A Busy Autumn Homestead and 3 Lime Recipes - 231

Hello everyone, welcome to another video!

So this week, we cut some firewood in the top paddock so we can move some pigs in. We do some walling, some fencing, and we move some brambles in a unique way. And I attempt three lime recipes this week.

Moving the Pigs

So we start this video, as you saw last week, the pigs have plowed everything where they are, the young pigs. And we've noticed it's very green up here. So what we're going to do is remove the firewood is here, cut it up. I've got a little job for this little stick here. Once it's all cleared out of here, we'll just make sure the perimeter fen is all safe and sound, and then we'll be attempting to move the piglets up here. So here it goes!

So I'm going to attempt to extract this large tree that I failed uh last year, get it out where it is, and chop it up for logs. Just looking at um these little grubs. I don't know what they are. If anyone can idea ify them, they certainly make a mess of pine trees.

Clearing and Fencing

Go stuff's really wet in oh for go all loaded up uh logs on the back, which need to go into store cuz they're all fairly wet. All these, when you strike an ax into them, you get water around it, so these really need drying off. And then I've got six boxes of kindling up the front which will um which we use, obviously get the fires started.

So in the interest of giving the pigs a bit more room, uh this fence I put up here to stop the the goats from jumping on the rock, I'm taking it down because we're not having goats ever again. And um I was hoping to do this before the pigs turned up. Uh yeah, I'm going to take this down, and we're going to move it so they get access to this more Lush grass on no food, it's not food time, you know that. Don't be chewing things, come on. Really are come on come on come on whoa whoa whoa nothing fighting plastered.

Bramble Wrangling and Rock Barriers

Now I have to go and get some of the cut brambles. I'm hoping I can pull it back over so I don't have to get involved with the pigs again. Show you how tough this stuff, this stuff is for so because of the all this Lush stuff here, uh brought the Digger down to move a few of these rocks to create a better barrier here. Um definitely need a better barrier here, and I'm going to attempt to erect this as a fence post here. Yeah, put this up as a fence post, and then that fence I've just took down going to take from that corner to here, and then put a gate in here, and another gate of the far end and then the the pig she to come in here as well during the day and at night then we'll put them back in the in the other area, but they're eating through that all the stuff in there, they're getting through it, so we need to give them some fresh fodder to feed on.

CU it's a nice Gate Post so good. So we've got it sort of balanc in there. Uh I found this nice Square sided Rock here which I probably going to put on top of this one and that'll give some support to here if I can get something to go against the front of it, and then we'll we'll see how it goes. I may try and do is flip it on this other side, get the straw out, and then ease it up towards the other Rock no.

Temporary Fencing and Pig Expansion

So one rainy rainy night later, and uh you can see I've got this, it is only temporary guys uh temporary fence in here, yeah, and a temperary gate very temperary gate. Uh I've built this wall completely with a mini Digger, no hands involved, so I'm quite pleased with that although there's a few brambles and stuff but uh over over time. Right, let me do a quick explainer. Right so uh the idea is we're going to let just just extend the pig's area a little bit cuz there's lots of green stuff in here and I'll show you not much green stuff left down here a little other guys why you all got muddy faces look at the St you look at the St you right so we're going to give them this little bit for a few weeks just uh cuz there's lots here for them to eat and the oranges are dropping off the trees etc etc which they love.

So let's let them in here, yeah, so I've made a wall there uh event here is sort of a I've just dug this Edge for the minute they can't jump up there and these three huge Stones here uh all move so what I will do eventually is dig that back a bit more and place these Stones here along here to make a a granite wall so this will be then a more permanent uh area for them and the same here this massive Stone here will'll come away and I'll be able to dig it back and should make this all one big massive Granite wall that's what I'm hoping Pig uh yeah and the other the other places where I'm a bit worried about them escaping where I haven't got a wall like here to be honest it's so dense with brambles I don't think they'll get through we'll find out later anyway I don't think uh and up here uh this is their old pic see lots of green stuff here again too many brambles for them to go through I've put a temp temporary again great word getting getting a lot of use this video yeah a temporary barricade here between the two rocks and we have a temporary gate there and this is all Granite one side and bramble so we're hoping we're hoping that'll work uh just to give them more food and to stop them eating stuff they shouldn't.

