apples apples apples...

we put up thirty four more quarts of apples today. it took four hours. the grand total is fifty seven. then there is the the apple sugar juice pectin. we have three more quarts of that. we plan to pick the rest of the tree this weekend as to not offend the gods of bounty. when opportunity arises to pantry-up a bounty one must oblige else really bad things happen--famine, starvation ect... ;)

wendy over at home is has an interesting post. it made me panic for a few seconds. we are not ready to be post economic collapse. we have been working toward that for a while, three years, from scratch.

i have a 1000 watt inverter and two 120 watt solar panels and a deep cycle battery. i'm not quite ready for a power outage let alone keeping our freezer and fridge going indefinitely. we heat with wood and i have the ability to cut from our back property for several years. assuming i can get gas for my chainsaw.

we have hay for the cows and are pretty stable getting more from my father-in-law. grain for the cows would be an issue but we could figure out alternatives. we would survive from our garden if we could pantry our stores. this year was a bust but we might still squeak by anyway. next year our garden will be a different story.

i still have to build a composting toilet and would make serious efforts toward a methane digester. i could power my truck via methane if i really had to. they did it in germany during WWII.

we have a cistern and a well that i could get a pump to fill it during rain shortages. we have access to a pond and would use it for our animals if necessary. we also have a berkey drinking water filter that would provide for our family. i know how to build a solar still to purify water and have most of the stuff to do it. plus, i know how to use make and use charcoal as a water filter.

our solar water heater isn't installed but i could have a makeshift version ready in a few days and have the full scale version working within a few weeks. i'd put the final supplies on a credit card to build it.

we also would have a commodity of fresh milk to barter for many things--assuming we could adequately defend ourselves. we also have hens that lay an excess of eggs but require grain during the winter.

yikes this is too scary to think about anymore.

i still have to put more straw into jaocelyn's pen--see yesterdays to-do list.

the land of milk and honey

i just had a peanut butter and honey sandwich with a huge glass of milk. was it our milk and honey? YES, i love our honey and this was the first glass of the newly freshened rory. it was buttery and delicious. rosemoon, tabitha's stance on how soon to drink a fresh cows milk is as soon as possible. we couldn't make colostrum custard because we used tomorrow® teat infusions to prevent mastitis and that requires 72 hours wait. i must say that i couldn't wait an entire week with no other raw milk source.

here is our milker. we got three gallons yesterday. i look to see a bit more than that once rory settles in.


we got to pick the rest of the apples from my father-in-laws apple tree. so far we have only picked five buckets full. there are still three buckets still on the porch waiting for us this weekend.

today we canned twenty three or so quarts. my job was to operate the peeler-corer-slicer. i remember using one as a kid. it makes short work of a tedious job. tabitha filled the jars, ran the stove and canner.


toly helped. his job was to take a bite out of each apple and hand it to me. we are big on quality control around here.


this was tabitha's station. see the show canner? it holds fifteen quart jars and sits over two burners. it heats up pretty fast--so did the kitchen.


these canned apples look so tasty.


stack/split wood 1/2 a rick
move bees 2 hives
can a mess of apples 23 quarts
fix milker switches
move baby sling hook at barn
fix drain by bees
- - bees still in the way
get hay 16 bales
straw, water, jocelyn pen
- - tomorrow
fork waste hay by feeder into compost
- - need new pitch fork old one is broken
mow & feed grass to cows

twentyeight to the fourth power

614656 to 1

tristan, kassi and toly were all born on the dark of the moon. if rome decides to hold out until july 31/aug 1 his odds will be 614,656 to 1 that he was also born on the dark of the moon.

although, tabitha is ready today.

i finally slopped boca's pen out last night. she mostly did her business in the one end of her pen. i'd never heard of a cow being discriminating about where it goes.

pre-baby tension hangs thick in this house. one might think that the aroma of dehydrating onions would penetrate the tension. alas no, their pungent smell is only a subtle under current amidst the treacle of waiting for rome.

i butchered 16 chickens yesterday. only five more to go of the last batch of broilers. i have officially decided that we need a chicken plucker.

i could almost butcher chickens by myself if we had one. especially since i plan to solicit tristans help next year.

yesterday tristan helped peel onions again. his nimble little fingers are amazing. he started to race me and easily peeled onions faster than i could cut off the ends in his queue and slice them after he peeled them. i have been gradually showing him how to use a knife. so i let him cut his own onion ends off for peeling. imagine a five-year-old using a knife that i had earlier sharpened to butchering standards. i monitored him closely for good form and safety. he did wonderfully.

all the while he kept telling me how we are saving these for winter. so many lessons were learned and he was likely more helpful than many adults would be. he inspected each onion and removed any bad rings that were damaged during our storms. such a good boy.

just over half the onions are officially put up.
- 8 heavy braids over 8lbs each.
- 5 loads of 7 lbs each in the dehydrator
- 13 chickens queued for the freezer*

* i gave the thompsons three birds for shanes help in butchering.

first harvest of the year

when i say harvest i mean put a substantial amount of food up for winter stores. friday we braided the garlic. we pulled and set it out to dry a few days earlier. here it is hanging in the laundry room.

notice the two pressure canners. they are checked and queued for their term of duty.

i am making a new label "pantry 08". i'm doing this cause we are trying to track exactly what we need to make it through the winter. we'd like to stay away from the grocery store as much as possible--who can afford that place anyway? last year we did pretty good but didn't document anything. we are starting fresh--with a plan.

i didn't get to work on the root cellar this weekend. i was thwarted by a crazy stomach virus. bed ridden for the whole day saturday and still feel like crap today.

we did manage to harvest some swiss chard.

tabitha picked while i washed every single leaf--both sides.

tristan watched and kept pestering me to stop and thumb wrestle for a while. funny boy.

tabitha blanched and packaged the chard in large freezer bags.

can you believe it took about four bushels to make fourteen three p0und bags?


we'll amend the plants with a special brew--compost tea.


our beans are finally starting to climb the arches in earnest.


here is one of our hungarian black peppers.

isn't she beautiful.

look at the size of these broilers.

they are eight weeks and about 9 pounds.

somewhere during this week (not saturday) i hung this feeder and built the catch trough.

i built the trough today. those cows were waisting our pricey square bale hay. between the three of them they eat a bale a day. one dollar per day per cow. yikes.... ok ok boca will be butchered in three months. and we'll have a freezer full of beef. nimue will freshen in a week or so. we are going to try to sell some milk to offset the other two cows.
lets see..
hay 1 dollar per day per cow
grain 1 dollar per day per cow
that is 4 dollars per day total.
can we sell five gallons of milk per week at six dollars per gallon? we sold about six gallons per week when nimue was fresh before. i hope so.

tabitha just brought in three tomatillos. i wonder what i'll do with them?

14 three pound bags of chard
7 braids of garlic