You can see the beans got a case of freeze burn! The tomatoes,pumpkins, cantaloupe, cucumbers and bush beans are now officially
done. It's a two sided coin of sorts, I'm sad to see it happen and yet
relieved to have an end to it as well.
Most of the flowers too a pretty hard hit too. Now it's time to let them dry,
and shake the seeds loose for next seasons flowers.
These are the ripe tomatoes, what was left on the pepper plants and a
portion of one hill of potatoes( needed them for supper)
Okay I'm almost ashamed to admit that both of our freezers are FULL!
We have a 21cu ft and a 16 cu ft. chest freezers and both are full. I'm
going to do some rearranging, and yes I'll defrost them both as
well. *wink*
We finally have had to buy store bought butter*sigh*, we've been dry
(milk free) for a year this Oct. I froze butter, enough it lasted almost 1yr.
Chopped up pepper and whole peppers for stuff peppers this winter!
Cheese purchases( 2 lb. blocks) for 3.99 each, on sale this past Spring
Pizza fixings, soup broths, pumpkin puree, grated carrots, etc.....
Now I have to figure out how to get three tom turkeys( all will dress out
32+lbs each) and four hen turkeys into these already full freezers.BTW,
this is the 21 cu ft. freezer.
The 16 cu ft freezer is mainly meat and some containers of broths,
soups, freezer slaw, baked beans, sweetcorn,etc....
The apples are two days worth of windfalls( 1-1/2 bushels). The
tomatoes filled 1-3/4 bushel basket and a milk crate full. If all these
ripen we'll be sitting okay with tomato canned goods, otherwise we'll
need to be careful to make our supply last until next season. PTL! we
still have the tomatoes going strong in the greenhouse. The plan is to
overwinter the plants inside our house.
Some candid pictures of our overworked pets! Casino taking his
Sabbath rest, doesn't he look comfy?
Tuffy prefers his crate for napping, he did open one eye for his picture.
Callie, snuck on the couch( she has one chair she's allowed on) was
looking oh! so comfy! LOL!
We harvested the last of the sweetcorn, 125 ears! We ate a few ears,
a few were cross pollinated with our Indian corn and the rest we cut off
the cob and froze.
Cortney was worried that she only had one mini pumpkin plant, well....
she harvested 41 mini pumpkins today!
We've begun pulling plants and cleaning up the garden in prepping for
composted manure spread and tilled under for the winter.
We still need to dig carrots, potatoes and the last 50 ft row of onions.
We've been pulling up the corn stalks and feeding to the cows and
horse, a row each day.
Well, it's getting late and I'm tired so will say goodnight.
Blessing for you day and rest of the week.
15 comments:
We got frost the other night and 'did in' most of what was left of our veggies. We covered the eggplants and they seem to be okay.
You have a lovely selection of produce.
Sunny :)
Wow you are amazing in all you do!
I wish I could harvest all that bounty. Hubby will not let me have a big garden again since my arthritis got so bad. But the little strips I had were amazing..we put chicken poop and bedding into the soil before we planted and got the biggest plants you ever did see! My zucchini plants were huge and bountiful, I had 20 on there at one time!! I loved it. I am trying to convince him to let me have 5 more strips, we do them in strip[s because it is easier to weed them and mow between them. At first I thought he was nuts when he did that but now I love it.
My two freezers are stocked up on sales of meat and things. I only buy when on sale. I am very frugal that way. And search for the best deals, ferociously. My husband yells, no more stuff! I could not fit another thing in them at all.
I have this complex, like when the World War II was on my mom says, that I am so afraid I will run out. I am only 53.
I buy in bulk on other things too, all on sale, like 26 packs of toilet paper, biggest packs of Charmin. That is the only thing my mom will use. And I have to have them on sale and then use coupons too. I get them online and in the Sunday papers. My neighbor man gives me his coupons from his paper and we get three papers.
They had a sale the other day of Diet Coke and and I got cases of 20 packs for $4.49 with a dollar coupon on each one, they were attached. We had just ran out and I was searching and searching and found this at the last store, I bought 20 of them. My husband takes it to work to drink and he has to have it! And I just found out last year I am diabetic and had to switch from RC Cola which was my favorite for years.
