Lovely Doves and Asparagus plants

Some of our sweet doves ...

My haul of eggs today - 9!

I also got the asparagus bedded down - mostly - for the winter.  It just got too dark for me to be able to see what I was doing.  I'm also allergic to the wheat straw so I have to be really careful not to get it on me.  That's hard to do when you can't see it very well.  So tomorrow I'll finish up the job but at least tonight they have a bit of a blanket on them.  I also pulled up the rest of the tomato plants and broke them up to put around the asparagus plants to help hold the straw around the plants.

Typical Class Day...

or not.

I was so tired today so I've hardly gotten anything done.  Thankfully, only one child, Bean5, has something today besides school.
I did *not* do my morning routine other than to awaken the children, say morning prayers with them, and get myself ready for school.

After I finished with classes, I was a *little* more awake and managed to eek out a little bit of usefulness today.  I'm keeping my expectations low for tonight!

I made it outside finally after figuring I was so cold inside the house that it couldn't be too much worse outside.  I love the view from my back deck!  If you know what you're looking at, you can see three of the garden plots in this photo, the coops, the new fire pit, and the deer target.  The pond is in the middle of all that brush and trees :)

 

 

 So I finally got to the coops to feed and water the chickens and doves and let the chickens out to the grass pen to chow down a little bit on a smorgasborg of different bugs.  Here are a few of the girls.

I gathered eggs and managed to drop one :-/  only 5 made it to the fridge ....

Then I harvested some stevia seeds ....

 

 

I still need to "de-fluff" them and let the seeds dry (or vise versa) before storing them in a small mason jar with a paper lid versus a metal lid (for breathability).  I personally have to store them this way in our second refridgerator otherwise, my darling family somehow finds a way to lose or spill the paper packets *sigh*

So now, I need to post this so I can get on supper.... baked potato soup *yum* - gluten-free/dairy-free!  Oh and I need to finish getting the peppers from the garden chopped and in the dehydrator!  Next thing I know it'll be time for baths, prayers, and bed for the kids.  I'm supposed to have book club tonight but that'll simply depend on how I feel - I might not be able to handle staying awake for it!

Apple Cider & Two Eggs

Making apple butter yesterday made me crave warm apple cider ... not hard apple cider. So I cheated a bit and bought regular apple juice last night. Today I poured it in a glass pot and heated on low while I added cinnamon, nutmeg, and all spice. It turned out really good.

Today, when I went out to the chicken coop there were only 2 eggs :(



Unfortunately, a combination of the time change making it darker sooner and me having to leave the house, I didn't go back out to see if more had been laid nor did I send someone else out there.

Of course, I don't know that any of the children could handle an escaped chicken like I dealt with this afternoon! Those silly girls act like the only grass they ever see is the grass right outside the door when I open the door. Well, one slipped out while I was shooing them back - one hand on the door and the other holding the two eggs. So I had to find a safe place to set the eggs while I chased Henrietta. I finally just let her get to chomping on the long grass then just scooped her up and put her back with the other girls.

Whew! Crisis averted lol

And can someone tell me why chickens scatter their feed all over the ground but then won't eat it? That's the million dollar question around here!

Apple Butter

WoooHooo I canned my first batch of Apple Butter!  At first I was going to simply make applesauce BUT I had such a hankering for apple butter that I decided to do that instead :-)

What a process!  I read all the instructions and it seemed fairly straight forward - and it was, don't get me wrong.  It was just pushing the apples through the sieve took fooorrrreevveeerrrr.  Of course, I could have cooked them a little longer than the instructions say to - but I always follow the instructions the way they are written FIRST - then make changes from there.  Change numero uno is to cook the batch of apples longer while in the vinegar and water solution so as to make them mushier to go through the sieve easier.

If I had a food mill it wouldn't be an issue, but I don't, so it is.

It all started with me home sick from church and MrBeans prepping dinner (he grills most Sunday evenings) and Bean2 was doing dishes (amazingly without being asked!).  When MrBeans casually says, "You got some apples about to go bad over here."  So, me in all my infinite wisdom (not) decided to say, "Okay, I'll just go grab my applesauce recipe and make some applesauce."  Because that's what you do when you're hacking up a lung, right? (insert eye rolling here)

Figuring out how many apples made 4 pounds was a tiny bit tricky but I figured it out, chopped them into quarters, added the vinegar and water (after a trip to the garage to get the apple cider vinegar that I use for the animals' water bowls), covered and turned on the heat and set the timer.  Wah-lah!  That was simple enough and didn't take very long.  But then, I was suppose to push through a sieve if I didn't have a food mill.  Umm, that took hours!  Since you have to leave on the peels and leave the cores in - because that's where most of the pectin and flavor is located - it just seemed to take forever.... oh wait, it did!

As a side thought, maybe I'll peel and core the apples, put it all in the pot to boil and then the peels and cores can just come right out .... maybe ...

I finally got 8 cups of pulp squished out, added the sugar and spices and put it all on to boil down to a nice thick apple butter!  I must have done a bang-up job of squishing those apples through the sieve because the recipe was suppose to make just over 3 pints - so I prepared 3 pint jars and 1 half pint jar.  As it turns out, by the time my apple butter was nice and smooth and thick, I had a little over 4 pints.  So I have 3 pint jars, 2 half-pint jars, and one 3/4 full half-pint jar (which is in the fridge to be eaten immediately rather than canned like the others).

So with starting at around 1 pm, I finally finished at around 9 pm!  ... With a break for dinner in there, too.  Though I have to say, I felt rather accomplished!  Oh, on top of making/canning the apple butter, MrBeans and I went through and cartoned all the eggs we've gotten so far (that we haven't eaten or given away yet, that is)... 2 1/2 flats worth.

Here are a couple of photos.... (March 18, 2014 - just saw that the link has been broken - will attempt to remedy this soon)