I love weekends!

I got busy yesterday & canned:
6 pints of applesauce
5 pints of blackberry plum jam
4 pints of apple plum jam
and....

are

you

ready

for this?

4 pints of apple peel jelly

After much lamenting over tossing apple peels & cores out to the bunny or the compost pile, I finally found a use for all that appley goodness. I came across this little tidbit in the Backwoods Home Magazine:

You can make apple PEEL jelly from the apple peel you’d ordinarily pitch or compost.
Place apple peels, lightly packed, into a 4.5 qt. pot with 5 cups of water. There should be about 3-4 inches of peels in the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and boil for 15 minutes, stirring as little as possible. Remove from heat, put the lid on the pot, and allow to stand overnight. (Optional, add a cinnamon stick when you let it sit overnight.)

Strain the liquid into a measuring cup, and make certain you have 5 cups. Return to the pot. Gradually dissolve 1 box of pectin into the liquid and bring to a full rolling boil, over high heat. Add 7 cups of sugar (all at once), stirring to dissolve. Return to boiling, and boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat, skim foam if necessary, and can into ½ pt. jelly jars. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

The red peels make the jelly a beautiful rose-pink. It makes a really light, flavorful jelly that went over well with homemade biscuits this morning.

You may be thinking...what in the HECK are you going to do with all that jelly? Well, we'll eat our fair share of it and I'll be giving some as Christmas gifts. I'm hoping to have at least one more super productive canning Saturday before the holidays roll around. Homemade gifts are always the best!

More on chickens...

I just read a nice little article from Mother Earth News (http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2007-12-01/Best-Chickens-for-the-Homestead.aspx?page=5) that recommended Barred Rocks for a nice docile egg layer. It is important that my two young 'uns are able to interact with the flock, so these are a strong possibility!

Barred Rocks
(These look just like Dominiques to me!)

Here chick...chick...chick!

The gardens are just about ready for winter. I have to do my yearly leaf gathering run through town soon to pick up fall leaves people have raked and left outside for the trash. Those go over my beds for winter (beautiful leaf blankies) and into the compost pile to make some awesome spring compost. I'm also considering making my own leaf mold. I've read that if you add just a bit of water to leaves in a black trash bag and leave them sealed until spring...you'll open them up to find leaf mold. Another garden additive that would benefit my terrible clay soil...all for free! I also love that I'm keeping these leaves out of the landfills...what a waste!

Aside from knitting, I'm doing research this winter. I hope to add a small flock of chickens (4-6 lovely ladies) to the OAH in the spring. While I love the "Easter Egg" layers, I need chickens that will give the most eggs dependably. I also love the speckled eggs, but can't seem to find which chickens lay those. Anyone have suggestions?

Here's what I've got so far:
Rhode Island Reds McMurray Hatchery claims that these are the best layers.
Dominiques A friend who has these says they are supposed to lay dependably through the winter...though the website doesn't say anything about that. This is her first year with her chickens, so I'll look forward to hearing if this holds true.
White Rocks These are classified as "heavy chickens." I wasn't really looking to go with larger breeds; however, they are supposed to lay through the winter.

I'm also looking for the perfect coop or chicken tractor. I'd like to have it built in early spring...maybe April or so.

Felting magic

Like I said, the knitting kicks in around October 15 around the OAH!

My first project of the season was a Bible cover as my brand-spankin' new purse sized Bible was taking a beating. I decided that said Bible cover would need to be felted so the fabric would be solid and durable. I also decided that it needed to be created out of the beautiful wool yarn that I purchased during a recent trip to Seattle. The yarn is Poems by Wisdom Yarns which just seems right for a Bible cover! Special thanks to the ladies at A Dropped Stitch yarn shop in Sequim, WA!

Here's the final product:

I also needle felted a small cross on the corner. I'm pretty pleased with the results. What do you think.

Puttin' up apples

These are gonna be yummmy this winter! I used a recipe called "Crock Pot Apple Butter" that I found online. Here's a shot of the apples cut, peeled, cored, and sprinkled with sugar, apple pie spice, and cinnamon.

After two and a half hours on high, they looked like this:

After five hours they were perfect!! I wanted my applebutter to have some big chunks of apple in it, so I scooped out about half of the mix and gave it a couple of turns around the blender before dumping it right back into the crockpot. Here's what it looked like when I was done:

Time for a water bath!

Then a cup of coffee while I sat and listened to all the jars pinging...what an awesome sound...

Apples, apples, who's got apples?

WE DO! They were on sale at our local grocery, so we took advantage of it and got 15 pounds of apples. I canned 7 jars of apple butter and froze four batches of pie filling. I had hoped to share some photos with you today, but my camera battery went kapooey, so you'll just have to wait a bit while it is recharging.

I couldn't help but look forward to our own trees putting out enough apples for us to preserve. It is so hard to wait! I know we're making improvements on our little chunk of Oklahoma that will really pay off in the long run, though, and I'm trying to be patient. It's a lesson God has been trying to teach me for years, peace and tranquility in the waiting, and I think He's found a way to get through to me in the garden...or at least force me to practice.

The girls have put their stamp of approval on the apple butter...they've already eaten the half jar that was not full enough to process.

Our OTHER crop...

Here at the OAH, we do have another crop that we routinely grow...Miniature Australian Shepherds! DH recently did a business plan for running cattle or goats on a larger parcel of land and found that we were profitting much more on the puppies we breed, love on, and bless other families with. Here's a taste of the puppies we get to love on for 8 short weeks before sending them off to "forever homes."

We've only got one puppy left from this litter and it's always a bit *too* quite around here after the last pup is sold. The girls go in the back and seem a bit lost without little pups nibbling at their toes and tugging at their socks...begging to play.

Mini Aussies are great dogs and we keep in touch with many of our buyers...getting photo updates and hearing about how their furriest family member enriches their lives. It's an awesome, fun side business that allows my girls to learn responsibility and get tons of payoff in puppy kisses!

If you'd like to see more info about our Aussies, check out our business website at sitekreator.com/miniaussiepups.