This and That happenings in our weekend

           This picture is of Cortney's first driving lesson in the "big city" on Friday. I was amazed that the instructor took her onto some fairly busy streets and into the downtown area. She was so nervous, she was white, but the instructor said she did well. A few mistakes but nothing he didn't expect.  This picture is of her pulling back into the parking lot.    I'm a big ole' chicken and don't drive with our children. Mike does all the driving, he did it with Jon as well. I get to excited and my voice gets loud and high pitched*wink*, making the new driver very nervous.

      We butchered the remainder of the roosters, after trying to sell them and then even offering them for free.  We did end up selling 20 hens on Craigslist and one lady drove 200+ miles to buy 5 hens.  We still have a dozen hens that are 2+ yrs old to butcher for stewing hens and then our flock will be down to 15 hens and one rooster.  Our meat chicks are due in sometime this week, usually we order White Plymouth Rocks, but a friend raised a newer breed last Spring, called; "Freedom Rangers" and she was very impressed with them. They don't grow as fast as the hybrid meat birds( I call them mutants) but a bit quicker than White Rocks did last Spring.  I've gathered all the needed items in the garage and only have to set it all up once we get the call.  I still need to grind their feed, hopefully enough to last for a week or so, that way I can work on it when I find the free time. Last Spring I was always grinding for that days feed and I didn't like that, I like to be ahead some*wink*  When they come I'll post pictures of them ASAP.

 Okay remember back in the end of February, when our temps were warming and I planted our salad crops in the hoop house, well.........  it took until last week for these seeds to germinate without heating the hoop house. In fact I was worried all the seed had rotted, but they were just dormant until the soil temp. stayed at a steady warmer temperature.  I'm still learning the ins and outs of this hoop house gardening. I made a *note* in my gardening journal not to jump the gun, instead wait to plant in mid March, that is if the weather cooperates.  Anyway, the above photo is a mixed salad and it's now approx. 2-3" tall.  I can almost taste that salad. :o)

 Our Early Wonder beets, planted mostly for greens, but will harvest roots as well.

 The Valerian overwintered well and I'm hoping the Stevia too, although I have seedlings started just in case.

 These are some Egyptian Walking Onions, that I transplanted into the hoop house last Fall. You can see they were frosted when we got the frigid temps beginnig of March.

 The creeping thyme wintered over as well, but it looks as if the rosemary froze, even mulched and inside the hoop house. Thankfully I have the potted one in the house :o)

 Okay this is a total experiment, these are TRUE Potato seedlings( click the photo to see larger version).  If we get them transplanted into the garden, the spuds they'll produce will be our first year "seed potatoes"  In the research I did online, you can use up to the 3rd year seed potato, then after that your seed viability diminishes as does the harvest size and size of your potatoes.  As I said this is an experiment, and we'll keep you posted as to our results.

 Love to see this, lots of empty canning jars! These are all from one weeks worth of meals.  It means many things; that we've eaten well, we've saved $$, we're using our pantry foods, making use of what we have on hand, and of course more empty jars to be refilled with beautiful produce this coming Summer and Fall. :o)

 Since a few of the pint jars were empty and begging sounds from my family were heard, in reference to being out of Concord Grape Jelly, I made a batch. It made 4- pint jars and one is almost 3/4 gone *giggle* already! PTL! we have plenty of quarts of juice canned down in the pantry. Praying the vines produce heavy this Summer, last Summer was the off year!

  Last but not least it's been so beautiful and windy enough to dry clothes, as well as naturally soften them*wink* we've once again been hanging our laundry on the solar dryer.  Everything works out just at the right time, because we aren't burning the wood stove during the day now and I hate using the clothes dryer unless it's an emergency because it increases our power bill $12 or more a month. I know I'm a cheapskate and proud of it!, LOL!!!!

Mike also worked on three hydraulic cylinders, cut up some small branch firewood for our,"Take the Chill Off" fires at night and if needed in the mornings. 

Cortney's been working so much I can't keep track of her :o) She worked M, T, W, Th, and Sat. last week and tonight she starts her first round of night lambing with Annabele, with hopes that she'll feel comfortable enough to fill in and give Annabele a few nights off during lambing season.  She also will be bringing home two bum lambs on Wens.

We have our feelers out for a Dairy goat, but it seems we came onto this idea a bit to late and nobody has a fresh nanny or one ready to freshen, only kids and we don't want to wait for milk. I mean we've been dry for almost two and a half years and We WANT Milk!!!!! LOL!!!!  All kidding aside, if it's supposed to happen it will. :o)  We still have another dairy goat farm to contact and ask to take a tour, it's just finding the time right now.

