Faith and Potatoes

I just finished watching Faith and Potatoes and it was great. I laughed and cried. Yeah I admit it I did. It really made me look at some things differently and sort of opened my eyes. I would recommend this movie to anyone. It is based on a true story and it is wonderfully told. It was a very touching movie. If anyone else has viewed this movie I would love to hear what you think of it.

First canning of the season

I canned up about 8 pints of kosher dill pickles this evening. I'll open up one in about a month if I can wait that long. I love dill pickles and we'll can about 50 pints or so this year. I also sold some of my squash today. I sold about 8 lbs and in a day or two I'll have about 30 or so to pick again. I think 42 hills of 4 to 5 squash to a hill may have been a few to many.

An abundance of squash and an acrobatic chipmunk

I am covered up in squash. I'm picking about 25 to 35 a day. I'm giving it away and eating it and now I'm going to sell it. I'm just glad that it's getting ate and not going to waste. I haven't found a way to preserve it that I like yet. I've blanched and froze it and didn't really like it. If anyone has any tasty ways of preserving it I'd really appreciate the information.

Now here we are with the little guy that has been robbing our bird feeder. I still don't know how he climbed up a steel pole three feet straight up to get into the bird feeder. I was wondering how those birds were eating it so fast. I came back from feeding the chickens the other day and I saw where it was going. I guess he'll have an easy winter this year with free food hanging for him all the time. The wife and kids love watching him around the yard. He is enjoyable to watch.

A few random pictures

A couple of weeks ago a big doe crossed the road and this little fellow followed her and it couldn't have been but a day or two old. It ran in the middle of the road and just sprawled out. We thought it was hurt but when we went to check on it; up and away it went. My wife just touched it's back and back to life it came.These are some of the many of cherries we picked. It was a slow and tedious job to pit them all but it was worth it. We now have a lot of cherries in the freezer for future use and use them we will.

The grape picture was taken about a month ago and they are much larger now and the vines are hanging loaded. We will not get many this year but next year I'm looking forward to all the grape juice, grape jelly and jam. If they make it that long. I love to just eat them right off of the vine. I just love to watch things like this grow from little tiny balls to grapes. It's amazing and so often over looked at how everyday little things can change and grow so fast.

It's been awhile

First of all my computer went down and I've been trying to get the part to fix it. I have been mowing and hoeing everyday. My garden is still full of weeds and don't get me started on my strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. My grapes are getting big and I'll post pictures soon. We picked a lot of cherries and just froze them because of time constraints. I think later we'll make some jam out of them. I now have peppers, squash, cucumbers and my tomatoes are starting to get big. We have been eating onions and radishes like crazy.

My uncle came out and cut our hay this past Monday and then baled it Wednesday. It wasn't that good but he still baled up 44 rolls. It needs lime and fertilizer, but it'll have to wait till spring. I'll post some pictures of the hay, cherries, garden and so on.

Picking cherries

I have been really busy trying to pick all the weeds out my garden. I've been doing it between the rain showers and that is not much of a window of opportunity. We all went out and picked some cherries yesterday. The tree is loaded but most of them are up high in the tree. It's one of those fifty footers and not to big around. The birds are getting the high ones and I'm hoping to get all the bottom ones. We froze the cherries we picked yesterday and I want to can some and make some more jam. We made some last year and it was great.

My grapes that I cleaned out earlier this spring have quite a few clusters growing on them. They are getting nice and big. I still haven't built an arbor but I have bought the material. It's now just trying to find the time to do it. My wife wants some grape jelly. I would like to make some jam and some juice.

We're thinking about getting another pig this year. We need something to feed all the garden scraps to. We want some more fresh sausage and ground pork. We use a lot of ground pork. I make chili with it and we make burgers, meatloaf, etc. I also like the ribs, chops and I want to can up a bunch of it this time. There's nothing like canned pork and fresh biscuits and eggs for breakfast. Well I better go and grab something to eat. lol

Dogs, chickens and peonies. Oh My!

This is a picture of our family dog mid-bark. He is a great rabbit hunter and a good kids dog. I think beagles make great family pets.

Here are my "baby chicks". They are growing so fast and they eat like horses.

You can see how much bigger the Cornish X Rocks are than the Rhode Island Reds. In a couple of weeks I'll be eating some fresh chicken.

Things have been going pretty slow around here with all the rain. My garden is growing good, but so are the weeds. I like the rain, but I hate to get behind. At least I'll have plenty to do.

This is a picture of one of my wife's beautiful pink peonies. The blooms were huge as you can see by my wife's hand holding it up.