Taking Advantage of the Sun!!

So the hunter's are off on their yearly sojourn.  They tried on the west side, but there were way too many hunters and not enough deer, so they just arrived in Colville this afternoon and will be hunting there for a while.  

Kara and her boyfriend Tyler carved pumpkins the other night and the one on the left is Tyler's.  If you look closely, you can see he asked her to homecoming.  Very sweet!!!  She did say yes of course.  Unfortunately, the chickens were out the next day and they enjoyed the pumpkins very much, so they don't look quite the same now.  But at least we got photos before that.

Mom and I cleaned all the pumpkin seeds from the pumpkins Kara and Tyler carved and dehydrated them with a little bit of olive oil and salt.  They are so very, very yummy!

Here is the pig pack in all their glory.  They are eating and growing like crazy and they are so funny, running from end to end of their pen.  They really liked all the raw pumpkin pieces from the pumpkin carving!  Marty got some too!

On a sad note, last Thursday and Friday, the Welsummer chicks we were raising had an unwelcome visit from an opossum, raccoon or something and well lets just say only two survived.  They are in with the meat birds and are doing fine.  We did lose only one meat bird.

So below, after searching online for chicken types and what we wanted to get to replace the Welsummers, I decided to get Light Brahmas which are a large chicken, very tame, very friendly, and very hardy bird along with the Buff Orpingtons, which again are a larger bird, very tame, friendly and hardy.  We got 11 of each with hopefully at least one rooster per breed.  These were all hatched on 10/05/11 so they are a day shy of two weeks now.  The Light Brahmas have feathered feet and black wings with the Buff Orpington being all, well, buff.  Colored that is.  hahahahahahaha  They are all so cute and very soft!

Mom and I purchased two different kinds of garlic to grow for this next year and planted it yesterday.  We got Italian Late and Chinese Pink which is a very early maturing variety.  We are very excited to see how this turns out next spring.  We also pulled all the pumpkin plants, all but two of the zucchini and have the lettuce that we let go to seed in bags to dry.  Yay!

These are the sunflowers on the side of the house that have all started to open.  Not sure due to weather if we will get any sunflowers off them, but they look so pretty!  And they are huge!!!

All is well otherwise.  Mom and Ray's house is getting together slowly but surely.  They now have gutters, the skirting is being put on today, they had their oven installed, have the washer, dryer, and the fridge also.  They are still waiting on their stove top, though.  Otherwise, they are very happy to be in a little larger space than our RV.  To say the least.

Enjoy the sun while you still can!

Cleaning up the Garden and things

So fall is definitely here and summer, well heck not much of one this year.  Rob and Liam are getting ready for their deer hunting season starting in a couple of days.  I went with them to the rifle range the other day.  I have to say it was a little loud and interesting.  

On the left is Rob sighting in his rifle and Liam is looking through the scope to see where the bullet hits the target.  

And, here is Liam with Rob looking through the scope.  Liam actually shot better than Rob did, haha.  Dad taught him well.

So below in front is the pickle relish, middle is apple/rhubarb butter (OMG could just eat this straight it is sooooooo good) and the far box behind has more apple/rhubarb butter and four jars of lemon cucumber pickles.  On that same day, we baked 12 sugar pumpkins and made pumpkin puree and pumpkin/apple/rhubarb butter, all of which are in the freezer now.

This would be the bounty of tomatoes from the garden with the ones on the end of the house still to be picked.  Since they are still green, I am going to try a green tomato relish recipe I found and see how that turns out.  Also found a green tomato soup recipe to try.

This would be the first batch of potatoes we got from the garden,

And these are the second, with more on the deck drying.  A pretty good year all in all for potatoes.  Didn't like how the German butter potatoes turned out, though, some insect really liked them, so won't be trying those next year.

These are the dried beans so far that have been picked.  There is one more row of plants I am waiting for to finish drying.  I think next year would need to plant more than two short rows to get enough though.  lol

And this is our apple cider vinegar experiment.  We took the leftovers from the apple butter the other day, covered them with water and sugar (1 quart to 1/4 cup ratio) and now let it sit for a week covered with cheescloth.  Then strain and let sit for another 2 to 3 weeks again covered with cheesecloth.  Will let you know how it comes out.

Mom and Raymond's house is coming along.  They finished the inside clean/painting last night and today the carpet is supposed to be put down.  Still need to get the skirting, gutters, and backfill around the house, but hopefully they can start to move at the end of this week.  YAY!  They are certainly ready to have a little more room than our 26' RV gives them.  lol

Later!

In the kitchen

So have been spending time in the kitchen again.  I think when the weather turns a little windier and cooler, I spend more time in the kitchen, and it's fun to try new recipes too!

The picture above is the butternut squash soup recipe which was OMG sooooooooo good!  I picked up a magazine last winter that had all these fabulous recipes for soup, stews, and chilis in it.  This was the third recipe I have tried and so far they have all be great!!

Mom and I purchased two more boxes of apples and dehydrated some for apple chips as above.  Tomorrow we are going to make some apple juice and apple butter with the leftovers.