Not much else worth sharing, so I'll sign off and wish each of you a very blessed week. :o)

A heads up and pictures of our weekend happenings

Self Sustained Living has a news link you ALL need to read and please take heed.

This is one reason, of several that you should be able to grow your own produce, preserve it and store it.

                          Here's what we did yesterday:
                     

                         This is today's temp. at 9am. Yesterday we were sweating bullets, it was 85F
                          in the greenhouse.

                         We also planted Gentilina, May Queen, Iceberg, Little Gem and a Salad mix
                          with Mustard and Radicchio

                          We expanded this bed and plan to do the same on the other side.
                          I'm also experimenting with early cabbage planted directly in the soil
                          verses in pots. We'll see how that turns out.

You can see how muddy it was yesterday, this morning it was frozen again.

 Our temperatures are supposed to be into the mid 40's all week, with sunshine( although not so far today)  I'm hoping this will give all our seeds a good start. 

The warm weather crops will be started indoors, hopefully this week!  We have a busy week ahead; Cortney works Monday and Thursday, with a trip into the city for a Dr. appointment on Wens. and again to the city on Friday, so she can take the written portion of her drivers exam. Her Driver's Ed. teacher said she is ready and needs to take the exam o obtain her driver's permit. Once this is done she'll begin driving in the Driver's Ed car, she's pretty nervous about that but he assured her that he won't make her drive in heavy traffic for quite awhile, but rather stick to the low traffic neighborhoods to begin with. I've been driving for several decades and I don't even like to drive in the city.*sigh*

Well need to get barns cleaned and off to Cortney's cleaning job. I will say it will be nice when she has a license and can driver herself to and from work. :o) 

Praying your day is filled with blessings. 

Looking back, maybe juicy new wasn't a good choice of words.... Here's the update!

 This past week Cortney attended a Workforce Skill seminar  and she received this certificate as well as one of two award given out for Most Professionally Dressed. In this seminar she learned how to create a resume, a cover letter, the proper way to fill out an application, interviewing techniques and practicing interviewing . Then they worked on follow up skills such as; follow up phone calls a few days following an interview and writing a Thank you for their time involved in interviewing you. She did very well and we are proud of her.

Now for the interesting news and the blessing of how God works in our lives.....  You may or may not know that Mike is the manager of a Farm and Ranch Coop, has been for a little over 3 yrs, and this store is in the midst of a building a new facility, so currently the store is in a temporary location. Over the course of the new building being constructed Mike and his employees have been asked about the arrangement of the new store, what will be new, how many gas pumps, etc..... Well... this is where the story begins; Mike passed on some of the questions to the main store and asked how they should answer the questions, because they hadn't been told, in fact during this whole process neither Mike nor any of the 3 employees were asked for input of their ideas. Two weeks ago the Farm and Ranch boss and the main store boss were up meeting with contractors and stopped in to fill in Mike and his crew with some of the news of the new store. After everyone asked their questions and made comments the two bosses informed the crew that they needed to submit resumes and what job they'd like to have in the new store. Mike was then told that he too would have to re-apply, submit a resume and interview, as they were opening up his position via an ad in the local city newspaper. This caught Mike totally off guard, especially when there was never any complaints with his job performance, in fact quite to the contrary and the company had just shelled out over $600 to send Mike to a management training seminar, a two part seminar with the last week being completed just a week earlier. In fact, Mike did so well he received an award ( see below)

That Saturday the ad in the city newspaper came out. Of course Mike was barraged by all the local customers, asking if he'd resigned or been fired. He could only say neither applied and if they really wanted to know they'd have to contact the main office. It was very humiliating for him though. When he submitted his resume, he was told that the interview would be set up the following week, all of this was handled in a very cold and distant manner. The interview was scheduled for Wednesday at 9am, upon his arrival he was informed he was the first of 10 interviews being held that day for his currently held position. They also informed him they wanted to act as if he were a stranger to them in the interview. Many things didn't feel right and the interview ended with the question," If you don't get chosen for this position how will you feel?"  Well, really! how do they think he'll feel, he will effectively be demoted or possibly even laid off. Mike refused to answer that question. They then informed Mike they'd notify him by Friday of their decision( which they did not do). When he came home that evening we discussed this for hours, prayed about it and discussed it some more and prayed some more. You see when Mike attained this job, he wasn't looking for a job, but rather was approached by the company via a friend's suggestion. We'd always prayed to find a job closer to home but most local town jobs didn't pay enough to make our mortgage and other monthly expenses. Thursday morning a friend came in and out of the blue offered Mike a job, knowing what had been happening over the past few weeks. The job is a family owned business, working from 7am to 4 pm with weekends off, unless you so choose to work if weekends are needed to finish up a project. The pay offered is approximately the same as he's making as manager of the Coop. So once again God provided a job before it was even needed! Mike will give his notice, Monday being his final day. Considering the circumstances of how poorly this whole situation was handled, he would typically give a two week notice as a courtesy, but he considers the last two weeks his fulfillment of that courtesy. He starts his new job Tuesday morning :o)

