Dill pickles and roasted red peppers

Yesterday I made 3 gallons of dill pickles and 1 1/2 gallons of roasted red peppers. I'll use both all winter long. The peppers are great in soups, in place of fresh peppers and are stored in jars of olive oil in the fridge. The pickles stay in their gallon-size pickling vats -- food grade plastic containers with lids -- in the back of the second fridge we own. I let them sit in the brine for a

mama's bread

Made two loaves of bread today -- my kids call this Mama's bread --Mama's bread - 1 loaf3 cups of unbleached flour -- stir it up before measuring it out1 1/3 tsp salt3 T sugar4 T butter cut up2 tsp instant yeast -- this is Red Star or SAF yeast that you don't have to proof first -- works better and you can buy a 1 lb package and keep in the freezerabout a cup of waterCombine all the ingredients,

I was out watering and feeding the turkeys, both groups of meat birds, laying hens, and cows. Well, just watering the cows because they still have plenty of grass to graze on. The air is so thick with humidity, you could almost drink it straight out of the sky. Is there an animal that can do that? I need some of those.Tomorrow's our big day for meat bird processing. The first batch are going to

Nature likes to play tricks on me.Today I was running a little late to make a lunch meeting. I didn't plan the chores well and ended up with no time and a lot to do. Without a doubt the best way for me to have something go wrong is to make too many plans. As I was filling the water reservoir for the chicken tractor, it came lose and landed with a giant woosh -- and I was drenched head to toe.

old walls

I took a walk out on our ridge on Sunday with Bob. There's one area where our land dips down to a stream. We walked along the path and stood next to the large stone walls that must have kept the sheep from crossing the brook. Up the narrow valley, the stone foundation of a mill wheel still sits. A moss covered stone wall serves as a retaining wall for a narrow path along the far side of the

Suggestions for canned peaches

Tonight's supper will include green beans from the garden, a meat chicken from the flock, and local potatoes and onions roasted up. I have a lot of leftover jars of canned peaches from last summer, so I'm looking for suggestions on what to do with them. Peach chutney - I'll make this tonight. Saute for just a couple minutes cut up shallots, garlic and jalapeno. Add chopped up home canned peaches

We extracted honey tonight from 5 honey supers. Bob weighed each box before and after extraction, so there was about 35 to 38 pounds of honey in each one. A quart of honey weighs around 3lbs -- so each super had around ten and a half quarts in it. That's a lot of gallons of honey! It's very light in color and really delicious.Chris and Pia came over and ate dinner with us and helped us extract.