Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Peaches...

So we finally got around to picking peaches. Our peach trees didn't do too well this year, they were small and hard, they never seemed to ripen. Thankfully we have an organic orchard about 10 miles from our house, so we loaded up the girls and went to the Peach Orchard. Boy was it hot!

We found some good ones. I think all in all we ended up with 30 pounds. Unfortunatly they didn't last too long... I made some into pies, some I gave to my parents, we ate most of them just fresh because boy were they delicious.


Thursday, August 18, 2011

Just updates from our place

We've been busy. I've not been blogging :( I keep meaning too but something always comes up.

One thing that is going on right now is the fact that I am 35 weeks pregnant. I'm just really tired and the weather here has been soooo hot lately I just haven't done much. The heat also caused some problems in the garden. It was drought conditions for the better part of the summer growing season and some stuff just didn't grow. Tomatoes were one of them. I have enough to eat on sandwiches and make salads with, and I have made about 5 pints of salsa, but that's IT!! Last year by this time I had already put up over 150 jars of tomatoes in some form or fashion. This year they just didn't produce :( Neither did the peppers. Again, I had enough to eat, to put in fresh recipes, and I made a few jars of pepper sauce, but they just haven't produced this year either. Very sad.

I do have muscadines, boy do we have muscadines. But after doing an inventory of jelly from last year, and finding that I have over 75 jars of jelly, I may not force my pregnant self to toil away in the kitchen canning even more. I know I should, but I'm just not feeling it. There are plenty of people that would love to come pick them. The girls and I have been eating them for several days now, and I may pick some and just juice them... I haven't decided yet.

We also are getting okra still, and eggplant. The squash and cucumbers have had it for the season.

The pear trees are LOADED and if we can keep the deer out of them we'll have tons of pears here in a few months. I still have about 30 pear preserves left from last year, but really we all just love eating them fresh more than anything. They are are crunchy are delicious.

The chickens are good. 12 hens and a rooster. I am getting 8 eggs a day, and selling 2-3 dozen per week at my work for $2.50 a dozen. The rest of the eggs I use in cooking of course. My 5 year old LOVES hard boiled eggs and eats them almost daily. My husband and I love omelettes and my 4 year old just wants them scrambled.

It has been a good summer though. It's been hot, but I love spending time with my family and we are all healthy and happy. SO BLESSED.

Happy Homesteading everyone!