    Herbs and millet drying on the front entryway.

More herbs drying, many have been taken down, and prepared for storage, stored in glass jars.

This week, we'll be canning pickled carrots........ After we stored all we could in the cellar we still had several gallons of carrots to do something with, so.. we'll store some in the refrigerator for immediate use as well as make pickled carrot sticks. :o)

 and canning tomatoes, they've ripened up nicely on the front entryway.  The salad crops in the hoop house are coming along nicely and have withstood several freezes. I'll be glad to enjoy fresh greens well into Nov. and possibly even Dec.

Blessings for your new week. :o)

WOW! can't believe October is....

almost over. Where did the month go, or is it just me?  We've gotten much accomplished this month, plus a whole lot of running to and from the city on errands. 

The garden is pretty well cleaned out, we do still have sunchokes to cut back and stack the stalks for burning, and then harvest some chokes. We don't harvest many at a time because, well we just can't seem to get them to keep. So we leave them in ground and use them as needed until the ground freezes. We tried to mulch them heavy enough one season, with the thoughts of harvesting all winter, only to find that the ground froze and we couldn't dig them anyway*sigh*

Today the plan is to finish the two heads of cabbage( both weigh 30+ lbs) on the floor of the mud/ laundry room. One will be cut for kraut( I'm still going to make that tutorial*wink*) and the other will be made into Freezer Slaw.  Then if there is time I need to work up an area( using my High Wheel Cultivator), add composted manure, stir and mix in , then plant our Fall Garlic and get it mulched. 

We also will clean the house today, as company is expected on Sat. :o) I'm thinking of swapping the living room around for a fresh, new look. We only have two ways to rearrange it because it is small, but it always makes it seem like new and fresher when we do this :o)  The couch is a pain to move and we can't slide it across the wood floor, it leaves marks so... we may have to wait until Mike gets home this evening to move it.

Since the hoop house is still experimental for us, we did find out( we suspected) that if it's going to get down to  freezing or below it will in the hoop house as well. Tues. Cortney harvested all of the tomatoes from the plants in the hoop house, and pulled the plants. We now have 5 trays full of green/ semi green tomatoes sitting on our front entry( approx. 1 bushel) :o)  The next day we harvested the last of the bell peppers, that evening our low was 27F and when we checked the hoop house the next morning, pepper plants had all frozen and were black.  Now we know that we will have to heat the hoop house if we intend on keeping tomatoes and peppers going well into Nov. On the other hand the chard, mustard and lettuce mix we started were unharmed and are growing well, without an outside heat source for the evenings :o)

Blessings for your weekend

Smashing all myths that cooking from scratch takes all day

Now to smash all those myths that you can't cook from scratch quickly. Today we had to run an errand in the morning, leaving at 10am and returned home around 12:45pm. Once home, we had to collect clothes off the clothesline, getting the load in the washer, wrung out and hung on the line. Then Cortney and I went to our separate tasks. I began cutting tomatoes and running through the mill, while Cortney headed out to the hoop house to collect all the tomatoes left on the vines because it's forecasted to freeze and freeze hard tonight with our low into the low 30's to high 20's F. Since we've decided not to heat the hoop house this year, I didn't want to chance the loss of any of the beautiful tomatoes left on the vines. Much to my surprise, Cortney also went ahead and pulled up the vines, stakes and did all the clean up for me as well, what a blessing :o)  After the tomatoes were all milled and the Victorio all cleaned up, I proceeded to start a fire in the stove for two purposes; first to simmer the tomato sauce down  so it's thick enough for chili sauce, enchilada sauce and thick tomato sauce, and secondly because the indoor thermometer was reading 59F and it's forecasted to keep dropping in temperature outside. When the fire was going and shutdown, I headed outside to retrieve a package of chuck steak from the freezer. We've been out of burger for months and have an excess of steak in the freezer, some of which is over a year old already, so we've decided to thaw and grind burger on an "As Needed Basis."  Today burger is needed for our supper. 