This is our chocolate peppermint from the plant we have in the garden.  It smells soooo good.  Can't wait to make my first cup of tea!!

I picked a bunch of our lemon cucumbers and made more relish, different recipe, though than the zucchini relish I usually make.  I used the book, Put Em Up (you can find it on Amazon, I did).  This was the pickle relish recipe made with cucumbers, onions, red and green peppers, salt, cider vinegar, sugar, water, garlic, allspice, peppercorns and celery seed.  It turned out fabulous, if I do say so myself.

Also cut the pumpkins and winter squash for storage.

Mom made the best spaghetti squash and marina sauce for dinner the other night.  It was fabulous!

And today am making turkey pumpkin chili in the crockpot.  Will let you know how that turns out! Will be accompanied by cornbread of course!  Yummy yummy for my tummy.

Later!

September Ending on a Great Note

 So, things at Shelley Hill Farm are moving right along.  We had our first chicken butchering day on Tuesday.  We rented the Featherman plucker, pictured below, from Agbizcenter.org to make the process oh so very much easier.  Whoever designed this was a genius, I think.  You hook water up to the hose that you see running around the top rim which then squirts out from small holes in the hose at various angles and the bottom of the tub with fingers spins so the scalded chickens then bounce around and all the feathers get removed and flushed out an opening on the bottom with water.  Very, very slick!

These are the chickens soaking in cold water (which we did overnight to relax the muscles so they are not tough).  We labeled them so we could decide which were better.  The ones in the right two stainless steel pots are the free roosters we picked up about a week ago.  There were some "banty" roosters and some regular size.  Wouldn't do bantys again as they are hard to get your hand into to get all the innards out of, but we got it done.  Also, the pot on the left is the three Delaware roosters we hatched out.  I think they are the nicest looking ones, "like normal chicken at the store" if you will, so we will see how they taste when we get to cooking them.  They are all labeled and in the freezer now!

Below is the operation set up.  On the left were the cones to put the chickens through head first to dispatch of them, then on the right they went into the scalding tank and then into the Featherman plucker in the middle then onto a table not in the picture to remove the innards.

Below are the first two roma tomatoes out the garden.  We have about a handful more now, but not sure how many more will ripen before it's not so sunny anymore.  

And, tada, Mom and Ray's house arrived yesterday.  Below is one half coming up our driveway.  They move this with a remote controlled tractor.  Pretty amazing I think.

You can barely see the tractor below on the left end of the house.

And this would be the other half with their porch on it.  The guy running the remote control for the tractor is standing on the left.

And this is how it sits now.  They are not going to be here working on it today, but will be back tomorrow.  Will keep you updated on the progress.

And, we got more pigs.  Below are the four pigs we are raising for meat.  Two males and two females just to see if they are any different to raise/grow.  All have different markings so we can tell them apart.  Rob and I got two, Mom, Aylia, and Alex are splitting one, and Alex's dad purchased the other.  They promptly dug up the ground behind their house and went to sleep after we got them home.  Of course, this was after the fiasco with the electric fence.  We brought them home and put them inside the fence, which of course (though we did not know it) was not working, so they walked right through to go out and right through to go back in.  Needless to say Rob was just a little (said very sarcastically) frustrated as it took about an hour to figure out where the short was.  Anyway, they have all realized that when you touch your nose on the wire, it hurts, so they stay away now.  

This guy was hysterical.  We put the water tub in a tire so they can't flip it over and he proceeded to drink, then put his front feet in, 

Then his entire head in

and then literally tried to fit his whole body into that little water tub.  At one point, he had his head and front feet in the water and walked around in a circle with his back feet on the tire.

Below are two videos of the pigs being pigs.  I have dubbed them the pig pack.

And more piggies.

And an update on the two turkey chicks.

All else is going well.  Kara and Liam are enjoying school (well you know what I mean hahaha).  Kara finished her driver's ed course and passed with flying colors, got 100% on the written test (which counts as the written for her driver's license so she only has to do the drive test to get her license) and 84 on the driving test.  She pretty much chauffeurs us everywhere now.  It's pretty nice actually.  Liam is doing well with baseball.  Has four games every weekend, two with Stanwood/Camano fall ball and two with Seattle Stars fall ball.  They win some and lose some.  He is pretty much playing all positions.  

Rob is getting all geared/psyched up for hunting with Liam starting the this next month.  Hopefully they can each get a deer this year and perhaps an elk, as Rob goes elk hunting following the time he is gone deer hunting with Liam.  

Back out to the garden as I need to pick some sugar pumpkins and see if there are anymore ripe tomatoes!  Later!

Preserving some things

So, the kids are back in school.  A little quieter around the house again.  Kara is doing well in her driver's ed class and is wanting to drive any time she can.  

Mom and I picked up two 22-pound boxes of apples, two 20-pound boxes of Red Globe and Rosa peaches, six 20-pound boxes of Bartlett pears, and six 10-pound boxes of peaches, not sure of their type, and mom got one 10-pound box of nectarines.  The nectarines she dried and made a nummy salad with corn.  Very yummy!

