Windy October!

Hi there!  Been busy preserving, canning, freezing, and dehydrating all the garden had to offer this year.

This below is our first of many batches of tomato sauce that we canned.  Unfortunately for me, this huge pot below managed to unglue the side of the laminate counter top on the right.  The counter top on the right sits higher (closer to the stove top), which I did not take into account.  Poop!  The rest of the tomatoes using this pot were done over at Mom's, as she has more burners than I do and we could run both canners at the same time.  

From the tomato sauce we made and this ginormous zucchini that got by us in the zucchini patch (they do hide well) I ground up some chicken, add the tomato sauce and stuffed the inside of the zucchini, then baked it and voila!  It was super yummy!

This would be one of many cabbages we have picked.  We have purple cabbage too.  Lots of coleslaw yay!!  Might just need to find a sauerkraut recipe that I like.  hmmmmm

We finally started to dig up all our potatoes and below are the largest of all the potatoes dug up.  The two in the middle are russet and the two outside ones are Yukon Gold.  (The red potato is for size reference.)  If I remember correctly, one of these weight 2.5 pounds and another just over 2 pounds.  Yooza!

This would be Rob's idea of size reference, the beer can.  hahahahahaha

These were only two of the many, many, many green beans we got (and picked at Freshly Doug Vegetables in Stanwood) and then canned and even made dilly beans!

We are the proud owners of two new piggies!!!  They are both female this time, as Robert is thinking of keeping ours for breeding instead of butchering.  We will see.  They are busy rooting up the dug up potato patch below and having a great time!

Made homemade corn tortillas and Spanish Rice for dinner the other night!  Talk about yummy yummy for your tummy!

Mom and I tackled the garage after Robert and Liam left for hunting to Spokane.  We organized all our canned items on two wire shelves that Mom had.  The boxes on the bottom of each (three shelves on the right and four on the left) are all our potatoes that we have dug!!!!!  Think we are set for the winter with potatoes.  Not sure how many pounds we actually dug up, but are going to be weighing them as we use them so we can keep a total! The shelves above the potatoes have our canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, ketchup, green beans, pickles (both sweet and dill), peaches, cranberry mustard that we canned.  Woohoo!

Robert and Liam went elk hunting, as Robert got a new muzzle loader rifle.  And............. he got an elk!  Woohoo!  Lots of elk hamburger, steaks, roasts and gonna be making some jerky!  Since the elk went down aways from their camp, Rob had to debone the meat where the elk went down and then pack it up out of the valley to their camp.  He said that was a lot of work (understatement of the year I am sure) and it took three (3) trips to get all the meat back to camp.  When he got home, we weighed the meat at Tuss' (the butcher we use on the island) and after Rob gave away about 50 pounds to the guy he was hunting with, he had 171 pounds of elk meat still.  Soooo, it was a pretty good-sized elk.

Below, is the picture Robert sent me of him deboning the elk.  And no, he does not have a bald spot on the back of his head, that is just where the sun happened to be hitting him.  hahahaha

Right now, Robert and Liam are deer hunting in Spokane with his brother Joe.  So hopefully more venison for the freezer is on the way!

Later!

More Goings On!

So getting busy with harvesting!!  Been digging up potatoes, still getting zucchini and yellow squash, and the winter squash is coming along nicely, along with green beans and will be starting on tomatoes soon!!!

This is a new recipe for sore throat tea I found on Facebook!  It's in the back of my fridge now, mixing together!

This would be our very first tomato from the garden.  It is an Oregon Spring variety.  Excited as we have lots on the vines!

We have one raspberry plant that is still producing raspberries!  Yay!

I got a new utensil to use while cooking and LOVE IT!  It's called a spurtle and it's awesome.  Love it for veggies, meat and stirring beans!

I made some lemony pickled veggies,

and some bread and butter pickles, and canned both!

Mom and I finally finished painting the goat and Marty's house.  Yay, they all match now!

So as Mom and I are painting the goat house, Mr. Marty comes over and decides to try to get into his water trough.  He actually tried to lay in it.  It was absolutely hysterical!!!  He is so funny!

Had our very last garage sale cleaning it all out and donated what did not sell.  Now on to organize our dry food storage area in the garage and then clean/organize Rob's shop.  Also, canning tomatoes, more beans, more pickles, peaches, pears, and corn.

Later!

August happenings on Shelley Hill Farm

Okay, so it's been a while, but things have been busy, busy, busy like usual.  Liam's last baseball tournament was in Steamboat Springs, CO, at the end of July, and we had a super fabulous time!  They took 6th place out of 27 teams from all over the U.S.  Not too shabby.

