Homemade Bacon

The past two weeks, plus a cold snap, gave my husband and me ample opportunity to stock our freezer.  We had two young pigs that we had bred ourselves that we dispatched and put away.


My husband likes to cure and smoke meat, and his bacon is something to eat.  After two weeks of preparing it, I finally got a taste.  It was divine.  I will have to ration it out, or it will be gone in no time!

December Snowfall

Snow is rare in my neck of the woods.  When we get snow it is usually in February or March.  So it was a bit of a shock when we got some last week.

I woke up to few inches - just enough to dust everything.  A few hours of sun and it was gone.  It was pretty while it was here, though.

Early Turnips

I walked down to one of green fields, and ended up picking some fresh Turnips.  I also found a timber rattler, but that's a different story.

Homemade Yogurt

I have seen several recipes online for homemade yogurt and have always been tempted to try it.  But with milk hovering around the 3.50 a gallon mark, I have never done it.  The other day, however, milk was a dollar a gallon.  It was now or never.  I came home, got out the crock pot, and picked out the most scientific sounding recipe.

The milk did it's thing, and with very little help from me, turned into actual yogurt.  I must admit I was a little shocked it worked.

All said and done, I ended up with two quarts of the thickest, creamiest and yummiest yogurt ever.  I also ended up with two quarts of whey, which went straight to the freezer.

Cooler Weather

It seems like it took forever, but the temperature here finally dipped into the fifties.  It only lasted overnight, but it felt awesome. We opened all of the windows and enjoyed actually using blankets the other night.  The weather has been very reminiscent of last year, when it was hot enough to get tomatoes in November.  

We have a pile of branches that came off the trees that came down from Irma, and then from Nate. Add into that some pines we cut down from a pine beetle infestation, and we have a big pile that needs burning. It has been to hot to burn, but the cool weather gave us the opportunity to go light it up. Of course, we had to break out the marshmallows.

No Hour Wasted

I am a big believer that being involved in an outdoor pursuit will help keep kids out of trouble.  Horses, fishing, raising livestock, and hunting, if they like any of them.  These activities will either keep you so busy you don't have time for trouble, so broke you can't afford trouble, or both.

Happy likes horses, Rooster likes fishing, they both have livestock projects, and they both are becoming interested in shooting sports.  To that end, I told them the other day if they could get up and do their schoolwork, get good grades on said schoolwork, get all inside and outdoor chores completed, we could go fishing.

A couple of hours on a peaceful lake is great time for my kids to open up and talk about whatever may be on their chests.  They caught some fish, identified them, and released them.

Hurricane Damage

Well, technically, it was tropical storm damage since Irma had downgraded by the time she got to us. We were blessed in many ways.  My preparation for the storm included filling the bathtubs with water so we could flush the toilet, and stuffing the freezers with jugs of water. Even though we live in a very rural area, we never lost power though.  The nearest "big town"  is twenty minutes away, and several neighborhoods lost power for a day or two - not really that bad.

I was saddened to hear about the people who were injured or lost their lives further to the south. I was very grateful that no linemen or first responders were injured in our area. My husband volunteers as fireman, and he spent several hours clearing roadways.

The only damage at our place was a handful of trees that snapped in our pasture.  We think it may have been straight line winds, because the trees were grouped fairly close and they snapped off about ten feet from the base.  Most of the time in our area, trees are uprooted from a ground saturation/wind combo.  All of the animals weathered it just fine.

Some Things This Summer . . .

We had bunnies born.

My roses bloomed.

I had an excellent crop of figs.

The dear husband and I got a much needed vacation.

And I processed twenty five gallon of pears.

Mexico Beach

Quail Eggs

In May, some of my son's friends gifted him with a hundred quail eggs. He popped them into his incubator, and around June 7, itty bitty baby birds popped out.  We only got twenty birds because our hydrometer wasn't be working right, as we finally figured out.

And then six weeks later, this.

I predict a lot of quail dinner in the future.

Feed Sack Recycling #1

I am a waste not, want not kind of person.  If I can find a second (or third or fourth) use for some thing, I am happy.  One of my favorite things to reuse is feed sacks.  We always have a couple laying around, and I have found some handy uses over the years. A common use for me is to use them as weed control.  Just cut them open down the sides with a blade and - v`oila.  Free weed control.  For smaller areas the sacks can be cut to size.

Snapping Turtle

Potato Harvest

Cabbage were harvested the other day, and now potatoes.  We grew them in old tires stacked up - the first year we tried to grow this way.  We were at three truck tires high when my son accidentally killed the plants.  We needed to put tomatoes in the tires so we decided to go ahead and knock the tires down.  The first tire (top) - nothing.  Second tire (middle) - a few small pearl sized taties.  Third tire (bottom) - I pulled the roots and nothing came out.  I was disappointed, but shrugged it off as not being in the ground long enough.  I went and got my tomato seedlings I had started and began to dig around the dirt in the tire when my fingers brushed something hard.  I ended up pulling out the biggest, prettiest new potato.  After dumping the third tire, we ended up with a nice batch of new potatoes.

Cabbage Harvest

Control Burn

Piggies that will go to the market

I had a bit of a surprise a few days ago.  Our sow was due to farrow in a few weeks, but sometime during the night she decided to pop them out.  They were tiny, but all were healthy.

 The sow, who has a moniker of Macon Bacon, had them in a pile of horse hay.  My mare was quite taken with them.  She stood they sniffing them and carefully following them for hours.  The pony was less amused.

Um, excuse me, waiter?  There is a pig in my hay.

We eventually got Macon and her babies rounded up and moved to a pen by themselves.  In a few weeks they can rejoin the general population.

Baby Bunnies

Not too terribly long ago, my other half decided to give meat rabbits a go.  I was fine with that, except for one thing.  Rabbits are cute.  I had no problem, uh-hem, getting rid of them, but what about the kids.  My hubby argued they had no problem with the chickens or pigs.

True.  Of course, the broiler chickens were more like mini velociraptors than actual chickens.  They were vicious things with no personality.  The pig - well to be honest no one liked the pig.  We just wanted bacon.  But rabbits are cute and cuddly.  If you aren't careful, you will be up to your ears in no time. I know - I've been there before. Long story short, we got some rabbits.

I was right about the cuddly part, but wrong about my kids.  Although they do enjoy the baby bunnies, they did not get attached.  They were perfectly fine knowing that after eight weeks, the fluff bums were permanently going away.  They helped with almost everything, and have enjoyed many rabbit meals.  For the next batch, my daughter is going to keep track of feed cost to see how much the meat costs per pound.  It is going to be her 4-H project.  Sometimes it is nice to be wrong.