More Space

Saturday we got the chickens more space in their lot. They really seem to enjoy having more room. We put the additional 5 hens in with our hens. It will take them a while to get used to being in there. You see the coup at the far side of the lot. That is what they have been in since they were bought by the man who gave them to us. They don’t really understand the concept of being able to run about. When we turn them all out in the evening, those 5 don’t really know to go outside. I’m sure they will figure it out pretty soon though. The small coup you see in the front is just for emergency use. In case we need to separate a hen from the rest of them for a short time.

Yesterday, we made salsa. We ended up with 16 pts. The Horn’s came over for a while in the evening. We ate supper, talked, picked a few blackberries and talked some more. It seemed like it had been a long time since they had come over. We had a really nice evening and even got a little rain. God is good! Our temperatures have definitely been cooler this week. This morning it was 60 degrees when we got up. There is a slight feel of fall in the air. Humidity is not near as bad. That always makes it seem cooler.

I hope you all have a great day and God bless.

August 11, 2011 5

Sunday Morning

It seems I have so much to share with you all. Our church has a fellowship breakfast once a year at Smartview Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Sunday was a beautiful morning for eating outside. Saturday we were wondering if we would get to have it or not. We had lots of fog but Sunday morning was bright and beautiful. I took sausage gravy, biscuits, fresh churned butter, and scrambled eggs-fresh from our hens. God is so good!

Jess and the boys came up Saturday morning to spend the weekend. David was at a conference in Georgia all day Saturday. He came to our house after the conference. He got here about 1:00 A.M. Jessica’s friend Leah came over on Saturday to visit with her. Our house had lots of action-five children all together chasing after kittens. They all had lots of fun. We made peach ice cream Saturday evening. It was VERY good but I am partial to peach ice cream. I got the recipe from Allrecipes.com

2 1/2 pounds fresh peaches – peeled, pitted and chopped

1/2 cup white sugar

1 pint half-and-half cream

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups whole milk, or as needed

Mix all ingredients together and put into ice cream maker.

Yesterday I made homemade tomato soup from our tomatoes. I got this recipe from allrecipes.com also.

4 cups chopped fresh tomatoes

1 slice onion

4 whole cloves

2 cups chicken broth

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons white sugar, or to taste

Directions

In a stockpot, over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, onion, cloves and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and gently boil for about 20 minutes to blend all of the flavors. Remove from heat and run the mixture through a food mill into a large bowl, or pan. Discard any stuff left over in the food mill.
In the now empty stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a roux, cooking until the roux is a medium brown. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture, so that no lumps form, then stir in the rest. Season with sugar and salt, and adjust to taste.

I did do a few things different. I used about 1/4 tsp celery salt instead of regular salt and I only used 1/2 tsp sugar. I made enough of this to can 5 pts. According to the Ball canning book, you process this for 20 min. on 10 lb pressure. I ended up putting mine in the freezer as I was pushed for time.

Okay, one more recipe. I told you all I had a lot to share. That’s what happens when I don’t make a post for several days. Anyway, today I made a peach simple syrup. I had a few peaches left and wondered what I could do with them. Something easy. I cut the peaches into chunks. Enough to make l cup chopped peaches. I then brought to a boil 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water. Pour the boiling water over the peaches and let sit. I let mine sit all day. Strain the mixture and you have a great tasting peach simple syrup. Then I put about 3 tbsp. peach simple syrup into an 8 oz glass. I then added ice and sparkling water. I would have used club soda but I was out of it. I got this idea from http://theblessedhearth.blogspot.com/. She did something similar with ginger. I think I might even try mixing the peach and the ginger syrup together. I might try adding this to tea as I really like peach tea. Well, I’ve bored you all enough with all these recipes. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 9, 2011 4