Amazing! Great Job! Wish we were neighbors, enjoying this stuff together. :)
It is such a bittersweet time, isn't it? It is a little while before we get a freeze, probably, but I'm also glad things have slowed down.
What an inspiring post! I only have my top freezer & a 5.2CF freezer. We're being gifted another one here, soon, so feel free to send a turkey my way. I don't mind helping your space issue out..... LOL.
What an excellent idea to freeze the peppers for stuffed peppers. I never thought of doing that (only have ever chopped them into pieces). It is going to be a tight fit getting those turkeys in there!
Sunny,
This frost was very early, typically we don't worry until middle of Oct. That is in part why we lost the tomato plants, didn't get them covered like I'd hoped to weeks ago.
Chicken herder,
Great to hear from you!
Soon your hubby will be singing your praises, having full freezers and pantries will help you stave off the bad economic times heading our way, faster and faster!
I'm only 44 yrs and I feel the very same way you do. Of course I've always felt led to be sufficient and NOT to depend on the government( world). What a blessing it is we all live such frugal lives, because we won't feel the hard punch of BAD economic times that is coming, no matter what they are trying to sell us that it's getting better via the media. We know people already here, that are being affected, our Ds, lost his job last week and jobs are quickly becoming harder and harder to come by*sigh* He'll get another because he has good work ethic and that seems to be a thing of the past these days. He knows how to be frugal too, even if he hasn't practiced it much lately.
Thanks for chatting, I love it!
Faith,
Boy howdy, do I wish I had you and some of the other bloggers as my neighbors, we feel pretty alone in our area. Don't get me wrong there are some who understand and try to live frugal and sufficiently but you know what most of them are 60+ yrs old and older.
Bitter sweet describes it perfectly, and yet by Jan 2010 I'll be planning, counting and checking my seeds, getting prepped to start our seedlings. You know what I am a glutton for punishment, LOL!!!! I thank the Lord for our different seasons and the respite and work get get from each.
Take care and enjoy your garden, ours is in the wrapping up stage.
Blessings,
Kelle
We are warming up here.Loving Spring time...but not looking forward to the Summer heat and humidity.You have a wonderful stock pile.I too "stock up" I have a seasonal job that gives me Jan,Feb and March off,so I make sure we have all the staples to get us through while I am unemployed.(just looove being a "kept woman" for a few months a year,lol!)Ill be keepin' cool,whilst you are rugging up :0)
Michaela,
You must have posted your comment as I was commenting and I missed your's and Millies comments.
How wonderful you're being gifted a freezer, what a blessing. I worry about our 21 cu ft freezer, as it is almost 20 yrs old, so I check it everyday, just to be sure.
We're in the phase of eating entirely from the freezers and garden right now, trying to make room for those big boys!
I wish you were closer, I'd certainly take you up on the turkey storage proposition, and the fee of course would be a free turkey of your choice*wink* Seriously if you want a turkey let me know. Not sure how we'd get it shipped to you though? Maybe you'd be coming our way, I don't remember exactly where you're at, but seems it is a distance from us in South Central MT.
Millie,
That is what I love about blogging, internet and websites, I'm still elarning tricks after 20 + yrs of living frugally. Glad you found something useful from our blog, that's what it's all about, for us at least.
We've been eating entirely from the freezers and garden, trying to make room for thsoe big boys! Some we've sold but still have at least 4 to find room for. We also have my folks freezer if we need to use a spot until we widdle down our overflowing bounty in the freezers.
In the end January, we'll need room enough for two pigs too*wink*
What a blessing to worry over where to put the food, not worrying about where to get food.
Granny,
I have you beat, I'm a kept woman all year round!*wink* It is fun isn't it, staying home and making due with your homegrown goodies. That sound like it's hard,not really! It's such a blessing to be able to be a SAHM. Don't get it wrong I work hard, harder than when I worked at my job, but it is so much more rewarding now!
Enjoy your cool before the heat/ humidity. Soon we'll be cool enough to light off the ole' wood cookstove, I can't wait to bake some biscuits and have a pot of chili or stew simmering on the back of the stove, Mmmmm, Mmmm.
