Back in January our son rented us a bulldozer to clear an area of the land. As exciting as it was to finally feel like we were making some progress we quickly realized this job was bigger than we had anticipated and we had already anticipated it to be quite difficult. After seeing just how many trees we had to clear after they were dozed over we had decided to try to get someone to come and chip it for us.
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| One of Four Large Piles of Trees |
I have always loved deviled eggs. It is one those items I expect to be at every family holiday or church covered dish meal. If you are are raising your own chickens now, you may find yourself with an over abundance of farm fresh eggs. What a blessing that is. So, why not make some deviled eggs? There are several different ways to make deviled eggs much of which is due to preference. This is how I like my deviled eggs.
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| Deviled Eggs |
Yesterday evening Jon and I watched the Food, Inc documentary on Netflix.
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| Food, Inc. Documentary |
We were already aware of much of the horror unveiled in the film, yet still were shocked at times. This kind of thing is one of the major reasons we started growing our own food. We still have a long way to go before we are self-sufficient, but we do sleep better at night knowing that we are doing something.
http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/1402965302
In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli — the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.
There are several varieties of crab apples. Most people do not use the ornamental crab apples because they are so small and tedious to use, but since we had them we thought we would not let them go to waste. Last year we tried making a batch of crab apple juice. I thought it was tasty, but everyone else thought it was just way too tart. Since it was not going to be a preferred beverage in our house, we decided to try making it unsweetened this year and store it to be used for its pectin for later use in making other jams and jellies where pectin needs to be added.
Continue reading “Making Crab Apple Juice for Pectin”
Since my first crochet scarf, there has been a lull in my crocheting. Summer and fall are so full and busy with gardening, harvesting, canning, and so forth that I just didn’t get back to it. As the weather turned cold and I began to hibernate I started pondering my next crochet project. I decided to go with a double crochet beanie that I found on ravelry to match my new scarf.
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| My First Crochet Beanie |
Jon and I are on vacation from work this week and decided to try our hand once again at making crab apple jelly. Last year was our first attempt at any jelly and it was a fail. Then we made it in November so we were worried that the crab apples were too far gone on the tree this year. There were more overly brown and rotten crab apples than in November, but still the tree was loaded down and Jon was able to pick about 1.5 gallons of crab apples from our ornamental crab apple tree.
There are tons of varieties of crab apples. Most people do not use the ornamental crab apples because they are so small and tedious to use, but they are perfectly edible and since we had them we thought we would put them to use.
Continue reading “How to Make Crab Apple Jelly | Canning Crab Apple Jelly”
As we continue to add things we want to grow, and wanting more of the things we already grow in our garden, space is becoming a big issue. We fenced off a corner of the back yard for our garden to keep the chickens and the dog from digging up our produce and now we have filled up that little space with our annual crops and find that we need more space.
Last year, we almost tripled the size or our garden. We installed permanent fencing around our garden area because we have a line of pine trees that prevent us from expanding the current garden area any farther. Expanding the fenced in area, as we did last year when we went from a temporary movable fence to our current permanent fence, is no longer an option.
We decided that the next step in adding some more garden space was to install a couple of beds for our tomatoes and peppers. This would be a simple and easy addition to our gardening area.
First, we cut down a couple small but tall and straight pine trees from our land in an area that we are needing to clear any way.
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| Nice and straight logs for the edge of our beds. |
We had planted 2 raspberry vines last year, but they never grew and died. They were a part of the shipment that got lost, came late, and were planted late. So back in February on a trip to Tractor Supply we bought 4 more bare root raspberry canes (2 Heritage Everbearing and 2 Latham).
We planted the raspberries just a few days later and said a little prayer.
For what seemed like the longest time there was again no sign of life. Then 2 months after planting we finally saw some green life to them.
What super-food can you make for pennies, maybe even for free? Chicken broth is healthy, very simple to make, and supports your immune system. And did I say it’s inexpensive?
Whenever I make chicken for dinner – at least once a week – I remove the bones and put them in zippered freezer bags. The bags go right into the freezer.
I grew up learning the value of preserving food for the winter and hard times. Our family grew a big garden each year and canned or froze the extra for later. We visited pick your own farms or combed the fields for wild apple trees to harvest fruit to stock our pantry. I continue to put away produce for my own family now that I’m a wife and mother. I want to make sure there is plenty of food in our house in case a snowstorm closes the roads or price increases put the basic necessities out of our price range. Besides that, I get a real sense of satisfaction when I pull jars of my own home canned foods out of storage and make a meal entirely from foods I preserved!
Continue reading “Putting Up Food on the Homestead”