Double Duty

Here is a picture of our hens hard at work. For some reason, they all want to use the same nest. Yes, they do have other nests. At least, these are big enough for two at one time. Our rooster is still under consideration. We have not put the new chickens in with the old ones yet. We plan on increasing the size of our lot this Saturday. Anyway, I have a few questions to ask. My experience with roosters is not too pleasant so I think I might be prejudice. When I think of roosters, I think of flogging and aggressiveness. What do you all think? Have you all had good experiences with roosters. The girls have made such big pets of our hens. They will sit out there in the lot and pet them and the hens love it. Do you think a rooster would go along with that or would he try to run the girls out of the lot? As I said, I have not had good experiences with roosters and I do not want this to happen to the girls. We so enjoy hearing him crow but I’m just not sure. Please share your opinion on this. Here are a few pictures of flowers that are blooming around the house.

A rose of sharon bush my mother-in-law gave me when we first moved here.

A white hibiscus. Or as my aunt used to call them “a high biscuit”. We had a great time with the boys yesterday. We played outside, saw the chickens LOTS of times, picked blackberries and drank homemade apple juice. God is good!

Today, the girls and I will spend some time cleaning our poor, neglected home. Canning takes priority and the housecleaning gets behind. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 5, 2011 4

He Needs A Name

Well, we have decided to give Mr. Rooster a chance. If he is a good boy, I guess we’ll keep him. We all think he sounds so cute when he crows. We have decided his crow adds a little something to our day. Wow, we really DO need to get out more. Anyway, we’ll see how it works out.

Yesterday, we worked with blackberries. We made some blackberry juice. Then took the berries we had cooked down to make the juice and put them in the Roma sauce maker. The sauce maker takes out all the seeds. We then make blackberry freezer jam. We had some blackberry puree left over and I wondered what I would do with it. Then I thought HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY ICE CREAM! It was so good. I tried to take a picture to share with you all but I couldn’t get it to turn out right. I got the recipe online at Cooks.com but altered it some to better suit us. Anyway, here is the recipe I used:

2 cups blackberry puree, 2 cups sugar, 3 eggs beaten, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 6 cups milk, 1 can (12 oz) evaporated milk. I mixed all the ingredients together and put it into the ice cream maker. I plan on making peach ice cream this weekend when Dave, Jess and the boys come up.

I went to work with Hubby this morning and helped him until lunchtime. Then came home and the girls and I started working on the peaches. We made some peach freezer jam and then canned some of the peaches. We saved the peelings again and got 2 more qts of peach juice. We also had a peach cobbler for supper. I love peaches.

I am looking forward to tomorrow as Sam and Daniel will be coming up to spend the day with us. Enjoy your evening and God bless.

August 3, 2011 3

Picnic and Baptism

I thought I would share a few pictures with you all of the picnic and baptism we had Sunday. This is the pond where we do our baptizing. Beautiful! This pond is located on Route 8 here in Floyd close to the Bread Basket.

This is a young man from our church. He and his dad were baptized Sunday. We somehow missed getting the dad’s picture. I have been busy all last week and yesterday helping Hubby with a job. He has been remodeling a bathroom. Today, I picked blackberries, some more green beans and tomatoes while the girls worked on inside house chores. We will be busy working on those today. We also have some peaches to can but they may have to wait until tomorrow.

Here are a few random pictures I took this morning. The blackberries are looking pretty good this year.

A tomato ripening on the vine.

A view of the back side of the house. Temperature here has cooled down a little. Not as humid as last week. Or maybe it just feels that way because I’m not underneath that house running pipe for plumbing. (lol) Well, I better get busy. I hear blackberries calling our names. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 2, 2011 4

New Ladies

Meet one of our new ladies. We have been blessed to receive 5 new hens and 1 rooster for free. A family that lives across the Parkway from us purchased these chickens on Easter weekend. That makes them about 1 month younger than ours. They decided chickens were not for them. They gave them to us with the coup. We brought them to their new home today. Julie will have to work on petting them up but I don’t think it will take her long. We are going to increase the size of our fenced in area and then put them all together. We think our older ladies like having a rooster around. We received 6 eggs today and one of them was a double yoke. We do not really want the rooster though. We are thinking of giving him away.