Below is some fruit leather made with peaches and a little bit of cherries.  We also froze quite a few peach slices for later use.

And canned some also.

Mom cut up and dehydrated a whole watermelon and this is what it shrunk down to.  Amazing huh?  Kinda tastes like cotton candy, I think.

And these would be the dried nectarines and peaches mixed.

Things are going well out in the garden.  There are soooooooo many tomatoes and I certainly hope they will have a chance to ripen before the weather changes.  Below are the first two that have slightly changed color.  These are Roma variety.

The new Welsummer chicks are doing well, almost three weeks old now.  We did lose two.  The smallest one got pastey butt and seemed okay after it was cleaned off, but the next morning was gone.  And then one of the older ones was gone about two days later, I think because they had been really starting to pick and scratch at the newspaper and perhaps he ate too much and it blocked him up.  They are all moved outside in the broody chicken tractor with their light and have fun running up and down the ramp.

The midget whites are getting larger, still not sure on the tom/hen ratio but hopefully two of each.  Momma turkey and her two babies are doing fine and dandy.  She herds them around the yard every day and they are so cute pecking and following along.

Robert finished the fence all the way around the back of the property and the goats have a very large area to clear now for us.  Gus and the girls are together for this next month and then will be separated again, which means we will probably have January or early February babies.

The mangels are great!  Marty loves them (he got out the other day before the fence was finished and did a fabulous job of showing me now to root them up, put one front foot on them to hold it, and then take a big bite.  His new bottom front teeth are very pretty and white, I have to say.  haha), the goats love them and I am sure the weiner pigs we are getting on the 24th will love them also.  We are getting four pigs this time, one for mom and Aylia to share, two for us and one for Alex's dad (Aylia's boyfriend Alex, just in case you where like who??)

The meat chickens are doing well and growing, growing, growing.

Liam has started fall baseball with the Stanwood/Camano group and also with the Seattle Stars group he will be playing with this spring instead of doing hockey this year.  Kinda weird not going to the rink, but the sun outside has been nice.

Their first game Liam pitched, as you can see below.

And had a two nice outs while playing shortstop.

He's having a great time playing.

Guess that's all for now.  Gonna try some pickling of different veggies tomorrow as I have a few of everything, just not enough of one kind to do them all individually, so will keep you updated.

Later!

September Tour of Shelley Hill Farm

Okay, so I was full of energy this morning and am giving you all a little mini tour with short videos of the new/improved/moved/rearranged/hopefully better Shelley Hill Farm.

We will start with a lovely video of moi.  (I know, I crack myself up also.  hahahahahahaha)

Now moving on.

On a sad note, one of the baby hens at the beginning of the video above did not make it through today. Dumbledore tried to have his way with her (she really is too young, so we will be keeping the other two in the moveable pens until they are "of age") and tore off her feathers over her chest, exposing her gizzard and chest.  So, Rob put her out of her misery and she is on the stove as we speak, kinda like a cornish game hen size.

Moving on to the "bachelor pad".

and still more.....

Sorry, ended that before I finished my sentence.  Meant to say "Hopefully they will ripen then in the warm weather."

And now for the biggy news today!!!

Kara watched this video above and said I sounded like the mom on the Wild Thornberry's from Nikolodeon.  Okay then.  I kinda do.  I could have whispered like all the shows that Rob and Liam watch on hunting where they are whispering about their hunt and then the wind always seems to be blowing across the microphone.  Drives me insane.  And yes, I was very excited that the turkey hatched her eggs.  We weren't even sure any of them would hatch.

Anyway, Liam has 5 baseball games this weekend, his first tournament with the new team.  So will let you know how that goes.  Gonna finish doing the school clothes shopping this weekend too.

Later!

Catch up, again, on Shelley Hill Farm

Nothing much too new going on.  Caught Rob and Raymond on the front deck each with a turkey in their lap.  The midget white turkeys are quite friendly and jumped right up to be petted.

Rob was in the process of taking apart the large turkey tractor to make three smaller ones to move the meat chickens we are in the process of getting.  Below are Monica and Rachel, who decided they liked our side of the fence better and to keep them in one spot, it became the "goat" tractor.  bwahahahahaha

These are the newest meat chickens, purchased yesterday from a family up out of Bellingham.  They are about three weeks old.  We will be getting a few more this weekend.

Below would be the midget white turkeys and the three roosters from the Delaware chicks we hatched out in their new tractor.  The roosters will be raised for meat.  We are not sure of the sexes of the turkeys yet, though pretty sure there are at least two toms if not all four.  If we do have a hen, then we will keep one tom for a breeding pair.

Rachel is out yet again as I type, really need to fix/move the fence, again.  So she is "imprisoned" in the empty tractor again, hence the name "goat" tractor.  lol

Got one load of laundry off the line and the next one up.  Making yogurt today and two loaves of bread are waiting for the oven to preheat to be baked.

Later!