Feelin' Domestic

Gabby decided she was going to replace the vacuum and do the cleaning herself. Didn't work QUITE as well as really vacuuming though - haha. Yesterday I had a DELIGHTFUL day of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. For anyone who is wondering - which I doubt but you never know - that is from a Rainbow vacuum from maybe the 80's? "Borrowed" from my mother-in-law (holding it hostage, she might not get it back) since ours is currently out of commission for a bit - I am in LOVE with the vacuum! Look them up! I mean, any vacuum that has lasted more than 20 years has gotta say something!

I am trying to get the house in an acceptable state for us to leave for the beach on Saturday. It is soooooo much nicer coming home to a squeaky-clean house after being gone for a long period of time! Today I am tackling the bedroom and trying to pack and scrub down the bathrooms so tomorrow I can focus on getting everything laid out, packed, ready and some pre-beach shopping also (sunblock-spf 50, junk food galore, etc...) I am so glad we got all of the chicks outside now so our house-sitter doesn't have to deal with indoor-chickens. Yuck!

On a couple of garden/canning notes - all of the 'jam' I canned didn't set up that well...Could have been my AWESOME estimating skills (have NONE) instead of going back to measuring out fruit vs. sugar & pectin...We had some with dinner last night however and it tastes AMAZING! It turned out to be more of a compote than jam which was super yummy on biscuits last night. I will make some *small* batches after we get back from the beach to make sure it sets up properly so we will have some thicker jam - heck we still have 4 gallons left so it's not like I don't have enough!

After dinner Logan and I spent some time finally shelling peas (which we will get to do again today or tomorrow because the plants are STILL cranking them out. They love all of this rain and not-so-hot summer weather). Thanks to the 'Mr. Pea Sheller' borrowed from the in-laws, we shelled a whole quart of peas in about 30 minutes. Not so bad. And YES that is a drill attached - the directions actually encourage you to use a drill or hand-mixer instead of the hand-crank.


See - who said farm-life isn't exciting. That's bonding right there - shelling peas with your husband. We get work done, have non-canned organic peas for the winter AND spend quality time together - and he gets to use power-tools at the same time!

Well, it's time to start on cup of coffee #2 (yes Mom - a rarity!), do some pre-beach laundry, clean, and possibly head to town in a bit to give blood at the Red Cross blood drive. (I have B- blood which is the 2nd rarest type so I always try to give when I can) Whew - exciting day!

No More!!

Six gallons of cherries was very high expectations...Way too high...I got 2 gallons done and made jam and canned this afternoon. That was a lot. 3 hours all told and I still have to clean up. I could crawl into bed right now. Logan and I were talking about what the pressure must have been like if this was the ONLY way you were going to have fresh food in the winter. I can't even imagine - picking, processing, canning, cleaning - and most people had a mess of kids to deal with too! I just have myself and Logan! I could not do this all day long like some people do - maybe with help I could but not by myself as it so often is!

I got 13 pints of jam out of the 2 gallons of cherries I pitted (hmm...my math skills are failing - last time I checked there were 8 pints in a gallon, so what happened to those other 3 pints? I guess I should have 3 pints of pits in my garbage?)


I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with the remaining 4 gallons of cherries...I might make one more small batch of jam to give away to friends (and family!) but the other might just be pitted and put away for pies, cobblers, etc? The jury is still out on that. For now, I am soooooooo looking forward to going to the beach on Saturday! I need it!

Kicked Out

Finally! All of the chicks are out of the house and living like REAL chickens instead of house pets! Don't get me wrong, I really like the chicks, however I really don't like them as 'indoor chickens'. The guineas have had to be relocated in a sense also. The guineas were in the pen first so I think they were kind of 'defending' their territory but they were also terrorizing the chicks. They weren't attacking them or anything, just kind of chasing them from place to place, herding them, and scaring the bejeebus out of them. So, until the chicks get 'chicken sized' they are living in their own little guinea cottage with-in the chicken coop. It is only temporary but it has really helped make everyone a little happier and easier to adjust.

Some of the girls are exploring and the guinea cottage is in the background

Checking out their new digs

These little girls were brave - they moseyed right up to me when I was in the pen taking pictures.

I still think the white chicks look like 'peeps' but the older chicks - who are 2 weeks older than the Brahmas, actually look like real chickens - just mini versions - but getting bigger each day. Here are some pics of the 'older' chicks -

This one - which if you remember, was the little yellow chick from the original 5 - is definitely the ring-leader of the older ones (who by the way, hang out in their little group of 4 and the others hang out in their group. Remember, we had to put one of the originals in with the younger ones because he (she?) was a 'late bloomer'.) She is probably the smartest of the older ones and the most friendly. She lets Logan pick her up and carry her around!

Strutting their stuff!

Now I must move on to my task of the night - pitting 6 gallons of cherries. I got my fancy-smancy pitter in today so hopefully that will make my life easier! Updates tomorrow!

The Pits!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July and hopefully you got to have a long weekend to go along with it! As for us, it has rained nearly every day BUT I am not complaining after the desert-like conditions we had last year! Our garden is definitely in over-drive because of all of the rain. We have 2 more huge bowls of peas that are waiting to be shelled and I am sure there are wax beans up there waiting for us also.

