Tabla de contenidos para Spring 2018 en Capper's Farmer

As animal husbandry costs go, the price of bees and beekeeping supplies is quite a bargain, but setting up an apiary still runs into money if you have many colonies. My husband, Dwayne, and I got into a home honey operation several years ago, and from the start, we tried to reduce expenses by making some of our own equipment. We found, for example, that we could save substantially by building our own bee housing. We bought our first hive and super, and Dwayne made the rest using the commercial products for patterns so that the parts of all units are interchangeable. Since we had quite a bit of scrap lumber handy, the only investment was the time spent in construction. We also learned to economize by finding substitutes for…

BREAKFAST QUICHE Yields 6 servings. 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature 1/ 2 cup butter 1 cup whole-wheat or white whole- wheat flour 2 large eggs 11/ 2 cups half-and-half Dash of black pepper Dash of cinnamon 1/ 2 teaspoon salt Cooked and crumbled bacon or cooked, chopped ham 2 cups shredded Swiss or cheddar cheese, divided 1/ 2 cup minced onion 1/ 2 cup broccoli florets 1 Heat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease 12-inch pie plate; set aside. 2 Using pastry blender, combine cream cheese, butter, and flour. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of prepared pie plate. 3 In small bowl, combine eggs, half-and-half, pepper, cinnamon, salt, and bacon; set aside. 4 Press 1 cup cheese into crust in pie plate. Sprinkle with onion…

COOKING & BAKING Up the health ante of favorite dishes simply by replacing vegetable oil with coconut oil. Use it in stir-fries, brownies, pie crusts, and more. You can even fry with it. HAIR TREATMENT Combine 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil, 2 tablespoons raw honey, and 1 large egg yolk. Whisk together and apply to dry hair, covering completely. Let the mixture sit for up to two hours before rinsing with warm water. LIP BALM Melt 4 tablespoons grated beeswax and 2 tablespoons coconut oil in a glass bowl over simmering water, stirring frequently until melted. Remove from heat, and add 10 drops of an essential oil of your choice. Pour into a tin, and allow mixture to cool and solidify. Apply to lips with fingertip. CAST-IRON PAN SEASONING Liberally…

Party Line Telephone Rang Entirely Too Much Katie – Danbury, North Carolina In the 1960s, my family had a beige wall-mounted telephone in the kitchen. We lived in a subdivision, where everyone was on a party line. Each family had a separate ring, and you would answer your phone only when you heard your ring. Being on a party line, the phone rang all the time – more for the other families than for ours. My mother would take the phone off the hook during nap time. Of course, the phone would then beep loudly, so she would wrap it up in a towel and lay it on a step stool. Then our line would ring as if the phone was out of order. A couple of times a week,…

What if I told you that you could take everyday foods and transform them into delicious superfoods in your own kitchen, with minimal effort and money? It’s true! Simply by transforming regular foods like veggies, nuts, and beans into fermented foods, such as sauerkraut and kimchi, we can significantly increase their health-building properties. Exciting new research shows that fermented foods, and the beneficial probiotics they contain, can have impressive health effects, some of which include boosting our immune systems, increasing our energy levels and athletic performance, and even preventing and healing many diseases. It’s no surprise that fermented foods are the hottest topic in the field of healthy eating right now. The Classic: Yogurt Everywhere I turn, I see advertisements, commercials, and articles about the health benefits of yogurt. And…

The screen door rapidly closed behind me with a loud SLAM! From the kitchen, I would hear my mom holler, “Don't slam the screen door!” After entering the dining room, I always gave a weak, “I'm sorry,” followed by, “Mom, what's for supper?” It was as though we boys expected Mom to run some type of a short-order grill. A picture of my mom should be listed next to the word “frugal” in the dictionary. The art of frugality was thrust upon her while growing up as one of 13 children during the Great Depression. Years later, in the 1960s and ’70s, while raising eight children of her own, she continued to pinch pennies in order to feed her family. As the oldest of her children, I never ceased to…

Vintage photos of outdoor play equipment.…

The garden is a great destination for fresh perspective, especially when life gets busy. This project combines inspiration with a little therapy and the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the fresh air. I love visiting the garden. Something about being surrounded by growing plants reminds me that anything is possible, and it generates positive thinking for me. In my garden, beauty extends beyond the natural elements. There are fun do-it-yourself signs and a few collective pieces that create a happy place year-round. I refer to these items as “garden flair.” These elements can include positive and encouraging messages and/or interesting décor that welcomes a creative atmosphere. We recently relocated further into the country, and after establishing our raised beds in the garden, I noticed a variety of wild birds…

After several years of hauling our beautiful homegrown produce from the garden to the kitchen in grubby old plastic buckets, my husband and I decided it was time to up our game a bit by treating ourselves to a new harvest basket. After an extensive search of local shops and internet sources failed to turn up exactly what we were looking for, we decided to build our own. The one we built is based on the Maine clam hod – a wood and wire basket used by clam diggers, which allows the clams to be rinsed right in the basket, with dirt and water running out through the sides and bottom. Although not traditional, we chose to use green vinyl-coated hardware cloth to construct our basket simply because we had…

