I’ve cooked a lot of beef roasts and there weren’t that many of them I was proud to claim, until now. This recipe has never, ever turned out poorly. I have essentially dumbed down a beef bourguignon recipe. This recipe has a few less steps and way less active cooking time required. You can vary the recipe with the variety of wine you use and how much of each ingredient you use as well.
Start by thinly slicing a large yellow onion into a dutch oven with some olive oil in the bottom. Add salt and cook until golden in color.
Next add mushrooms, carrots and cut bacon. Cook until the mushrooms start to brown. I don’t have an exact on any of these ingredients. It’s whatever I have and feel like cutting. I only had 2 carrots when I made this roast. The roast before it I used 5. Completely up to you.
Remove everything from the dutch oven, season the meat and brown on all sides.
I use a Hudson Bay Beef Spice mix from Savory Spice Shop.
Make sure you flip the meat. You may add butter at this time if the pan is dry.
Perfection! Add the onion/mushroom/carrot/bacon mixture back to the pan with the meat.
Now add the wine. Whatever red variety you have on hand. I have used Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet, etc. Red wine and beef, you pretty much can’t go wrong here. I add wine until there is about a 1/2 inch in the bottom of the pan.
Cook the wine until slightly reduced and add beef broth until the roast is covered.
Bring to a boil.
Cook in a 275 degree oven for about 6 hours. You can do longer or less time. I’ve never had it turn out badly.
As with most small holdings, chicks seem to be a never ending job. In the fall we killed every single bird we had, chicken, duck and turkey. The turkeys were fated for the table anyway. The ducks and chickens got themselves into that situation on their own. You see, the chickens were eating their eggs. We couldn’t figure out who was doing it so they all were culled. The ducks were laying their eggs in the pond and only the pond. I’d see them float to the top after they’d rotted. Not what I was keeping ducks for so they were also culled. At the moment we have pigs and peacocks and that’s it. Well that was it until yesterday.
I decided we needed to be more practical. No more random chick purchases and no more allowing the hens to hatch eggs (we had one hen that could hatch out 2 nests a year). We really only need 6 chickens for our personal egg consumption. I did not want to waste money getting a rooster either. So off to the feed store to pick up 6 red sex linked chicks.
I’d been checking the feed store for them so you would think I’d have prepped the brooder beforehand. I did not. Everything was a bit dusty and needed a rinse but it took only a few minutes to prep the old kitchen island for it’s newest chicks.
The chicks seem happy!
The island is large enough that even though the heat lamp is pretty close to them they can get away from it when they are hot.
View of the outside of the island here. I removed the drawers on the top and one of the doors for ventilation. I just used molding I already had to keep everything in place. Unfortunately the kids are always pulling the top screening down so they can peak in.
The following pics are of the nonworking brooder in the barn (nonworking as the power is out).
I just modified an over the fridge cabinet by extending half of it (again with things I already had hanging around). The extension is where I put the food and water. The bottom is hardwire cloth so everything just falls through to the barn floor.
I mounted the cabinet but had to use a bit of a prop for the extension I made.
So, if you don’t have any stock tanks or other containers around, old kitchen cupboards can find new life as chick brooders.
I have not given up on having a permaculture orchard here in Wyoming. I planted several experimental trees this year I have much hope for. I have not planted as much as usual though. Part of that is I really need to adapt my strategy to fit my reality.
A percentage of my trees do survive through the first rough year after being planted. I have been happy with this survival rate as it is better than what most people would expect from this area anyway. However, the growth rate is as low as the water they receive and they are so susceptible to animal death. My favorite and oldest apple tree was attacked by ground animals this year. I did go plant a ring of daffodils around it and it is not completely dead. Still, To see years of growth abolished so quickly is quite depressing. I believe with minor irrigation in the starting years I can really change the growth and survivability of my trees.
Now, I have limits on what I can water with my well. As such watering is going to be a scientific endeavor. We will be drip irrigating only the newest trees and only for the first few years. As such I will have time to execute and cover crop my earthworks while I wait for irrigation to become available to a new line of trees. We plan to start this in the spring and I will keep you updated on whether it makes a noticeable difference or not.
I have planted some experimental trees this year. We have 3 paw paw trees planted in the pig run next to the pond. I planted 2 almond trees, 2 hazelnut and 2 medlar trees in the yard. Those I have been watering. I’ve had some almond problems. Mostly that our dog appears to be convinced he is required to dig one of them up. We shall see if that tree survives to the spring.
As far as animals go this year we killed nearly everything in the fall. We no longer have any chickens or ducks. The simple reason being that I wasn’t getting any eggs anyway. The ducks were laying all of theirs directly into the pond and the chickens were eating theirs. The turkey, of course, went to Thanksgiving heaven. All we currently have is the two pigs and two peacocks (male and female). Hopefully we will have babies soon, from both.
I do intend to get more chickens in the spring but I am going to keep things under control now. No more babies, no more roosters. Just six sex-linked hens that will be replaced every other year. It was getting a bit ridiculous the other way. Who needs 25 chickens anyway?
