harvest 2022 - the finale

or is it the beginning?

I just sat down, mere hours to go before bedtime and our deadline to have our year’s worth of food pickled, salted, dried, fermented, freeze dried, stored, butchered, frozen, and who knows what else (in my abject exhaustion, I’m unsure of how I’m even using my fingers to write this so if I forget a thing or two, I think it reasonable). But, yes, back to what I was saying. I was just about to proclaim the harvest over when my dear love came bursting in the door to tell me we have a couple more hours of work to do. He got his deer this year - it appeared in our back forty, looking at him as he was feeding the cattle some hay. How could he say no?

So, allow me to let the pictures do most of the talking here. What it will take, according to what we eat and enjoy eating, to get us through the year. Keep in mind, you don’t see the dairy here. You also don’t see the things that will start growing in the spring and throughout next summer. Also, I usually use the winter to take much of my raw ingredients, like un-rendered animal fats, organs, bones etc.. to cook up and package into jars. I prefer to use the wood stoves to make my bone broth whenever possible.

The animals are all up in their winter homes. Our larders and freezers are full (how am I going to get a deer in there I do not know). We are pooped and beyond excited to leave our farm in wonderful hands as we head out to go meet a certain little grand-baby that is soon to make its way into the world.

Freezer One: caul of every animal we slaughtered, three lambs, bacon, lardo, pork (from 2021 - still good), geese.

Freezer Two: rendered fats in jars and bricks from animals of all ilk, raw summer butter, turkeys, rabbits, ducks, summer frozen fruit, summer frozen ice cream.

Freezer Three: Beef x 3. Now adding in a deer hubby just shot. Somehow I will make it fit.

Freezer Four: everything here is in transition. Frozen eggs, pork back fat, duck/geese/turkey/chicken feet, giblets, livers, hearts, pig ears and tails, and an enormous amount of bones of all types.

Freezer Five: bone broth and overflow freezer. Bone broths, rillettes, pâté, buttermilk.

Some people have a beer fridge. I have a fermentation fridge. Now that it’s cool enough, these summer ferments will get moved into the root cellar to eat over the winter. I have two big crocks still bubbling away in the storm cellar. One is full of winter radish, the other sauerkraut.

The interior isn’t done, but the root cellar is now buried and cool and can house our potatoes, rutabaga, carrots and other root veg.

Sauces and chutneys and pickled things and brandied things and salted things and honey soaked things. When I started canning I tried all manner of things. It’s nice to dwindle down to the things we actually love eating. Having some chutneys or sauces on hand to pour over a braising roast is about as simple, and delicious, as it gets. I don’t eat tomatoes hence the lack of tomato sauces. Nightshade liberation!

There you have it. Most of what we will go into keeping us fit and well into the next year. Abundant nutrition and endless possibilities. Not pictured are the jars of food I’ve been freeze drying, all the herbs, medicine, spice blends, and vinegars I’ve made or am in the process of making and the dairy we get to enjoy.

And with that, I have a man out in the rain skinning a deer. The show must go on. Maybe next time we chat, I will officially be a grandma. Ahhh… life, sweet life.