Happenings on the Homestead

Things are pretty busy around here (aren't they always?!). This heat has been deadly, literally. I lost my 2nd chicken to the heat last weekend. We are doing everything we can to keep them cool. We fill the waterers daily and put frozen water bottles in them to keep the water cold (sometimes several times a day). I leave the big door on the coop open all day so the breeze (I loosely use this term!) blows completely through it and I turn on a sprinkler that pumps out 58 degree water. The chickens don't necessarily like the sprinkler while it is on but they love sloshing around in the water when I turn it off. Even through all of that, we have lost 2 of them. Two of my better layers at that! This is a hard part of homesteading, losing that which you have nurtured since it was born. But life goes on and so does the work. Speaking of chickens, we had our first snake in this chicken coop the other night. The kids went out to close up the coop for the night and collect the eggs when they came roaring back into the house screaming about a snake. Apparently, my son opened the egg collection hatch and was about to stick his hand into the laying boxes and a very large chicken snake was already in there consuming eggs. Little man is NOT crazy about snakes so he came and got us for that task. Snakes don't really bother me. Frogs terrify me but snakes fascinate me. Hubby told me to get his gun and I started thinking "He's not REALLY going to fire that thing in the chicken coop, is he?" Thankfully, he was going to fire it AFTER we got the snake onto the ground outside but things didn't really go as planned. Mr. Snake wasn't really interested in leaving his stash of eggs so hubs took the shovel to him in the laying box. It was pretty hard to manuver around because the shovel was almost as wide as the box but after a few strikes, he got the job done. When he pulled the snake out, it was about 3 1/2 feet long and quite fat. Needless to say, we only got 4 eggs that day. The kids have been pretty reluctant to go back to the coop but we are trying to teach them that snakes are just a part of homesteading and that they still need to do their jobs. They are, however, collecting the eggs while it is still very light outside so there are no more at-dusk surprises!

Like I said, the heat here has been awful so hubby and I purchased a solution. A pool! It is just an above ground one but it is huge!

Here is the hole that was dug and filled with sand to make the bottom level. The truck in the background is the installers on their way tour house.

Here, they have put down the bottom rail that will hold the sides up.

The sides are up, yay!!!! These are the 2 installers. Poor guys, it was sooooooo hot, I was worried they would fall out with heat stroke or something. You can see they put our sprinkler in the pool to help keep them cool.

Liner is in!

Top rail is on and it's time for water.
It took 2 days to fill this thing up. I felt so guilty about using so much water but it is just too hot to feel guilty for too long!

The finished product! All filled and ready for swimming! We plotted out where we want the deck to go and priced it yesterday....OUCH!!! Apparently, our tastes are a bit expensive! We had planned to do it ourselves but hubby is super busy with work and we want it to get done ASAP so we aren't tracking a ton of dirt into the pool everytime we get in.  We have 2 people coming to give us a price for them to do it but if it is too much, looks like we will have a weeks' worth of late nights working on it ourselves. We don't want to spend too much money because we have a vacation coming up in September and we need to make sure we don't touch any of that money that has been set aside.

Along with the end of July comes planning for the beginning of school. I have been making out some schedules for the kids (and me) for when we "officially" begin school on August 13th. Like all homeschoolers though, learning goes on each and every day, but we tend to be a bit more relaxed for a month or two in the summer. I have already ordered their cirriculum and I am just waiting for it to get here. We use Switched On Schoolhouse. We love it. The lessons are challenging, they have lots of different electives we can add on to our base courses and there is very minimal grading that has to be done by me. THAT is a good thing! The program keeps track of all grades and even attendance (for our state compliance). I just print out report cards to keep for their files and we're all good. I can access their grades at all times and I can even see how long it took them to do lessons, quizzes and tests. We usually do the lessons together, though, so I can make sure that they are getting a good grasp of the material and we practice their reading aloud by having them alternate reading paragraphs in the lesson. I know some people think that we need workbooks and textbooks to be really learning but I find that my kids are learning a great deal (dare I say MORE than their friends in conventional school). And, like I said before, learning takes place each and every day. I truly love homeschooling and I pray that I never have to send them to school outside the home. This is where they belong and so do I.