So Andre's going to do the honors piggy pigy P pics come on I'd laugh if they first thing they did was Escape fre I wouldn't laugh yeah come on here there you are guys why you all going up there oh we can escape this the easiest way place to escape there a bit more room for you guys ehy the day yeah this will be like answer said what they'll only be here during the day I thought they wanted that's not a pig that's not a pig a yeah so they can eat during the day and then we know there they can't get out um in their main in their main compound so they'll be when an feeds them at night lock them in there or shut the gate so they stay in there but this good they love this stuff this is uh come on an uh Cranesville Cranium geranium so I do like that stuff G let's see yeah that's what I'm worried about they got plenty to chew at now should keep them busy the the the easiest way to escape would be here but there's lots of brambles so hopefully hope you guys like it things we do for you what's going on what's going on what's going on.

Duck Antics and Pond Plans

So one of the problems of having free range Ducks is they range where they like and we're hour and a half before feed time lining up and they find out where the feed is hiding aren you he come on duckles you'll have to come down in a minute come on I'll figure come on one of you do it one of you be brave you got up there really. So we had massive rain last night, in fact enough to put a couple of feet of water in the pond. So in case any of you were wondering why I haven't started a block work in the pond yet is because of this uh this time of year we're going to get if we do get rain it's really heavy and what I didn't want to happen is put a few quar of blocks in and then it rains overnight and all that cement needs to dry and cure before it gets wet really so uh rain's not a good thing on wet block work so going leave it until we have at least a week of of decent weather showing.

Lime Time: Three Recipes!

So an asked me to pick us some limes so I did yay bucket of limes fabulous a whole bucket full smelling so and what are we going to do with these well first of all I'm going to give them a quick wash okay look at that and they absolutely smell Divine so uh I I'll do wash but what we're going to do um I'm going to do three ways with limes uh but only one will be complete this week if that makes sense so I'm going to do lime pickle which I have made before but that is quite a long process so I'll get that one started we're also going to do some salted limes and again that takes a while because it's a fermentation but the one that will be started and finished this week is lime marmalade and I wanted key lime pie oh really now you tell me.

Lime Pickle

Okay so the recipe I'm doing uh we actually had a video out on this I think it's 184 yep um so I'm doing near enough the same I've got actually work at at 13 limes it's just over a kilo which is just over two pound in weight um so what I'm going to do with these guys cut them into wedges eight wedges and then I add turmeric salt and our own um apple cider vinegar and they're going to sit in the pot for probably about four weeks but they will get stirred every day just covered with a tea towel so I should do that now. So that's my limes all nicely wedged up and it does smell absolutely Divine in here at the moment so next in my jar just put that one out let's get the jar here so we can see oh lovely I've got some nice salt and I'm going to put in four tablespoons so that's a slightly bigger spoon like so nice Heap CU this is all it's like a fermentation that goes on so the salt is helps that and it helps to draw out the juice as well that's the salt now I need three tablespoons of turmeric or turmeric or turmeric however whatever you want Oh bit there it'll get stirred in that's our own that there a minute and then our own apple cider vinegar and just need a a good like tablespoon and half is splot be not going to hurt you know what I'm like with measurements so we're going to give this a quick stir get that covered up nicely and smell it just smell the L there we go breathe deep and that as they say gets covered and left for up to four weeks and like I said what I do I'll just give it a quick stir every day and then we'll we'll come back to this little beauty in a bit.

