Homesteading During the Quarantine

 My little granddaughter has gotten used to having blueberry sauce on pancakes and waffles when she comes to Nana's house with whipped cream on top.  It's a luscious breakfast and one of our favorites for sure.  When I took her home last week she told her daddy that she wouldn't eat the pancakes without blueberry sauce.  That remark got me in high gear.

I think I still have about 6 gallons of frozen blueberries in the freezer, so I decided to can some blueberry sauce for my gal.  The recipe usually makes just 1 pint so I decided to quadruple it.  When I first began to stir it over the heat I realized that something was wrong.  I had measured out 8 times the amount of orange juice, so I quickly had to add enough of the other ingredients to multiply the recipe by 8.  This is a very aggravating problem, as I'm a math teacher.  I was berating myself and wondering how I could make such a terrible error.  However, the berries cooked up well, the sauce was canned and now my sweet gal can have pancakes for supper with blueberry sauce - even if Nana isn't there!

Our favorite blueberry sauce takes 2 cups of blueberries (either frozen or fresh), 1/2 cup of orange juice, 2.5 Tablespoons of sugar, a Tablespoon of cornstarch and 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon.  Bring to a boil and cook until the sauce is thickened.  It just takes a few minutes for the sauce to turn from cloudy to berry colored.  I've never canned it before, but I'm going to ask Maggie the next time I see her she liked it.


Since I had some blackberry juice that was canned, I decided to also make some blackberry syrup to pour over the waffles or pancakes and got that added into the mix that morning.  I've never tried blackberry syrup over pancakes before, but the recipe was pretty tasty.

Duke Blueberries 5.10.20

Here is a picture of today's view of blueberries.  The berries are growing and gaining a tint of lavender.  It's neat to see how they change as time goes on.  I think this variety is duke - the earliest variety that we grow.

Black Mac

We planted Black Mac, a variety of black raspberries, last year and should be picking these this year.  They have the largest thorns of any plant on our property.  It's a must to wear gloves when trying to prune or trellis them.  We shall see if we end up keeping them.  It's not so fun to press your fingers into thick thorns, but I do love the beautiful little flowers on the plant.

I'll save my pictures of sourdough bread until I have a loaf that looks good.  Sourdough is a nice little experiment but it may take a different cook to get the best results!

Until next time!

May Flowers

Natchez Blackberries 5.4.20 - Row 3

They say that April showers bring May flowers, and May flowers bring June blueberries - but it's even better when those flowers in April turn to little green berries in May.  Now we can see that some of the blackberries made it through the freeze of April 15th and are already forming berries.

Freeze damage on Natchez

Sadly, we can also see the blooms that turned black in the center and were bit by the freeze.You can check the picture to the right and find the ones that the freeze affected.  However,  we definitely didn't lose the whole crop!

Blueray blueberries

The blueberries are beginning to gain some size and though they should have experienced some freeze damage, I'm not seeing it yet.  They look pretty normal  with the normal amount of berries if not more berries than usual. 

This last weekend I saw a bunny bouncing in the patch; it was hard to get a close shot on him as he was busy bouncing away!  It's those sweet little things that bring joy while you're out on the farm - bunnies, roses, sunshine and flourishing fat, green berries moving and ripening in the breeze.

       God is good - all the time!

Spring has sprung!

Blueray Blueberries in the upper field

I love when the fields turn green, the berries bloom and the crop is underway and visible to the naked eye.  I often wonder and estimate as I look at the new bloom just the number of days until that bloom will be fruit, ripe for the picking.  Will it be 6 weeks?  Will it be more?  Will hail knock it off or will a late freeze nip it in the bud?

We did have a late freeze this year, in fact two of them.  Our in-resident expert on freeze damage at the University of Arkansas sent a notification that berries in bloom will be lost if the temperature goes below 28 degrees.  Our field did get below 28 degrees to 26 degrees.  We were worried that the bloom would turn brown and fall off the bush, but you can see from the picture that if that occurred, there were also berries that didn't fall off the bush!  We may have a slight damage from the freeze, but we are expecting a crop come June!

We also wondered about our blackberries; they had just begun to bloom when the late freeze occurred.  It's unclear at this point how much loss we sustained on the blackberries, but once again, there are still blooms opening and it looks like we will have a good blackberry harvest.

Osage Blackberry

The raspberries weren't in bloom when the freeze occurred, so there shouldn't be any damage to the raspberries from the freeze.  They are just beginning to bloom right now and in all the field the bumblebees and honey bees are busily working the flowers and pollinating the crop.  You almost have to watch your step as you walk through the rows.  Sometimes a bumblebee will bump into your shoulder as they zoom across the row.  Their work is cut out for them!  I'm sure our work will ramp up come the middle of June.

Nova raspberry with honey bee on bloom.

In this crazy new world of being in a pandemic we are cautiously working our way through just how to manage the picking of the crop.
We are planning to offer soap and water to wash before entering and after exiting the field.  Plans are being made to sterilize the buckets and we hope to use plastic bag liners in the buckets.  Signs will be up to maintain a 6 foot social distancing guideline throughout the field and we plan to wear gloves and masks as we work in the barn.  We are going to be accepting credit cards with a tap on the Square, cash, check, or Venmo payment.

Will we get everything absolutely right?  I'm not sure about that.  However, I can promise that we will try to do our best.  We are just human but know that in the craziness of life there is a hope that is steadfast and sure, that never fails.  Our hope and prayers during this pandemic and the uncertainty in life is in Jesus.  I'm thankful for a faith that sustains me and am grateful for the blessings and joys to be found in this life of mine.

Duke blueberry in bloom

Sweet blessings in my life!