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

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

Our First Egg

Very exciting news here today. We got our first egg! I guess maybe we need to get out more, if just getting an egg gets us this excited. But we think it is beautiful.

Well, we finally got the pink apples worked up today. This is what they looked like when we cut them up.

They are so pretty. Remember last year, we purchased the steam juicer and the Roma sauce maker. They have been so helpful already this year. We just quartered the apples, no peeling necessary. Put them in the steam juicer and let them cook.

This is what the juice looks like. Such a beautiful color. We got 5 pts of juice. The juice is concentrated. For every pint you get a quart of juice.

Then after the apples cooked in the steam juicer we ran them through the sauce maker. We got 6 pts of applesauce. Thanks so much, Donna, for sharing these with us. We are working on peaches now. They are canning as I type. We saved the peelings from the peaches. We are going to put them in the steam juicer and make juice from them. I like the fact that there is hardly any waste.

Remember how I said last weekend was unusually cool here. Well, I can hardly remember that now. It has been HOT all week. I know not as hot as many of you but still hot. Temperatures have been in the 90’s outside and about that hot inside our house. I am so thankful to a blogger friend who gave me the idea of using a propane unit to do our canning on. We put it on the front porch and it makes such a difference keeping the house a little cooler. Most of the heat is out there not in the kitchen.

Well, we better get busy doing some cleanup. Enjoy your day and God bless.

July 21, 2011 7

Sweet, Juicy Corn

Our corn is ready! I love fresh garden corn. We have been working some of it up this morning. So far we have put 58 ears in the freezer and 9 pts cut off the cob. I have a vacuum sealer which I use for the corn and other stuff. It is a very handy thing to have. I purchase items at the store in bulk at a discounted price and then separate them out into portions we can use. Then seal them with the vacuum sealer. It really makes a difference. No freezer burn.

The type of corn we raise is called Merit Corn or where I’m from they call it Garden Creek Corn. The man who had the seed for it lived on Garden Creek, thus the name. It is an excellent corn, very sweet. It is called the silkless corn because when you shuck it the silks just fall off with the shucks. I LIKE THAT! Makes working the corn so much easy.

We have been getting quite a lot of rain here this week. The temperatures have cooled down some though because of the rain. Yesterday, the girls and I worked on apples. 16 quarts to be exact. I used my new steamer juicer and extracted over a qt of juice from the peelings. We had fresh apple juice with breakfast this morning. Very delicious!

Better get busy. Enjoy your day and God bless.

August 19, 2010 2

Peaches

Today we have been busy with peaches. We had 11 qts of peaches. After peeling them, I decided to try out my new helper. I put the peelings into the steamer juicer and got 2 qts of juice. From that juice, I made 6 pts of jelly. I think they look really pretty in the jar. It was easy to do. I think it was a wise investment. Supper this evening was fried chicken, gravy, corn and biscuits. Of course, peach jelly for dessert.

A new visitor to our pond. He (or she) arrived the other day for a short visit. Hubby says he thinks it is an egret. Of course, he stood out with his white color. I think the geese were a little amazed. We have been having rain lately. It is raining now as I am doing this post. I had hoped to go to the garden and check on things but I don’t think that will be happening. Oh well, maybe I’ll just rest. Take care and God bless.

August 17, 2010 1