Stanley Plum

Last year I posted about going to Erda, UT to pick apples.

What I didn't post - mainly because I was getting burnt out from canning and cooking non stop,

was that she'd called us up middle of August to come pick plums!

She had two HUGE beautifully loaded Stanley Plum tree's!

We came home with SO many!

I made two recipes 

Plum Jam 

(family favorite)

Plum BBQ Sauce

(to sweet, need to add some heat to it but absolutely packed with vitamins)

This year we decided to add fruit tree's to our yard. Yes it will take a few years for them* to grow large enough to produce fruit, but we are on our way!

First we dug a massive hole.

Added compost to the bottom.

Then we created a water well and lined it with more composting/hay.

Of course I choose Stanley Plum's, as those are what we got last year and the taste was incredible!  

Now in a few years, I'll have a year round supply of Plum Jam.

This year I can only hope and pray the family in Erda calls us again!

We will of course, be on the look out for other golden opportunities!

*them - more fruit tree's will be posted as they are bought and added!

Spring Planting 2017!

Last years Kale is springing back up!

Peas are planted

Garlic is already coming up in the middle!

The sides are carrots & onion.

Around the border in the blocks we planted 10 Strawberry plants.

This is from a tip I got off of pinterest saying they grew well in the warmer bricks.

We shall see.

We've tried shade, sun, half and half, wet, dry, damp.

We've tried to grow them in the strawberry planters - plastic, ceramic and the hanging ones.

This year we try again, with little hope.

My baby lettuce before I thinned it out!

Will need to post more recent photos!

Later on this week we are going to be putting in our zucchini, squash and if it stops raining enough for us to build new trellis, my Chinese Long Beans!

Hoping for a good harvest this year!

Integrating our Chicks!

Yes, this does look rather odd.

Its our indoor chicken brooder, minus the indoor floor panel.

We brought our young chicks outside in this for two days, allowing young and old 

to "talk" to each other through the small slats.

Getting to know each other without harming the babies.

The term, "Chicken" wasn't coined accidentally.

It took a while for our older ladies to even check out the babies.

However, on the third day I took two brooms and released them into the yard.

Surprisingly all went well!

Two of our Rhode Island Reds, 

ran after the babies pecking at their backs.

However the peck to the middle of the back was to show them their place in the pecking order.

Its been two weeks and no issues!

No head pecking, no injuries, no pulling feathers!

Just still a few small pecks to the middle of the back and a happy fluff ruffle once the babies run away.

Finally breathing a sigh of relief!

Introducing new to old never goes the same!

Spring Babies!

One of our older baby bunnies (first litter to Ginger 4 babies)

Our second kindling of kits!

(baby bunnies)

New chicks!

We are in the long process of cycling out our flock.

Our older ladies are headed to the grill, while the new lovelies will take over egg production.

Jan/Feb when our older ladies turned 2, we brought home new chicks.

This time we went with the breeds, Black Austrolorps, Silver Laced Wyandottes & a few Rhode Island Reds.

Meaning sadly no more fabulous blue eggs.

Will post their new names soon!

Our home is filled with babies!

On top of all the bunny and chickie mania we also bought a new puppy!

She won't be able to come home for another month or so but I can't wait!

Sorry I went MIA for a bit, we've been overwhelmed keeping everything going!

Winter we lost two kindling's due to rookie errors. Not a pleasant way to learn.

I also brought home a few more rabbits for free 

(Ginger, our rookie but amazing mother is one of those) 

We did decide for the first time to add a light to our coop, since we were cycling out our chickens this summer anyway we decided that they didn't really need the winter break.

Just as well, today we managed one egg out of our nine lady hens!

We can't afford to feed and house hens that aren't laying!

I know many (MANY) people consider their chickens pets, we don't.

Our chickens are for eggs and living in an urban setting we can't afford to have freeloaders when our city limits how many hens can be on the property.

Also I continually hear, "My kids just love our chickens. They are so attached."
So were mine, know what kids love more than chickens?

Baby chickens!

Just saying.

But really, for us we made the choice when we decided to get into raising animals that we would keep our animals; healthy, well fed, well loved and we would also enjoy the cycle of life.

Nothing here is wasted.

Mint Jelly

Mint Jelly

I made a double batch, the yield was 13, 8 oz. containers.

When looking up recipes there are MANY to choose from.

I went with Fresh Eggs Daily's that used water & less sugar. Recipe HERE

From start to finish picking the mint, washing, drying, cooking and canning it = 6 hours.