The homeowner with a yard that consists of fertile, well-drained, loamy soil has the pick of almost any plant available on the market. Although this ideal soil type exists in prairie states like Iowa and Kansas, the majority of homeowners enjoy less than ideal soil structure and pH. Highly acidic, alkaline, sandy, wet, or clay soils limit a gardener’s plant choices, but there are plants that do well in tough situations. Following are some shrubs that can be used as hedges, for privacy, or as ornamentals that do exceptionally well in soil that would kill most plants. Blueberry & Fothergilla The homeowner living in an area with sandy, acidic soil has the opportunity to grow blueberries – one of North America’s most prized native fruits. Blueberries are very cold tolerant,…

Being outdoors in summer will inevitably lead to encounters with flying and crawling insects – both desirable and undesirable. All gardens have bugs that help and bugs that harm. Some of the beneficial ones that can be found in our gardens are dragonflies, ladybugs, and ground beetles. They feed on plant-destroying critters, such as aphids, caterpillars, and spider mites. This is nature’s way of keeping our environment well-balanced. Bugs can also bug us. We all know how irritating a hungry mosquito is, and how destructive a colony of ants can be. While many insect repellents on the market today contain synthetic chemicals and fragrances, functional alternatives also exist, including homemade options. Insects use a multitude of inputs to locate their targets, including carbon dioxide gradients, colors, and scents. You can…

Ode to Outdoor Clotheslines Gail Beaudoin – Springfield, Massachusetts Regarding “Simple Outdoor Clothesline” by Rebekah Sell, Page 43 in the Fall 2017 issue. The tree-to-tree ones, T-bar posts, and don’t forget those lines hanging from the back porches of apartments with the bent rod. And those “curtain stretchers” that used to appear in fall, just before closing the windows for winter, and again for spring cleaning, to which the sheer curtains would be pinned, since the curtain material was too delicate to be ironed. My umbrella clothesline is in use all year long. Even in winter, all it takes is a sunny day with a breeze for most things to dry well. The heavier laundry comes in to be hung on wooden drying racks in front of a radiator, and…

Even those of us who love to cook have days when we just don’t feel like it, or we simply don’t have a lot of time. Here are some “sandwich” recipes, including a flatbread wrap, fajitas, and a pita pocket, that can help you out in a pinch. They’re also perfect for when you want a light lunch. Another great thing about sandwiches is that nearly all of the ingredients can be omitted or substituted. Don’t like ham, use turkey. Not a fan of bell peppers, leave them out. You can also add favorite ingredients, or items you have in the fridge that need to be used, such as mushrooms, as well as fresh herbs from the garden. The following recipes are from the Capper’s Farmer archives. Enjoy! EASY EGG…

Dill is delightful, versatile, aromatic, and delicious. In the past, it was primarily used for preserving dill pickles. However, dill is an herb that has grown in popularity in recent years, and is now not just used in canning, but also in main dishes, salads, and sides. For home gardeners, more good news is that dill is easy to grow, harvest, preserve, and reseed from your own plants. Even a novice gardener can have great success with this flavorful herb – and once you have your own little patch of dill in the garden, you can enjoy experimenting with it in all kinds of recipes. Growing & Harvesting Dill Dill is easy to grow in all kinds of soils, and in all different climate zones. Simply sow the seeds in…

Suppose a new agricultural breakthrough promised higher yields, a longer growing season, and much less work. These claims can become real benefits for those willing to make a change to a way of gardening that more closely mimics nature. Nature’s ecosystems always include not only annual vegetables, but also perennials – edible roots, shoots, leaves, flowers, and fruits that produce year after year. Besides fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, more than 100 species of perennial vegetables grow well in North America. By growing more perennials in your beds or plots, you’ll create a more diverse garden that ultimately needs less from you. What that means is that you’ll spend less time working, and more time harvesting. “It’s as close to zero-work gardening as you can get,” says Eric Toensmeier, author of…

The indispensable utility knife is, without argument, the most useful implement for tooling about a farm, homestead, or shop. Whether you’re cutting baling twine or slicing an apple, you’re simply not equipped without a sharp knife. To build your own beautiful utility knife, you’ll need a full-tang blade blank (see Photo 1 on next page) without a bolster or finger guard, wood for your handle scales (the halves of the handle that you’ll rivet to each side of the tang), some epoxy glue, and a handful of brass pins or cutlery rivets. You can source all the materials for the knife featured in this article, including the tools and handle material, from Jantz Supply (www.KnifeMaking.com). 1 Trace the handle area of the knife’s tang onto a piece of paper or…

Back in 1955, a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books followed in the My Folks series, all of them filled with true tales from our readers. The following are stories, or portions of stories, that were printed decades ago, without any fact checking, meaning that all the details may not be accurate, but instead are what was…