Things are slowly marching on here. Spring should be interesting for me, discovering what has made it and what has not.
Early spring we began losing chickens. Some of them were gone without a trace. Others were found partially eaten. We knew we had a problem, we just weren’t sure what form that problem was taking.
As we have a well fenced run area I felt confident crossing coyotes off the list. They have never made it over the fence before, it is unlikely they learned how now.
That leaves a few possibilities. Ok, tons of possibilities. raccoons, badgers, skunks and weasels to name a few. Raptors were not on our list. We have witnessed great horned owl carnage before and this was nothing like that. There were no holes dug anywhere under the fence so that pretty much crossed badger off the list. I did not think it was a weasel. We had seen a stoat about the property before but it was really small and seemed to be happy killing the ground squirrels we have plenty of. I didn’t think fox because what I understood about foxes is that they’d kill everything just for the pleasure of it. This led me down a raccoon path that was pretty much solidified by a neighbor confirming they had a raccoon family nearby.
So we started baiting a life trap, closing the gate on the barn itself and we bought and placed a trail cam to catch the culprit. The first night we caught a cat. I had wondered if it might have been a cat but I wasn’t confident this cat was our killer. So, after debating it we let the cat go and put the trap out again. The next night we caught…..something. It ripped the door off the trap so we had no real idea what it might have been.
Then we bought the pigs. We were worried, they were small when we purchased them. Still, pigs are ferocious when needed. The killing stopped for a time. I was hoping it had moved on, or the presence of the pigs in the barn was enough to discourage it. It wasn’t to last. Soon we lost a turkey. Our security doubled down. We were trying all different kinds of bait in the trap but never caught anything else. The trail cam never captured any useful photos either.
We went on vacation and I worried we’d come back to nothing. Thankfully everyone was still alive when we returned. We did have some ducks build nests outside of the run though. I had some hog panels I zip tied in a circle around the hens. Everything was going ok. The hens were set to hatch their eggs any day. Then I went out to find a wing and no other trace of the hen. The eggs were also gone. I was devastated but had hopes for the other hen. She was well hidden, it took me weeks to find her myself.
Around this time the peahens also went to brood. I saw them each day as they flew over to eat. Then, one morning, no peahens. My heart dropped and I went in search of them. I found feathers, so many feathers, and eaten eggs. No peahen. She obviously gave her attackers a struggle. We were hoping she was injured and in hiding. We searched everywhere. We’ve never found her. The other duck was also killed the same night. Her body was strewn about in several locations, her eggs eaten. At this point I called game and fish. I didn’t think a raccoon could take a peahen. I’ve seen those girls attack our dogs and win.
Game and fish came out and confirmed it was a coon. They’ve told us to stake it out and shoot it. The chance of trapping it is so slim shooting is our only option. So we have the game cam out, baited, trying to figure out which days and times the coons come around. So far we haven’t caught any pictures of them. We did get an entertaining coyote chase though. You can see the rabbit racing away in one shot and the coyote chasing it in the other.
We are nearly out of chickens at this point. We have a single turkey left. We also only have one peacock left. The male peacock went missing during the night a week ago. The ducks seem ok. Other than the ones who were nesting no ducks have been harmed. I’m guessing it’s their alert state at night that has kept them safe thus far.
I’ve been told a line of electric wire at the top and bottom of the fence may be enough to keep them out. That is our next step.
The 5 acres directly behind our house is where the former owners kept their horses contained the most. It was highly compacted and had almost 0 vegetation. The sainfoin we planted here is doing well. (pictured above) It’s getting taller and it has been self seeding. It is a wall of pink blossoms we are blessed to stare at every day. It has been an incredible pollinator attractant.
It is slowly breaking through our compacted ground.
Areas that are not compacted, well there it’s flourishing. It is taller, thicker, seeding easier, where it does not have to work as hard.
This is sainfoin in a Krater.
Sainfoin in a swale.
The best growing sainfoin in what I thought was the worst faring krater.
I can’t speak to it’s palatability yet. The pigs have wandered through it and didn’t take a bite. The birds don’t seem to be interested in eating it either. I’m undecided on it as a forage. Time will tell.
Sometimes there are no words. Pictures are all that I have. There is so much I have not accomplished. So many things yet to be done. In these times of chaos it waters my soul to settle for a minute and photograph what has been done. The beauty that surrounds me but that I don’t notice in my busyness.
Cherry Blossoms
Plum Blossoms
Medlar Blossoms
Radishes
Sparta confused about what I’m doing.
Chicken Adventures
Ducks, Ducks, Ducks! The reason we never have clean water anywhere.
Turkey poults tasting some grass for the first time.
Piggie pics
Jiki found some fresh coyote poop near the barn to roll in. Yay…
Sparta running to catch up to us. Me thinks he’s gotten fat.
Pretty as a peacock.
Sparta peeking around the corner at the bacon bits.