It is HOT here. Temperature is 95 degrees. I’m not sure what the heat index is but it is definitely hot. Enjoy your day, stay cool and God bless.

July 30, 2011 5

Blackberry Syrup

So I finally got around to making the blackberry syrup this morning. I used about 3/4 gal. of blackberries and got three pts of syrup. Pretty good. I’m not sure how it will turn out but it tasted really good when I sampled it. I put the blackberries in the steam juicer. This is what it looks like.

This is a very handy piece of equipment. We bought ours at our local Farmers Supply. I’m not sure if they sell them at Wal-Mart or not but I know you can order them online. You might even find them on Ebay. The name brand of ours is “Back to Basics”.

This is the bottom of the juicer. You put 3 qts of water in this.

This fits directly on the water container. This catches the juice as it comes out of the fruit.

You put the fruit or veggies in this basket. It fits directly on top of the other container. Then put the lid on. You see in the first picture the tubing. This is how you drain your juice into jars. Put it on your stove and when it starts to steam, you start timing. Different things need to steam for different times. Blackberries steam for 60 min. You can then use the juice for whatever you want to make. The pulp that remains in the basket from your fruit or veggies is still usable too. I will show you all another time what I do with the leftover pulp.

Here is the recipe I used for making the blackberry syrup. I got it from the internet and it is very simple. I hope it will be good.

4 cups blackberry juice, 4 cups sugar, 1 tsp. lemon peel. Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 min. Fill jars. (I used a strainer here as I did not want the lemon peel in the syrup) Process 10 min. in water bath canner.

Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 25, 2011 7

Around the House

I thought I would show you all a few pictures of around our house. This picture is one of the old walnut trees that is in the yard. The faithful horse you see has survived Julie and Grace and is now being enjoyed by grandchildren.

This picture is looking out my dining room window.

As you come down our driveway, this is one of the first things you see. Hubby built the bench a few years ago. The swing was one purchased from Wal-Mart. When the cloth seats gave out, Hubby made a wood swing to hang on the frame. Can you tell we love to sit outside here?

This picture looks up into the field from the side yard. You can see our grapevine and garden. Well, I have a few more pictures but they will have to wait for another day. Time for us to leave for church. Tonight’s menu is meatloaf, mac & cheese, corn, rolls, cole slaw, cooked apples and watermelon. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 24, 2011 4

Peaches

We have been working on peaches for a few days. I think I mentioned that we saved the peelings and put them into the steam juicer. Well, the above picture shows the 2 qts of juice we got from the peelings. We had 2 gal. of peelings and got 2 1/2 qts of juice. This will yield over a gal of peach juice. YUM! I definitely will do that again with our next batch of peaches.

I picked about 1 gal. of blackberries this morning. Pretty good for the first picking. I am trying something new for us. I am making blackberry syrup to use with pancakes, french toast, etc. Have any of you ever made this? It sounds good and sometimes I just want something different. I’ll let you know how it turns out. I have the blackberries on in the steam juicer now. Julie and I went up to the cellar this morning and organized it. I think “little green men” come along over the winter and just scatter all my canned goods. Anyway, all is in order now and ready for the new cans to fill it up. Grace worked inside doing household chores while Julie and I worked on the cellar. Hubby worked on mowing the yard. It has been a long time since he mowed. It is just so hot and dry. He thought it was starting to look a little wild.

Well, time to check on the blackberries. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 23, 2011 6

Bee Sting

My Grace was stung Tuesday with a bee. This is what it looks like today. It actually is getting better. The swelling has gone down. It must be our time for stings. Hubby came home yesterday and he had gotten stung with a hornet. It looked pretty rough this morning. We have been putting alcohol on both his and Grace’s. Does anyone know anything else to put on bee stings?

Not a long post right now. We are still working with peaches. We took a lunch break and I thought I would show you all Grace’s sting. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 22, 2011 8