 Tomato sauce simmering- Check

 Chuck steak thawed( enough) in hot water, cut into chunks and ground into burger-Check

 Burger cooked and seasoning added- Check

Home canned pinto beans, ready for mashing, mashed-Check

Mashed pinto beans added to burger in preparation for Enchiladas :o)

 Burger and beans mixed and simmered, ready to fill the..... okay I admit we did use store bought tortilla shells that we had in the freezer*wink*

 Home canned Enchilada sauce, recipe found here, ready to be opened and cheese grated

     The finished product before being baked in the wood cook stove oven :o)   Now all of this plus another load of laundry was washed and wrung out before 4pm.  Feeling quit good about all we'd accomplished in such a short period of time, Cortney and I treated ourselves to one episode, of the 9th season of The Walton's  *wink*  Then it was off to do evening chores, Mike coming home and enjoying our homemade supper :o)

Tomatoes!

What a wonderful blessing that word is! :o)

 After several years of struggling to get ripe tomatoes before a frost.... well this year with the hoop house we're not only enjoying ripe tomatoes well after several frosts, but the tomatoes are HUGE! The basket above is from just one days harvest. Now the only problem I have is jars, I'm running seriously low and really don't wish to buy new jars. So I put the word out and hope today that we'll find some. :o)

 Seed collection for next year  and our Anaheim chili peppers almost completely dry and ready to be ground.

Here are the bean pods Mike and Cortney collected( and the dried Painted Mountain corn), we'll worry about shelling them on a cold winters day or evening at the table, next to the warm and toasty wood cook stove :o)  Thankfully there are projects such as these that can be postponed for a later time*wink*

We've had a tough year when it comes to animal, losses. Our cow, Addy, was down and couldn't get up in the pasture on Monday evening. She did stand on Tues. morning but it was obvious that she'd pulled out her hip. We're not entirely sure if this was an injury from a few days earlier( as we were treating her for what we felt was a pulled muscle or tendon), gone bad. Anyway we'd already decided months earlier she was going into the freezer as hamburger, we were just holding off because we didn't have the room( hindsight is 20/20 don't you know*sigh*). When we called the butcher( they'll come and custom butcher right on your farm), he said she had to be able to walk, which she could NOT, otherwise she's classified as a "downer cow" and they by law couldn't butcher her. With no place cool enough to hang her to age we were now are faced with the fact that we're loosing all the meat. :o(   We went ahead and put her down( she was in pain) and a friend of ours brought over their loader( Mike was fit to be tied, he couldn't get our tractor with loader to start) and loaded her on our truck for us. She was to be hauled and buried in a pit they have for cows( in fact they had one that had been bitten by a rattlesnake that they had to put down the day before), then the state trapper showed up and asked about using the two cows as bait for coyotes. Since we know firsthand that a friend of ours has been struggling with her sheep being killed by coyotes all year we talked it over and decided that at least Addy's death was not going to be a total loss.
When you own animals things happen, we don't always understand, nor do we enjoy these things happening but you can either let it ruin your life or pick yourself back up and move forward. Loosing an animals is never easy, especially when you work closely with them and they become a friend. We're just so glad we opted to buy the bottle calf Cortney was raising for a friend, otherwise Button would be all alone and cows are, after all a herd animal.
Well, got to get moving we have laundry to finish today and tomatoes to run through the mill and cook down for sauce. :o)  I loose my righthand woman at 12:30pm today too, she's helping with an after school program for children *wink*
Blessings for your day!

I have learned....

 I Have Learned  This touched my heart and there are many I am still learning.

We're in cleanup mode for the main garden area and back again into planting mode in the hoophouse.  Our weather seems to have settle into an nice Autumn, with temps holding into the mid to high 70'sF, with Sunday getting as high as 80F :o)  This weather will help the hoophouse tomatoes to ripen at a steady rate and I don't have to water everyday.

