Burnt Fork Farm: PART 3 OF HOMESTEAD HAPPENINGS!

What a beautiful morning!

We gave the animals some yummy treats.

The girls and I had to go to town and saw these at Walmart.

Who thinks of these things?

We came back home to find our ducks actually in the pond.
Surprise!

Another canning day!

We are using that box of tomatoes we had in a box.

I took them through a quick blend in the blender and put them through the food mill.

We are making tomato sauce.

I put them in the pot to water bathe them.

Twelve jars, not too bad.

I made some homemade beef and vegetable soup the night before.

We had plenty left so, I was able to can some of it too.

Since it has meat in it, I needed to pressure can the soup.

Five jars. Not a bad start.

The girls and I got this batch of pears ready for today's canning.

Making Pear Jam!

We got them soaking in sugar overnight. The liquid in the pot is from the pears. I put it on the pot to heat it up.

I did put it in the blender and pureed it.

Now it is back on the stove and letting it cook to the gel point.

Of course, I tasted it!

I just couldn't wait. It tasted so YUMMY!

Fourteen jars.

I went to check the garden and look what I found.

More stuff to can.

But first we still have more pears.

We are making another batch of pear halves.

We were so blessed to be able to can so much from the pears.

We did make a couple of more jars of the spiced pears.

We opened one up and oh my! It was the best.

We got another 16 jars put up of pear halves.

I know it just keeps coming with the canning. Let me tell you we just kept going. We were exhausted, hot, let me mention again exhausted. But lets get this done. Not sure if there is an end yet. We are in canning season ya know.

So, I picked several jalapenos. Lets can those too.

Just want to let you all know I wore gloves for this. We learned when doing the habaneros. It burned for hours.

Washed and sliced the jalapenos.

This is the brine I used:

Vinegar

Garlic Powder

Sugar

Salt

Got it melted together.

Added the jalapenos.

Cooked until they turned a lighter color.

Put up four jars of jalapenos.

Now on to the Banana peppers. I put away a lot of this in the freezer. The plants are gonna give me more. So, this time we are gonna can them. Besides the freezer part is full.

Washed and sliced them

I used the same brine as for the jalapenos but used a tad bit more sugar for taste.

Added the sliced banana peppers to the pot.

I let it cook until they turned a little lighter in color.

Got four jars from that batch.

The next day we got them labelled and ready to put in our pantry.

Tim got started out in the other part of the garden "The Vineyard Garden". We have been so blessed with the amount our garden has given us.

Yes canning more tomatoes.

This is a smaller batch and we put up five quarts.

Yes, another batch of pears.

Kaitlin is on her second batch going in the dehydrator.

We peeled, we decored, we sliced, we diced.

It just kept coming - Pears, Pears and more pears.

Let me just tell ya, I don't like pears. Tim and Kaitlin do.

Skylar and I don't really care for them. But, I will say these pears are really good tasting pears. I really like them. I like the jam we made and the spiced pear halves. Skylar really liked them too. She already ate a jar to herself.

With all that we got both dehydrators going.

Where to put all this stuff?

Got the black beans first harvest. More to come

Same with the green beans. Had a harvest of fresh green beans but already ate them before I could get a picture.

Now on to some of the animals.

Bumblefoot hen got her bandages off. She is still healing.

She has two buddies.

The 50+ chicks are getting adventurous.

Oh, Ms. Boss decided to go broody too.

I have her sitting on a few eggs from the incubator.

Mostly banty eggs.

I have three stalls in the hen house. The little baby chicks are in the middle and you can see Sassy-Pants in the far one watching me over with Ms. Boss.