Salted Limes

Okay the next is The Salted limes so I've just some of the wash ones I've just seen how many will fit into each jar and we've got 12 in each jar there's a bit of head space because I've got some glass weights that I can put on top that will keep the brine or keep the limes under the brine then so just make sure I got enough head space so that I don't have all gushing out everywhere because it's going to be a fermentation process so there's going to be a bit of get this right now it's a oxy there's some reaction that goes on that could create bubbles Kettle has boiled so I'm going to pour the lines no I'm going to pour the boiling water over these and straight away we get a huge zest don't we yeah so I'll give this a now the idea of this is apparently it'll soften up the Skins a little bit to to help with all the brining and stuff that's going on so I'm just giving that a a little Shake right hopefully that's uh softened enough or thank you there always one escap right water salt so in it's just under 2 L of water cuz when I put the salt in it will bring it up a little bit so I'm adding four spoons of salt and give that a good stir to get this all dissolved it might take a little bit longer cuz it's quite quite narly salt I think one I did some some time later so now that the salt is pretty much will dissol few little bits but it's all going to get distributed quite nicely so 12 2 10 11 12 perfect and then give another quick stir there not hardly anything there now might need a bit more actually so I'll get my glass weights in a minute so I've used just over a ready so I top that one up I'll just go and get my glass for wait a minute so that's the nice brine solution and I've got my glass weights that hopefully try to get out there I should just push it down to keep them level so they're nicely under the brine solution and we pop that on and they let them do their little fermentation magic for for 2 weeks and then what's happens after 2 weeks well they are nicely fermented um what they used for then you can take them out obviously um and use the say cut them in half and squeeze the each half into a make a like a long drink in something like lemonade or a dizzy water or something like that or even just plain water but it'll it's a really good good tonic basically it's really good for throats all sorts so these are can also be known as Chinese salted limes Chinese preserved limes um yeah look it up they're apparently a cural especially good for the throat and it makes your kitchen smell Divine.

Pig Swap and New Pastures

Apparently they're also really good in a Mojito change of plan we move the big pigs into here instead of the little ones this morning we are going to move the big pigs into a new area a new area because they're running out of food in there and there is a couple of little jobs I need to do in there so I'm going to put on the pig Cam and just going to do the work so here they are came for the food I'm just going to hopefully block them going in One Direction hopefully they'll be a fine they well behave these guys AR we come on come on Piggies come on in that way that way yeah no no no no no no no no no no no no that way there we go bubbles why are you always trouble bubs bubbles bubbles bubbles get up there get up there there no not in there oh S no no no over there yeah there we go oh what's H doing no no mate don't see Mommy. So this is the stuff they love hello Big Boy uh crane build tanium something like that they got lots of grass and stuff to eat in here cuz they've virtually stripped the other area so there we go come on Cindy what are you up to Bubbles come on fingers so we'll have to move the water and you get if you get the water I'll bring up some more bedding for a bit more bedding so it's just a little bit of dry food just as an enticement but poops.

Solar Pump Spotlight

So take a little break from proceedings uh to show you something we've been sent oh and put it in water that's what it's supposed to happen I suppose because what we have here from this company called Poposoap as you can see this is a solar panel 25 W which comes with a little brace you can fix it on the back hang like so and you can push it in the ground to be angled to the Sun but more importantly it comes with this which is just a very simple uh submersible pump so this little uh submersible pump comes with uh like a variable fountaining heads I'll show you all those and a tube to connect it if you want to connect it to uh bird baths or you know any sort of garden ornaments that are water run but one of the best things about this is is obviously it's free to run cuz of the solar panel but see what so I'll just put it in the water a minute just so you can see so it's got to be submerged in the water um so obviously this is for our pond when we eventually get it done so submerged in the water with the head of the fountain bit just above water level yeah according to how you want it but check this side so I can't do both yes I can here's the solar panel which is should be at all times facing the sun watch this baby it's crazy powerful that's instant isn't it as well um see that sun no sun but it's it's really good it's um obviously I'll put this down there this is all adjustable oh it's it's running a bit strong at the minute actually to be honest so what you can do if it's not brilliant you can adjust it accordingly however you want it yeah it also has you take it out the water it stops so it's got a switch on it somewhere that's better so we wanted this for up P just so it breaks the keeps the surface moving the pump does have a little filter on it as well on the end uh so you can somehow yeah see the filter here so periodically you may need to change the F filter Etc but um yeah we just the power of it we were quite pleased with I'll show you the other fitting it has take this one off put this one on this quite a funky one are we're going to look like the so there we go oh that's nice isn't it and this is obviously look at this so yeah uh there's a link in the description for a lot of the products they sell on Amazon uh yes so just go down in the description and check it out but um yeah some really funky stuff oh keep it in the water obviously I got like that way yeah and this is adjustable as well see o um as say we have to play some music to it and get it look like those famous fountains in Vegas yeah so yeah and I'll just show you the other function it has you can if you've got an existing water feature or whatever it comes with a length of silicone pipe which you can just find the end you can imagine so yeah in the Box it comes with a few accessories like I said if you already have an existing water feature and want a solar pump literally you can put a hose on it and join the hose to it what we may do if um I might get another one of these if I dig a let me say a a shallow well in our top pond in our top padic where we just moved the pigs from um I may well use this as a continuous pump for water for the pigs yeah really impressed by the the well just this little solar pump it's great so like I said Link in the description for a lot of their products on Amazon um go down and check it out just messing about with it seeing the different effects I quite like this one mushroom how cool stop playing around get back to some work.

