Floppy the Five Headed Monster!? And Everybody's Roosting - Take 2

I grabbed this cute pix when we were putting everyone in for the night.

Floppy has been doing a great job with The Five. She is a Brown Leghorn which typically are not the broody type.... but wow, what a great momma.  She set her nest like a pro and she keeps The Five close to her at all times. The little ones like to climb under her and up into her feathers. I love when they pop their heads out and she looks like a funny, fluffy, porcupine.  They also like to ride around on her back. Its hilarious.

The other hens need to watch it when Floppy takes her babies out. Yesterday Fats got a bit too close...

Floppy gave her a barnyard-style beat down. That's my girl.  But don't worry - we got there before it got too ugly and hustled Fats right out of the yard. Floppy called all the babies to her and marched them back into the hen house.

Speaking of cute chicks....

Remember when Mrs. Dowlrimple's Bugs were finally old enough to roost? Check out these babies now! They are growing like weeds...look how big!

And Mrs. D's shows that The Bugs will never be too big to be under her wing.

In other news... I've been bad about The Canning Report. Lets just say that the pressure canner hasn't even been put away lately.

Yesterday I did 3 pints of salsa verde, 4 pints of baked applesauce, and 3 quarts of chicken stock. I have more tomato sauce and applesauce that needs to be done.

Elsewhere in the barnyard...

Ohmigolly... the goats are ri-DICULOUS. Seriously... the moodiness, the standing around complaining, oh for heavens sakes. Someone may not make it thru their heat season...sheesh!

And I'm gradually reducing their milking to start drying them out. Right now they are both on once a day. Soon Nibbles will be on every other day...as will Debbie. I'm hoping to get them shipped off to the breeders in the next several weeks. We heard from Vita's breeder - she's already been bred!  Which means we'll see her the first week of March.

That's all the news that's fit to print! Happy first day of fall!

Tom-A-to, tom-O-to.....

Tomato, tomoto.. cat's paw.... hey! NICHOLAS!!!

One of these things does not belong. Oh yes... I always have help in the kitchen.

Those of you with cats are laughing, those without are not.

Yesterday was a record breaking canning day. But since I've only really just started..well, that's not saying much. But I did get 12 quarts and 5 pints of tomato sauce put up. I also got a cheese started and that requires a lot of futzing around. The most irritating step is "stir continuously for 20 minutes."Sheesh! And none of these cats will help with that.

I need most of today to shovel out the kitchen and get some things done outside but honestly... when the dogs and I did our walk about this morning it looks like there are more maters and peppers coming on. If not today then tomorrow will be a salsa day.

Canning Report:
* 12 quarts and 5 pints of tomato sauce
* 12 quarts of green beans (from the other day)

Farm Notes:
* That whole "summer" thing is definitely over. A few leaves have even fallen off the trees. Sure we'll have some warm days but I've never seen anything like this. An early fall is here. We need to start working on fire wood.
* Our turkey hens are a disaster. Turkey Momma got up and she only had one egg left under her. Stormy is a demon and we cant get near her to evaluate how her nest is doing. And Bramble... who knows.
* Now that the weather had cooled the goaties are back to full milking speed. I ordered more cheese making supplies so we can take advantage of the extra milk. I'm still shocked that most forms of cheese are just rotten milk in various shapes. Hum... if people only knew....The wine fridge as our "cheese cave" seems to be working.
* We'll be looking at a butcher day here pretty soon. The roosters formerly known as The Kindergarten are like a gang of bandits out there terrorizing the countryside. We have a few good hens out of that lot. My favorite is Silver - who is all black (including her comb!) except for a few silvery feathers around her head. She's a keeper.
* Mrs. Dowlrimple and The Bugs continue to amuse.  They hide in the weeds and when you get close enough you can hear them all happily singing and peeping. So cute. 

And now I need to get to it. Happy Tuesday everyone!

Baby its HOT in the kitchen...and Canning Report

Hey Nicholas!  If you can't stand the heat - get out of the kitchen!

Nicholas can't stand the heat

Monday was an epic day in the kitchen. Unfortunately it was also a HOT day in the kitchen. At 90* outside, I think there was actually a point where it was hotter inside. This is what caused Nicholas's hard day in the kitchen. I think he melted a little. He has lots of hard days as seen here and here.

Nicholas's Hard Day #1
Nicholas's Hard Day #2
Nicholas's Hard Day #3
Nicholas's Hard Day #4
Nicholas's Hard Day #5
Nicholas's Hard Day #6 
Nicholas's Hard Day #7
Nicholas's Hard Day#8
Nicholas's Hard Day #9 
Nicholas's Hard Day #10
But a good day for The Canning Report:
* 6 pints of white peach preserves
* 8 pints of turkey meat
* 3 quarts plus one pint of turkey stock.

But it didn't end there:
* 4 quart freezer bags of cat food (turkey meat)
* 4 freezer bags of stock for dogs
* 2 loaves of bread 
* 2 more sugar pie pumpkins cooked, pulp to be frozen
* peach scones
* and then I shook up a jar of cream to make butter.

Then we turned the AC back on and now I'm waiving a white flag...I'm done. Just like Nicholas.

Snaps from yesterday and Canning Report

I think all my 'puter woes have been fixed now so I'm back on line. A gentle reminder to all to stop what you are doing and back up your hard drive. Now. Yes, you. Do not delay. I thought I had lost it all.. whew!

Amidst the technical woes there were some fun things:

First, I found out more about my mis-named squash which is a Cushaw, or kershaw.  It is sometimes used to make canned pumpkin! So my dreams of pumpkin pie will be realized - yay!  I'm really excited that I found several of these monsters growing all over the property - including hanging over the top of a fence. I'm not sure I was able to show just how big they are from the picture shown here.. so here is another with my work gloves for scale:

This one is huge!

And I just can't stop clickin' happy snaps of the geese.... we have a real flock! That's OD in the lead:

I love you, OD!

It turned out that Mrs. Beezley only hatched one chick... so we named him Neo because he is "The One." 

Little Neo with Mrs. Beezley

And then there are all these peaches..

What could be more summer-like than baskets of peaches and black berries?

Well, I guess this big tomato:

I think this is a Tula Black.. just stunning. And tasty too!

I'm going to start a Canning Report.. kinda like Farm Notes but, listing what we "put by." This will help me figure out how much we put up, what worked best, and will help me plan for next year. Sorry if its boring but this is easy record keeping for me:

Canning report:
* 4 pints of blackberry preserves
* 3 pints of tomato sauce

The blackberries are made with low-sugar Pamona's Perfect Pectin. This used the 2 quarts of berries we got from our orchard friends. I used only 3/4 cup of sugar for the entire recipe. They set up very nicely.

The tomato sauce was processed in a water bath for 35 minutes from tomatoes that I gathered to make our pizza sauce. I let them process while I finished cutting up peaches for a crisp. I think doing small batches may be a good strategy so I don't have to spend huge chunks of time doing just canning.

Tomorrow I'll do more of the peaches (as preserves) and see what else I can work on.