If however, you are using older mint.

Mint you bought from the store, a neighbor gave you or you purchased a farmers market

I'd advise using THIS recipe.

It uses apple juice instead of water.

Fresh picked I didn't need any extra sweetness or flavor, the taste was amazing and strong!
Older mint - still soft and live, but not fresh picked might need a boost.

Again I don't add dyes to food.

This is dye free mint jelly and TRUST me its amazing!
 

Next year I think I'll buy more of these tiny jars and make up a few extra batches in the spring when my mint patch really takes off!
These will be perfect for presents & for using with all sorts of dishes.

I can't wait to try it with roasted rabbit!

Canning Cucumbers

 HOT DAMN Pickles!
AKA
Mondo's Hot & Spicy

My modifications to the recipe were due to me being terrified of how hot these are going to be.
I omitted the peppercorns since I was using 2-3 birds eye chili peppers per jar.
For those that don't know Birds Eye Chili's rate on average 70,000 on the heat scale.
Standard Jalapeno's are between 10,000-15,000.
Due to changing up the heat ratio I also changed the name of mine to Hot Damn Pickles!

Garlic Dill Pickles

These were seriously the prettiest pickles I've canned!

I used fresh picked cucumbers & my home grown garlic & dill for the recipe!

Using Dill seeds instead of dill weed since most of my dill had already died off. Next year I will harvest my dill and cucumbers together using the first batch of ready cucumbers instead of the last batch for this recipe!
In one day I managed 15 quarts and 1 pint of Garlic Dill pickles!

The one pint was ONE entire cucumber!
It was too pretty to split up and quite a challenge to fit into the jar but I made it!

Bread & Butter Pickles

Next time I make these I'm going to cut the onions in half!

Seriously that's a LOT of onions per jar & per pickle ratio!

Sweet Pickles

THESE are the BEST pickles EVER!!!

They take 7 days.
Not kidding 7 days of water treatments to do them correctly.
This is what sold me on canning pickles forever!!!

I can't share my recipe as I got it from a very old, "The New Pillsbury Family Cookbook".
Pretty sure you can find a copy at most any used book store for a few dollars.
I did cut the sugar amount down from 8 cups to 5 cups.
Two years ago they were amazing but too sweet.
I've already tried some and even with the lower sugar amount they are divine!
I have one more batch soaking now (day 4) when they are done so are my pickle days for this year!

Sweet Pickle Relish

This link takes you first to my blog on pickle relish which has a link to the recipe.

Now on my previous post about pickle relish I mentioned that a massive ton of my pickles were turning yellow and orange.

I looked it up - anything from watering, not enough fertilizer, to them being on the vine too long can cause the color to change.
The sites were really ridiculous about how once the color changed they were worthless and bitter.

We tasted ours and they were still perfectly amazing.
Sweet, crunchy and crisp.

No weirdness just yellow.
Also they smelled amazing when cut!

My advice to you - check your product before you toss.
If it looks good, smells good and tastes good - its good.

Jalapeno Peppers!

Jalapeno Pepper Jelly

This recipe said it would make 6 8oz jars. 

It made 9 1/2 jars for me.
Looks AMAZING! 

The few drops I tasted having me drooling for Thanksgiving when I plan to serve this.
If you want the store bought deep green you can add food coloring to the recipe,

I have ISSUES with America's fad for brightly colored food and avoid all dyes like the plague.

What started me on Jalapeno Peppers during Cucumber season?

My amazing next door neighbors brought over full box of their produce leftovers!

Jalapenos, onions, green peppers and tomatoes!

Most of which will go into my pickles, however, the Jalapeno's were just to pretty not to can!

Pickled Jalapeno Peppers

 

Now this recipe made 1 pint so I had to triple it for my three pints.

See the space at the bottom?

That's after pushing them down and pushing them down and pushing them down some more!

 I'm not a huge pepper person but this year I keep getting them!

I love these on my favorite food of all time, nachos!

 

 

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Side note: For the first recipe I used gloves while cutting up the jalapenos.

For the second recipe I forgot.

DON'T FORGET THE GLOVES!!!!

 

Jalapeno burns are a @$$$#% to get over but thankfully they don't do much damage to the skin.

No boils or skin damage save some redness,

the pain however,

lets just say when I forgot I'd boiled some water for my canning jars and reached in, I didn't notice a difference to my fingers.