Today, however, was dedicated to cherries. Not the 6 gallons I brought home from my parents' house - these are black cherries we found while we were riding the horses in our favorite field. We picked close to a gallon of cherries so today I made jam! Yum! Unfortunately it was quite an ordeal and this had BETTER be good jam!! The cherries were most likely wild cherries so they were a lot smaller than the other cherries we pick. They were too small for my hand-held pitter which works like a syringe - they would poke all the way through the bottom. My super-de-duper cherry pitter hasn't come in yet that I ordered last week so we resorted to some interesting methods today to de-pit these suckers!

Here is my canning day in pictures and captions:

Aren't they pretty? Here are the cherries after picking.

Since we didn't have the pitter, we had to figure out a way to get the pits out before I could do anything. I simmered them for a little while to cook them down just a bit thinking that would be easier to squeeze the pits out. We tried putting them through the Squeezo - NOPE - very bad idea...Next we got a strainer and stirred and stirred and stirred trying to break them down through the strainer. That worked some but the 'meat' of the cherries wasn't going through much. Finally in a last desperate attempt to finish them (and NOT kill my husband who wanted to bore bigger holes into my strainer) I broke out the salad spinner hoping to 'spin' the cherries off of the pits. YES! It worked - mostly. Better than the other methods and we were able to get most of the good part of the cherries off and into the pot to cook! I don't have any pictures of those steps because my nerves were becoming a little shot at this point and if I was holding a heavy object in my hand it might have been heaved at a certain someone...

Here we're cooking the jam down and adding all of it's jam-stuff...It smelled soooooo good!

The jars are waiting ever-so-patiently to be filled. We ended up getting 4 pints of jam out of the cherries.

After filling, they process for 10 minutes. This time is used to clean the 3/4 of my kitchen that is covered in cherry juice, skins, and pits including myself...

And last but not least (eating would technically be last though I guess) WE...HAVE...JAM! My favorite part is hovering near the kitchen to hear them 'pop' to make sure they seal. I always count my 'pops' to make sure they all sealed and they did! I am not sure I have ever NOT had something seal - knock on wood. Now they are sitting and cooling until tomorrow and will be stored in the pantry until it's cherry time!

Whew - I am exhausted! So that was my day. OH - before I forget, Logan and I had a wonderful lunch with my 'City Mouse' friend Becca and her husband Blake and little boy Trent. They were on their way back home and stopped by for an awesome lunch. I miss you guys and wish you were closer!!


Have a good Monday and 'Farm Girl Fun' will no doubt continue all of this week while we work to get everything put away before we head to the beach on Saturday! I'll keep everyone updated...hopefully I can sneak some knitting in while I am at it!

Little Bit O' This, Little Bit O' That

I have a lot to make up for from a week of not blogging! Last week, I was in Rogersville, TN visiting with my parents, brother, and friends. It's nice to go home from time to time but it's really nice coming back home too! I went by myself without Logan so I would like to imagine it made him appreciate when I came home on Tuesday!

One of the first things I did was go to knitting class that my mom helps organize and teach. I knew a lot of people there, met some new ones, and even encouraged my friend Kim to come along and learn to knit! She did really well and I was really glad to get to spend some time with her - she is one of my best friends from high school and we don't get a lot of chances to hang out much anymore! Here are some pics "borrowed" from the knitting group's website - http://knittingsoulstogether.blogspot.com/

We are happily knitting away (actually I think I talked more than I knit!)

Here I am helping Kim get started with my Mom peeking in on us in the background.

I was even put on the spot at the knitting group - I got to 'teach' how to cable. It's hard to convince beginning knitters that it's not hard and actually really easy! Speaking of, I finished side 1 of my Brea Bag and am totally in LOVE with the way it turned out. I am having a slight difficulty figuring out the crochet around the top but I can wait and figure it out once I have both pieces finished. So, here is side 1 of the bag -


I am so impressed with how easy it knit up (once I decided on color/yarn!). I was even impressed with my cables! (BTW - Becca this is for you - and anyone else who isn't knitting term familiar - cables are the parts of this that look like they twist around each other)

I have started side 2 and hopefully it won't take too long once I have a bit of time to sit and knit!

Why haven't I had time you ask? Well I get home on Tuesday and our garden has exploded!! I have spent the past 2 days picking, shelling, and freezing peas and picking and snapping wax beans. So far I have frozen 5 cups of peas (which let me tell you is a LOT of peas!) and don't even know about the wax beans yet...


I also came home with 6 gallons (!!) of cherries and our neighbors have invited us to pick more so soon it's going to be cherry canning time. I just ordered a cherry stoner that's more effective than the ones that work like a syringe and it will hopefully make my life much easier. Once that comes in, my life will be pit, cook, can for awhile until I get those done. Mmmmm - I can't wait to have cherry preserves!

Like I said, this was a little bit of everything to catch me back up! Depending on when the stoner comes in next week's posts will probably revolve around canning! Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July tomorrow! (Where did June go??)