Now, Liam is playing football for the first time ever.  He is having playing well and learning the positions he is put in.  They have just been scrimmaging with other teams and league play will begin in September.  Will keep you posted on that.

Below are pictures from the garden and such taken this morning.

So below, you can see that we are becoming inundated with zucchini!  Who doesn't.  I only planted three plants of yellow and green, but hmm, perhaps only two next year.  To the right of the zucchini are some beets that were ready to be harvested and I even got four carrots!!!  Woot!

So Mom and I decided to dig up one potato plant (Yukon Gold) to see if they were ready to be harvested.  Below are the potatoes from one plant, 26 or so, and hmmm I think we will be in potatoes for the winter big time as there are three 4 x 12 foot beds and one probably 6 x 12 foot bed.  YAY!!!

Squash that is growing, at this point, I am not sure what kind these are, as some came up and some did not.  I tried to look online at what I ordered, but hmm, guess I need to keep better records.  lol

Though I think these are small pumpkins below.

This would be the large potato bed of Yukon Gold.

Out of I think like 12 slips of sweet potatoes, only four survived and seem to have taken off finally now that the weather has warmed up.

The pole beans are doing their thing and just starting to produce!

The rhubarb we moved is doing very well, obviously, haha.  Gonna try to make some rhubarb wine this year.

These would be the yellow and green zucchini plants in the front and pumpkins in the back.

Harvested some of our red and white storage onions yesterday.  They are now curing/drying out.

These are the four turkey poults that we have left that hatched out.  One of the momma hens is sitting on 10 eggs that should hatch out beginning of September.

Mom, Raymond, Kara, and I repainted the chicken coop and feed shed a barn red and then I trimmed in white.  Looks very spiffy if you ask me.  lol

Also, Rob installed a feeder outside (gutter) as we were just putting food on the ground and when rain comes that would not work so well.  Rob will be making an awning for the top of the feeder so the rain won't get in.

This would be Mr. Marty patiently (yeah right) waiting for breakfast this morning.

And here are Gus and Ashley.  Ashley has definitely grown since we got her and she is becoming more approachable and less skitterish.

Here is the repainted feed shed.  Looking good!

These would be the last hatchlings of this year.  The dark ones will be meat chickens and the blonds will be egg layers unless roosters and then will be meat chickens.  There are 21.

This is the second to last group of chicks hatched out this year.  They are now 12 weeks old.  Again the darker ones will be meat chickens, as they are all roosters.  The light brahmas will be layers and hopefully a new light brahma rooster to replace Bob, because Bob has no game.  The ladies all run from him and his advances.  Don't know if it's his curled toes or what, but they want nothing to do with him.  He does manage to catch one once in a while, but really, he needs some help.  lol

We will begin picking blackberries very soon, gonna be making some blackberry wine also, can't hardly wait, but will have to as it will need to sit for a while.  :)

Just replanted this bed with green onions around the outside and three different kinds of beets on the inside.

These are our leeks.  We are putting paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls around the base to blanch them out so there is more white than green farther up the leek.  More to use then.

These are the peppers in this bed.  There are different kinds, orange, red, and Nardello peppers, which are orange and red, but longer and skinnier.  All sweet peppers.

This is the onion bed I pulled the other onions from above.  I tried to pull some of the bigger ones to give the smaller ones that I filled in the holes with room to grow.

This is dill, which we pulled right after I took this picture.  Hopefully will be getting some cukes this week to do some pickles.

This is one end of the tomato bed.  Again, I believe we put too many plants in one spot, did less than last year, though, but will probably need to do less again this next year.  There are Roma, cherry and many different kinds of tomatoes.  Lots of green ones, the only ones that have ripened so far have the cherry tomatoes.

These would be the cherry tomatoes below.

Thought the raspberries were done for the year, but here they go again.  Yay!

These are new starts below from back to front, of broccoli, lettuces, artichokes and Brussel sprouts.  We had four artichoke plants this year and got about 15 artichokes altogether, so was going to start more for this next year.

And these new starts are from back to front, Napa cabbage and lettuces.

This would be the corn down front.  I believe it is probably like 8 to 9 feet tall!!!  That would be the sweet corn.  On the right the shortest is the blue flower corn and then popcorn and then the sweet corn.

These are starts on all of them.  YAY, can hardly wait.

This the one apple tree we have that is producing.  The apples actually look pretty good even if the leaves on the tree don't.

This would be the one cluster of Asian pears that we have on the tree.

And last, but not least, there are 7 pears on our pear tree.

Just been busy weeding, picking and replanting in the garden.  Definitely been enjoying the warm weather.  Heading back outside to weed.  Will try to blog again sooner rather than later!