Good thing our family has started a walking/exercise program, we don't want to gain any of the weight we're all working so hard to loose back, LOL!
What a lovely pile of food. Very exciting. I am just starting to look at freezers and will invest in one in the next month. Emily
I can't believe your freezers are exploding with all your bounty! wow! THAT IS WONDERFUL! I have the answer to where you will put the 4 boys! right smack dab in my freezer!! What a GREAT idea!! All yur hard work paid off and when I'm cying the blues at the price of food, you'll just reach in the freezer and pull out something!!...debbie
I loved seeing all your pictures!
My grandma had a dog named Tuffy when I was a kid! I don't think I had ever known another Tuffy since and hadn't thought about him in years!
Hey..you will have to make up and can a couple big old batches of veggie soup to clear out some freezer space for the toms!!! I have a pretty full up freezer right now too...I just have one real big upright one, and then the freezer side of the side by side fridge in the garage that is the "milk fridge" and there is NO room at all in the big one..just a little room in the milk fridge freezer and a even smaller bit of room in the top of the fridge freezer in the house...but then I will for sure be canning up soups and meats too before winter.
I love this time of year!!!
Good deal on the cheese, by the way..we go through alot here. I froze alot of butter before drying Mona up too...so I hope we have enough to get through to May, when she is due to calf!!
Have a wonderful weekend!!
Hey Debbie glad to have you back*wink*
Yep all the work is so.... worth it in the dead of winter, when roads are bad( I'm a HUGE chicken of slick roads) to just be able to walk down to the downstairs pantry, out to the freezers or over to the rootcellar and go shopping!
Glad to have you back, sounds like your trip was full of memories to hold onto and lots of fun. BTW love your pictures too.
Jenny,
Almost all of the fruit and veggies in the freezer will be eventually canned. Mike doesn't like canned meat, so it stays in the freezer until we need it*sigh* This is why on our "To Do" list are plans for a smokehouse, then we can preserve some of the meat via smoking and/or drying in large batches.
Tuffy's name came about, in kind of a funny way. Our Ds, Jon brought him home, the one time he moved back home after leaving and of course couldn't hardly afford to feed himself, but got a puppy*sigh*. Anyway he named him, Gordie,LOL! and the puppy wouldn't come to that name at all, so we all just called him puppy. Mike said we really need to come up with a name for him, and being he was tuffer than nails when playing with Casino, never yelping if he got hurt, only fighting back we decided Tuffy( which rhymes with puppy, so was a good choice) Now you know, whether you wanted to or not*wink* how he got the name.
We really miss our homemade butter, Bessie's butterfat made the butter naturally, a dark yellow, no dye needed and we like the sourcream butter the best, has more flavor. We're praying Addy gives us a healthy calf end of March beginning of April, then we'll back in the milking business, although Addy's cream is light in color, so the butter will be light as well, I'm not adding dye, we'll know it's still homegrown/raised butter.*wink*
I actually miss the cottage cheese and yogurt the most, oh yeah fresh cream too! Thanks for stopping in to chat, hope to see you again soon.
Blessings,
Kelle
Glad to have you blogging again. lol. We missed you. But, I see you had better things to keep you busy. My freezer isn't that full yet. Maybe next year. lol. Thanks for the insperation.
We don't get frost here in the South until sometime in November. You have been really busy and all that food will be good this winter. I did not know that you could freeze cheese. I learned something new today.
SFG,
Not having to prepare school work for Cortney is affording me more time here and there. I'm glad to be back into contact again.
Our freezers have never been so full, I'm still trying to remember that we aren't feeding Jon anymore,LOL! It's going to be a blessing, especially this winter, big ole' chicken me who doesn't drive on bad roads, has plenty of food to choose from*wink*
Marie thanks for commenting! Let me share that when you freeze cheese, once rethawed it does tend to be crumbly, but we mainly use it for grating anyway so it doesn't matter. Crean cheese freezes well, if used in abking, otherwise it gets grainy and sour cream also gets grainy after being frozen, but is still good for baking and casseroles.
Have a blessed new week! :o)
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