More Carrots!

Well, this is all more of those wonderful carrots from out garden. I pulled them all, we have eaten them for weeks now, raw and I placed several bags of them in the freezer. They will be super for those times I need them quickly, cause they are clean, chopped and ready to use.
The carrots are several different colors. It is hard to see, but they range from "regular" orange, to yellow to almost white and all the inbetweens too.

Now that these carrots have been pulled and put up, I have already planted a second crop to grow that that I can over winter them right in the ground, with some hay on the top. We should have fresh yummy carrots all

Baby Carrots from the Garden

This is a handful of baby carrots from our garden! They smell so wonderful and sweet. I have quite a few planted, but I wanted to just peek and see how they were doing. So far so good.

Canning Chicken

This is some chicken that I canned the other day. I canned 8 pints. It looks wonderful. It was great. I cooked down some chicken the day before and deboned and deskinned it, and put that back into the chicken stock. I waited till the next day to can it up, but It was really easy, cause the hard part was the cooking, and boning the chicken out. I took the chicken in broth, heated it up on the stove, and ladeled that into my already hot and boiled pint jars, wiped the rims and placed on the rings. I placed them into an already boiling pressure canner. When all 8 were in the canner, I closed it up, brought it to 11 lbs of pressure and started a time for 75 minutes. After that time, I allowed it to pressure down, then removed the chicken from the cooker, allowing it to set out for 24 hours to seal, and cool. After the 24 hours, then I remove the rings, clean the jars, write on the lables and then put them up.
This is a close up of one of the jars...it looks great. This chicken will be great to make chicken soup, casseroles, or even chicken salad, yum!

Just another bread day

I made bread today. I made 5 loaves and tought a friend how to do it all at the same time! We made 1 cinnamon swirl whole wheat, 1 onion whole wheat loaf, and 3 Honey whole wheat loaves.
There just isn't much better than some fresh, warm, just baked bread for lunch. Husband and dd had ham and the ds and I had peanut butter.

Our first quail egg

We received our first quail egg today, three of them infact. We are very excited about it too. The quail are exactly eight weeks old and they started laying , like clockwork. So far so good.
This is a comparison in size...one quarter, one quail egg and one of our fresh chicken egg... I can't wait till we have tons of the quail eggs, cause I want to make tiny deviled eggs, just for fun!

Dozer

This is our new dog "Dozer"...he is a catahoula (or so we have been told). He was in pretty bad shape when we got him (husband felt sorry for him), but he has been to the vet, had some shots, and is on 2 antibotics and is now starting to feel better. He is the most adorable little thing ever. He is a big change for us, as we have 4 dachshunds (in the house) and 2 husky/border collie mix (outside). Dozer was making a little pit stop at the small pond on a hot day!!!

Our NEW Outhouse

Check out our new OUTHOUSE! it is almost finished, we have a few small things to do (like put the screen on an paint and a few trim boards).
This is the side view...we made it a bit bigger than some that I have seen, but I wanted it roomy. The open parts at the top will be "more closed up" but I am putting screen on it first so it can "vent" well. It is only primed now and will be painted soon...I chose the color and it is a creamy yellow called "SUNNY DISPOSITION".

Our Chicken Plucker

My husband decided that we needed our own chicken plucker and so he has. He started out with a 4 inch pvc pipe end cap. He drilled a hole in the center put a 1/2 inch threaded rod into it. He used a lock washer on the endside of the cap and a nut on the outside to hold it.
He drilled out holes through the sides of the cap in an alternating pattern of two holes then one until all the way around.
He then inserted the chicken plucking fingers into the holes, working then into the holes because the fit must be very tight.
After the cap was completely finished, then the threaded rod is inserted into a handheld drill. The drill must have a 1/2 inch drill driver. The drill will be clamped onto the edge of a table, turned on and then the plucking will begin!!!

A bit of Jam

I have been canning jam here lately. I canned six 1/2 pints of Strawberry/Gooseberry Jam one day along with 5 more 1/2 pints of Blackberry Jam. They are both delicious.
here is a pic of them here.
A close up of the Strawberry/Gooseberry Jam. I am definitely going to be making a lot more of this one...
I am not much of a recipe person but I will do my best to write one out for you for the Strawberry/Gooseberry jam...here goes.
6 cups of Strawberries, put through the blender
4 cups of Gooseberries, put through the blender
Put all the blended berries in a pan and heat on med heat till it is boiling.
Add 5 cups of sugar and start stirring...stir and watch closely till it comes back to a boil.
Once it is boiling, stir constantly and boil for at least 10 minutes to about 20 minutes (varies due to humidity and water content of berries) . At about 10 minutes of boiling watch for the sheeting on the spoon to determine if it is thick enough. I do not add commercial pectin, just the sugar. If you are not sure if it is thick enough, drop a few drops on a cool plate and let it sit for a minute...then touch it and see if it is thick enough...if not, continue to cook for a few minutes and check again, by dropping a few more drips onto the plate. I keep a plate in the frig to do this on when I make jelly/jam. After it is the "thickness" you want, (remember that it will thicken when it cools) then ladel it into clean sterilized 1/2 pint jars, wiping the jars rim, placing the flat onto the jar, and tighting the lids down. Process in a water bath for 15 minutes. take out and let cool. After 24 hours, take off the rings, clean the jar off and put in a cool dark place to store.
Now you have jam.

New Kitchen Sink!!!

Well, here it is, the old sink that is...nothing really wrong with it, just plain ol' simple small double stainless steel sink.
The front view of the OLD sink.
Yikes!!!!!!!!!! NO SINK!!!!!!!!!!
And the finished product...a beautiful ,white, enamal, very deep, huge, perfect, NEW sink that has been installed in my kitchen by my wonderful husband. He even replaced the faucet with a new one. I even got a soap despenser that is built in!!!! I love it!