This weekend we butchered approx. 20 chickens, some were to old to bother with( 4-5 yrs old and one 7 yrs old) and 10 roosters, they were the Plymouth White Rocks, we ordered, to raise up as fryers. We still have approx. 15+ fryer hens and 6 turkeys to butcher in two weeks. We've sold all but one of the turkeys and that will be put in our freezer :o)  Next year, we won't have any turkeys to sell, the hens didn't set their typical 3 nests this year and the one they did hatch some poults, only one survived. Such is life on a homestead.*sigh*
This should help cut down on our feed/ grain costs and we'll be able to cut back to one coop again. We'll keep two Toms( a Narragansett and a Bourbon Red) and two hens( Narragansett and a Bronze wit hopes of finding a Bourbon Red hen)

I will admit, I'll be glad when the lawn slows or quits growing, I have better things to do then mowing. We're still picking raspberries, actually we're letting friends and neighbors pick now, we've already put up jam, jelly and 8gallons frozen and we have some frozen ones left from last summer.

This week we hope to begin our kraut making and we're actually going to lacto- ferment some red beets( shredded), with onions,carrots( shredded) chard stalks and kale  I hope it turns out well. :o)

We still need to harvest our millet, bundle and hang to dry and collect our bush bean dry pods as well as the dried climbing beans pods. The radish pods are still green but mature and the deer are eating them, so will harvest and hang to finish drying. 

May your week be filled with much productivity and many blessings :o)

So... sick of GREY!

We're so sick of Grey skies and cool temps!  This whole, "summer without summer" we've had maybe a dozen days into the 90'sF and only one day that hit 100F. I love bright sunshine, the crystal blue Montana skies, and this summer we've had very little of either.*sigh* Today's high is forecasted to be 64F. When the above photo was taken this morning it was 48F<Brrrrrrr...> and it rained off and on all night, so it's a damp cold.

The animals are showing signs of getting in their winter coats and the chickens and turkeys( crazy birds) are molting. They do this ever year and I know it's linked to the decreasing daylight but it seems crazy to be walking around half naked when winter is just around the corner, LOL!

Thank the Lord we finally, got it together, to build our greenhouse, it's been such a blessing! The tomato plants are 7ft+ tall and LOADED with beautiful HUGE( green still, but they are ripening*wink*) tomatoes. Of course the peppers and eggplant are huge and producing beautifully too.  I did manage to plant some cantaloupe in the greenhouse but because the tomato plants grew so large, they are fighting for light and space, so not sure we'll get to harvest any this year. It's been a learning experience and I've taken good notes for future reference. We didn't have to use any fans to help ventilate the greenhouse this summer, using the roll up sides and windows worked well. Although if we do get a normal summer I'm sure we will have to use exhaust fans to regulate the inside temperature better.

Well, I'm off to  make and bake some bread and process a few more pints of Basil Dilly Beans. It's still not cool enough to warrant a fire in the wood cook stove, but I'm anxiously awaiting the day we can!  We even have our kindling bundles ready and small firewood handy*wink* For us it is a blessing to have the different seasons, each holding it's own activities and events, which we look forward to. I'm looking forward to winter, as this is my time to catch up on reading, working on crafts and I pray this winter a time to begin my adventure in Quilting! I've been collecting material and pattern books from garage sales and secondhand stores. I don't want to quilt like the new quilts are being made, but rather piece it using the treadle sewing machine and quilt it by hand, the way my Grandma  and so many Grandma's did it! I'm starting with a couple of small projects and then hope to finish my( U-hummm window quilts, started something like 4 yrs ago), then move on to maybe a small baby sized quilt before tackling any large projects.

Blessing for your day! :o)

Some snapshots from our yard and garden....

It all begins here; we don on our hats, bug spray and gloves

Front yard view from the end of our driveway

Choke cherries, ripe and ready to be picked

From the front orchard looking back toward the house

Some photos of the hail damage

Herbs

Parcel and Common Sage

Lemon Basil (background) and sweet peppers

Bee Balm

Seed collection

Remember in previous photos what is missing? We've collected the parsnip seed( approx 5lbs) 

and removed the plants, feed the leftovers to our poultry, they loved it!

Radish going to seed, waiting for pods to dry for collection

Asparagus berries( seed)

The Hoop house crops

The tomatoes have gone wild!

Sweet Peppers

Green Zebra Tomato

Watermelon Beefsteak

Some items harvested today, garlic, dried and ready for storage, zucchini( some damaged from the hail), yellow sweet peppers and a green pepper, plus  some Sour Cherry Jam made from straggler cherries, ready to eat!

This is at the end of our driveway, an eclectic assortment of flowers; hollyhock, iris, day lilies, a yellow daisy and I'm not sure what the pink flower is, our neighbor( across the road, in the picture, shared some roots last Spring),wormwood, mallow and sunflowers.

Hope you enjoyed the tour  :o)