical means. Another option would be to rent a machine to remove the sod. This is fairly labor intensive and comes with the need to dispose of the removed sod. Not having the money to rent a machine or the place to dispose of the sod we passed on that option to. What we did have was the whole winter season, a pile of moving boxes, and drifts of leaves from the orchard.
The method for making planting areas out of lawn is fairly simple. We marked out the area we wanted the planting beds. In our case it was two fairly large spaces – one for commercial flowers and the other for vegetables. You can make your planting beds any size you want.
First we cut the grass at the lowest setting letting the clippings fall into place. From the dairy farm down the road we had picked up a load of manure. If you don’t have access to a farm bags of manure from the home improvement store work just fine. Between the grass clippings and the manure we put down a layer about an inch thick.
Next we lay out the cardboard. You should have seen Aaron, almost five, tromping along beside us dragging out pieces of cardboard as tall as himself and putting them in place. Make sure any boxes you use are free of tape, stickers, and staples. You can also use thick layers of newspaper, remove the glossy ad sections. One trick to getting the boxes or newspapers to stay in place as you work, wet each layer thoroughly. Also, make sure your edges overlap by at least an inch. You don’t want any gaps where vigorous grass and weeds can poke up.
photo by Lisa Risagar
From here it is just a matter of adding layers.
First layer: organic matter – eight to twelve inches deep. Here is where the raked or mulched up leaves come in handy. Other material that can be used is straw, spoiled hay, wood shavings, stable sweepings, rabbit droppings, or any organic matter you can get your hands on. Friends out at the coast have even used seaweed. Grass is okay, in small quantities, when mixed in with other organic matter.
Second layer: compost. If you’ve had a compost pile going now’s the time to use it. We were fortunate because the former owners of our property did have a compost pile, of sorts. We were able to add this to our layers. You can also get bags of compost from the store.
Third layer: more manure – anywhere from a fourth of an inch to an inch.
Top layer: a weed free cover layer. Make this about two inches deep. This can be straw, raked up leaves, wood shavings, or sawdust. Be creative here. Get to know people in your community. Is there a wood worker you can befriend? Bring a pie and the offer to sweep up his wood shavings. We befriended the owner of a tree trimming and removal company. He was having to pay to dump his wood chips. Now, every few months he brings a load to our place. Most of the time we use it as is. Sometimes we run it through our chipper making the pieces smaller and use it for bedding in the barn, or a top layer of mulch in the now established flower beds.
With a soaker hose or sprinkler set to low gently soak the layers.
If you want you can immediately plant in the layered mulch. Brush aside the top protective layer, put in your seeds or plants, and then replace the top layers. This type of planting area is much better six months later when all the good nutrients have had a chance to mix and mingle. For those in the Northern Hemisphere, fall is the time to set out a new area for planting in the spring.
the bane of many homeowners, especially those with lawns. Our parents taught us – rake up those leaves. Then they were typically bagged and hauled off to the dump.
What
A
Waste
A waste of time
A waste of energy
A waste of resources
There are better things to do with leaves then shove them in plastic bags and consign them to the trash heap.
If you do have lawn, and your leaves are relatively disease and pest free, use your mower and mulch them in place. Michigan State University did a study and found that when the leaves were mower mulched the lawns did not suffer any ill effects and in the spring were actually healthier than their unmulched counterparts. This is the method we use in our orchard. As a bonus, the chickens love to scratch and peck around in the mulched leaves for tasty bugs.
The best way to mower mulch the leaves into your lawn is to mow with the bag removed. Mow in the direction so the leaf litter and grass clipping are blown to the section you will next mow so each leaf will get passed over a few times. The goal is to cut the leaves into dime sized pieces. If after the first pass the leaves are still to big cross over your lawn again at a 90o angle. Depending on the amount of leaf fall you have you may need to mow more than once a week.
The leaf bits will sift their way down below the blades of grass giving back nutrients and energy just when most North American grass is at its prime root building phase.
Next Week: But I really need, or want, to rake those leaves – what do I do with them?
Hi All! I’m Sophia. Welcome to Hawks Landing Farm. I’m excited to share with you simple, everyday ways, you can live in a more earth friendly sustainable manner no matter where you dwell: the city, suburbs, or out in the country. My philosophy is any small step, any little change one person makes to their daily habits and routines is a benefit to us all. On occasion you might hear from one of my sons, Arron (16) or David (13), my interns Melissa or Chas, or my veterinarian Bill. My friends, Stella and Marna, have mentioned that they might also chime in on occasion. It takes many hands to keep this farm and school running and I’m pleased to have the help of so many dedicated people.
Hawks Landing Farm is located near the Columbia River in Oregon. We are a small family run operation. In our pasture we have a herd of alpacas that we raise for their fleece, companionship, and because they are so darn cute. A flock of chickens roam the orchard sharing their space with several hives of bees. In the orchard we grow cherries, pears, several varieties of apples, and hazelnuts. We have a greenhouse that lets us get an early jump on the growing season, a field of vegetables, and a field of flowers. The produce and flowers are sold either at nearby farmers markets or direct to local restaurants and small specialty grocers.
A big focus for us at the farm is our education outreach. Classes are held here several times a month. For those, like you blog readers, who find it impossible to join us for hands on classes this blog will serve as your classroom offering up bite sized tips that you can then put into practice in your own homes. One of our dreams is to have a dedicated classroom space and expand our services to include a school-to-farm program where each month select classrooms will be able to spend a day getting their hands dirty and learning where the food they eat each day comes from.
Go ahead and leave a comment telling us about yourself letting me know if there is any special topic or question you’d like to see addressed.
Next week: Autumn is here – tips on what to do with all those leaves
Nicole M. White 