Review-Homestead Blessings-The Art of Dairy Delights

I have to state, up front, that I am not a fan of milk. Or yogurt. Or a lot of cheese. However, I truly enjoyed watching this dvd. Someday, sooner rather than later, I would like to get a dairy cow. I have done a ton of research and I have a friend who lives in Maine that owns a dairy farm (lots of free advice and tips!) so I feel fairly confident that I could do this. I may even decide I like raw milk. Who knows? Anyway, my kids LOVE milk and we go through a ton of it but I really don't think the milk bought in grocery stores is all that healthy. I have been researching milk for quite some time now and have decided that, for our family, raw is a better fit for us. Plus, it will be one more thing that I won't need to depend on a grocery store for.
Now, for the dvd review. This was a wonderful and informative video. They use milk from their cow (and even show you how they milk it) to make all sorts of yummy creations such as butter (flavored ones too), yogurt, cheese and ice cream. They make it all look so easy! I can't wait to try the yogurt. Even though I don't really like the taste of yogurt, the twins and hubby could eat it all day, everyday. When you buy it from the store it can get a bit expensive plus you have no control over what the manufacturer slips into it. When you make it yourself, you control the ingredients, the texture and tartness. I also like how they use a standard cooler to "cook" their yogurt. No need to buy any fancy yogurt maker. You use what you have.
Since we use butter for almost all the cooking we do, we go through a lot and it ain't cheap at the store. Organic butter at our Kroger is $4+ a pound. The regular butter is $2.50 a pound. I am trying to buy as much organic as I can but it can get really pricey, really fast so making it ourselves will save money. I have also heard that the price on all things dairy and beefy will skyrocket by the end of the year so every little thing we can do one our own will benefit our bottom line. These dvd's teach you how to be self reliant and provide for yourself and your family. Who couldn't use that? Plus, they show you a family working together to achieve a common goal. That is something that I want for my family.

Review-Homestead Blessings-The Art of Cooking

I feel the need to give you this very important warning: DO NOT watch this dvd if you have nothing to eat in your house. Oh my oh my oh my!! Every single recipe they did looked positively scrumptious! They show you tips and recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a dessert. Let me tell you that I wasn't any where near hungry when I started watching it but I'll be darned if I didn't eat a snack halfway through it! That is the main reason I don't watch the Food Network. I could just finish a big meal, sit down and watch a Food Network show and then go raid the pantry. Something about seeing yummy food makes me want to eat it. And there is a lot of very yummy food in this video. They start off with breakfast of pancakes, fried potatoes and fried apples and onions. Along with giving you the recipes and all the steps, they also give you some techniques to use to make all kinds of different foods. There is such a sweet rapport between these girls that is quite enjoyable to watch. You can tell that they have been cooking together with mama since they were little girls.
Then it's on to lunch with pizza, tomato soup and salad with homemade dressing. There is even a little surprise with the dressing. Something that I have wanted to try but thought it took forever. It took her 45 seconds! I won't give away all the details because I want you to see them for yourselves.
Next up is dinner. This one is down home country cooking at its finest. Pot roast with carrots, potatoes and onions, home canned green beans with onions, buttermilk biscuits with gravy and peach cobbler for dessert. I love the fact that they cook so much of their food in cast iron skillets. I have a set and absolutely LOVE them. It takes a little getting used to using them because they take a little while to heat but retain that heat FOREVER! AND you never, never, never grab the handle without a pot holder. Those suckers get as hot as the pan. But for cooking, you just can't beat them.
This dvd is the longest, at 80 minutes, but it feels like it flies by. Unfortunately, they are eating all that good food at the end and you are left to rummage in the pantry. Another two thumbs up for the West Ladies.

Review-Homestead Blessings-The Art of Bread Making

Another home run for the West Ladies! The Art of Breadmaking teaches you everything you need to know to get started making your own bread from working with yeast to rising dough to enjoying that homemade aroma. They are so easy to watch and their advice is just plain, simple country know how.  They walk you through making loaves of bread, cinnamon rolls, hamburger buns, cornbread and more. If you are inexperienced at bread making or just need a refresher course, then this is the dvd for you. The bread that they make in the video is almost the same recipe that I use but they do it a bit differently. I am going to try their way today when I make bread to see which is easier. My daughter is begging me to make the cinnamon rolls from the video so I will re-watch it and write down the recipe...or  better yet, just do it along with the video. I have been watching them on my laptop while it is propped up on the counter. I should probably put some plastic wrap over the keyboard because, yesterday, it got splashed with cherry juice when I was pitting them for the marmalade. A sticky computer is NOT fun to type on!