Gardening Time: Brassicas Ahoy!

So while we're down here beside the tank in the garden uh do some well needed uh Gardening Plus we've bought some brasas haven't we y so plug plants it's a lot easier bit cheaty I know but I will be doing some seeds at some stage but uh yeah so what do we get broccoli cabbage white cabbage and like a lumbardy cabbage so between us the pigs and the chickens we have plenty of greenery yeah right these are the plug plants that I'm going to be planting into the two beds here so as you can see it goes around this is all cleared out now put some fresh compost in as well just to give it a little bit of uh just to fill it back up again really so uh yes I should plant now I know we've got broccoli and two types of cabbage so uh here goes so could be a broccoli I think it is but what I know there's like I said there's two types of cabbage and a broccoli so I'm just going to Chuck them in have mixure now what I'm also going to do I'm going to go cuz we've got lots of self-seeded Nerium and um Mar gold so I'm going to put a few of these down here as well because that'll help with a make the bed look pretty and I've got so many of them it'll just be a good um distraction there'll be like a sacrificial plant as opposed to hopefully the butterflies won't lay too many eggs on my cabbages then.

Lime Marmalade Attempt (and a Mishap!)

Okay so for the third limey recipe this week I'm doing lime marmalade um I'm going to do a quick ish method with it which is what they call the whole fruit method I've got 2 and 1/2 lers of water on the boil here or will be when it's heated up and boiling um kilo of washed I was about to say lemons cuz they're quite R turning yellow so so they are limes so they're going to pop in there and basically I'm going to bring them to the boil and then let them simmer for about 2 and 1/2 hours but we're to make the skin make sure the Skin's nice and soft so uh while they're in there what we say jowling away can go and feed the animals cool I wish you guys could smell this smells lovely doesn't it so the limes have been cooking for a couple of hours now Skin's really soft they've gone really yellow but so we'll just take them out of the cooking water and what I need to have have for this particular recipe cuz like I said I've got a kilo of limes with this just catch them all I'm looking to have 2.7 L of cooking fluid now this pot has lining it so I'm obviously a little short I am anyway cuz thanks sorry so I just get some water a minute to top that up right so we're just going to add some extra water into this that's 2.6 that'll do okay so we're just going to cut these let's say this is a there's different ways of doing the marmalade you can pre-cut everything thing but for for doing this a little bit quicker is just cutting it up now I need something really to catch all my juice in take two we have a little catchment cuz when I cut these in half lots of juice escapes now do you want it chunky or thin thin just to be awkward you no I have it chunky I don't mind so I'm just going to cut fairly I mean this is It's really soft anyway so it's not going to make too much difference it's just going to be lumps of look at at all that pulpy stuff that's all going to go in so we take that out the way little it warm Gil it's limes you can't eat limes so I'm going to do that with all these guys and then we're on to the next stage right so this is all the limes cut up into fairly nice sort of chunky bits cuz both Nick and I like a bit of Chunk in our marmalade I just turn this on a minute because to this I'm now adding 75 mil of lemon juice that's freshly squeezed for our own lemons and is the scary part I'm actually going to put in a kilo and a half of sugar into this this has been jowling at don't know if you can see but we have a thermometer here um and there's a little segment for each thing that you need to look at I'm looking at the jam here it's a jam marade same sort of thing this has been jowling for a good qu of an hour 20 minutes so I'm now going to turn this off like so a quick stir now in the microwave I've steril well sterilized I've washed some jars up and I'm going to sterilize them in the microwave so basically is dry them off they've been put in boiling water and I'll just dry them off and then we can put this into the jars and then we have marmalade oh these are hot so sterilized in the microwave keep that one there to stir and use that one so we need to make sure we get some nice bits of rind in as well get this as close as possible so i' just like to another big thanks to Sandra and raymon for our little funnel here it's been an absolute godson for things like this it really is good good so uh as you can see perfect I can deposit my jam and and or marmalade in and not make quite such a messes so thank you very much thanks guys so at the moment we have six jars so put the lid on I'm going to have to put my glove back on because these they're very hot.