Review Homestead Blessings-The Art of Canning

Yesterday, I finally received my birthday present. The ENTIRE Homestead Blessings dvd collection!!! You have no idea how excited I was to see that box in the mail lady's hands. Of course, I dove right in. There are 11 dvd's in the collection and I am going to post a review on each of them. Let me just say that I HIGHLY recommend these dvd's. They are done by the West Ladies which is a mom and her 3 daughters. They are absolutely enjoyable to watch and very informative.
Yesterday, I watched the one on canning. WOW! It takes place in their "summer kitchen" which is an outdoor area with tables and a stove and plenty of country kitsch. They walk you through, step by step, the process of using a water bath canner and a pressure canner (something I have only done once because it terrifies me!). They show you what equipment you will need and the basics of how to can jam, green beans, pickled eggs and okra. There is even a segment on sauerkraut. I really love that what you see is what you get with them. It is obvious that this is a way of life for them and not something that they no nothing about. They are such a sweet family and they even sing some of their songs on a couple of the dvd's. If you get a chance to see these dvd's or purchase them, I highly recommend that you do. I ordered directly from their site Homestead Blessings and the cost for all 11 dvd's was $179. I know, it's pricey but they are so worth it. You can also get them from Amazon but the price I found was $10 higher than directly from the West Ladies. I will be watching these dvd's over and over again. There is just so much information in them. In honor of reviewing the basics of canning, I canned some Cherry Marmalade this morning. I'll be sharing that recipe soon.
One more thing I want to share-the other day, I canned tomato sauce. The recipe I followed was pretty easy but it did involve straining out all the pulp, seeds and skins which was a bit time consuming. My husband asked why I couldn't just puree the tomatoes and can all of it. I told him that wasn't how my recipe was and I just don't know enough about canning to experiment. Well, I popped in the canning dvd the next day and guess how they make their tomato sauce? They puree the whole tomato (minus the core and ugly parts)! How's that for learning something pretty quickly?! Now I only wish that I had canned the tomatoes AFTER I saw the video!

Birthday Dinner

Last Tuesday was my birthday. Hubby asked me where I wanted to go to dinner and I told him I wanted to go to our kitchen. He looked at me kinda like he didn't think he heard me right. Yes, I wanted to cook my birthday dinner (and dessert). He just shrugged and told me whatever I wanted. It's funny how, the more you eat homemade from scratch cooking, the LESS you want to eat out. It has gotten to the point that most of our date nights are spent at home because we have no interest in eating at some restaurant that serves food that we have no idea where it came from. I went online once to look for restaurants in our area that serve food from local farmers. Know what I came up with? Nada. Zip. Zilch. There are no restaurants within an hour from my home that serves local food. To get something like that I need to drive 2.5 hours (one way) to Atlanta. Seems a little foolish to spend 5 hours in a vehicle to get what I can make in my own kitchen. And that, my friends, is why we eat at home.
So, back to my birthday dinner. My mom gave me a new crockpot (my old one bit the dust months ago) for my birthday so I put a rump roast in it to cook all day. That roast is from the steer we butchered months ago.

The picture looks unappetizing but it was delicious, I promise.

Once dinner time came around, I boiled some potatoes and set some onions on the stove to carmelize.

Once the roast was done, I made some homemade gravy and put the meal together.

Those are my home canned peaches on my plate. I only got 4 quarts of them this year so I am trying to savor them.
Oh my word that was good food!
I topped it off by making Lemondrop cupcakes with Creamy Lemon Frosting from The Nourishing Home. Nice and healthy...to make up for eating gravy!!!

Yep, birthdays just keep getting better and better, even if the number keeps going up and up!

Canning Tomato Sauce

Whew!! Today has been a busy day! After church, I came home and got to work on those tomatoes that have been sitting on the counter. I also went to the garden and picked every red plum tomato I could find (there was a lot!). I found a recipe for tomato sauce in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. It was pretty easy (thank goodness). I washed all the tomatoes then cut off the stem end and any yucky parts, quartered them, tossed a few in a large pot set on medium high and brought them to a boil. Once they started to boil, I used a potato masher to squash them and stir them up. I kept adding more tomatoes, squashing and stirring, until all of them were in the pot. I actually had to use 2 pots because I didn't listen when it said to use a BIG pot. Lesson learned. Once they were all in the pots, I boiled them for about 10 minutes to get them all soft and squishy. Next, I started to use my little fine mesh strainer to strain out the skins and seeds but, after straining FOREVER, I finally got smart and used the mesh strainer that I clean all my veggies in. It worked beautifully and I had the seeds and skins and pulp in one container and my tomato juice in another in a jiffy. I set the pot of tomato juice on the stove again and brought it to a boil over medium high heat, stirring frequently. Once it had reduced by about 1/3 to 1/2 I was ready to bottle. I put 2 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. salt and 1 tsp. dried seasonings (I used garlic, basil, oregano and rosemary) into each quart jar and then ladled the tomato sauce into the jar, leaving 1/2 " headspace. I wiped around the rim with a clean cloth, put on my lids and rings and processed them in a water bath canner for 40 minutes. After all that work, I only got 3 quart jars! Next time I will make sure to use pint jars. At least it will SEEM like I have more!!!

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