Well, it took me long enough! Sorry about that, but the wind kind of went out of my sails during 'the great chicken sickness'. Luckily, and with a lot of hard work and skulking around a dark coop at night mugging chickens to squirt antibiotics down their gullets, we managed to save most of them. We lost four total, and came darn close on a few others. We got down to 10 of our original chickens, 3 of which are banties, so our laying capacity was sorely diminished, and they're still not laying. They need to gain more weight and finish moulting; the new girls are not old enough to be of any help in the laying department yet. One of the new barred rocks turned out to be a rooster (now named Roopert) and if he continues to be nice to the hens, he can stay and sire next year's new chicks. So 'the great chicken sickness' is over and we are on to enjoying my favorite season: FALL.
One of the best things to do in fall is bake and start making big pots of soup again. One recipe I don't make often, but that we love, is Runzas. First, you make a recipe of home made white bread and let it rise. Then you divide it into balls bigger than golf balls but smaller than tennis balls. You can see them below:
The filling is very simple. Browned hamburger and onions, then add a whole head of chopped cabbage, and some salt and pepper. I also added some beef base (like bullion) to give it a little more beefy flavor as well. Get this all cooked down, and if it's watery, strain it. Then you put a scoop of this filling in a rolled out little ball, and fold it over to make a half-circle pocket.
I bake them at 350 degrees until they look done..maybe 20-25 minutes. YUM! I actually got more than 20 of these things, this was just the first batch that came out of the oven. My brother's family takes these out hunting, as they're good pocket food.
I would say that our garden was successful overall this year. Our big harvests were potatoes, onions, carrots, some corn (18 bags in the freezer plus what we ate fresh), basil, beets and crops that turned out to be a pleasant addition this year: broccoli and swiss chard. They are STILL producing even now in mid-November. Here is a picture of the broccoli still coming on from just a couple of days ago. I should have gotten one of the chard too, because the bright colors are just stunning. There are a few leaves in the next picture getting ready to go into the soup!
It is such a pleasure to be able to pull together a big pot of soup almost entirely from our garden. Here you can see carrots, onions, potatoes, swiss chard and the bag of corn I got out of the freezer. The meat was some back strap venison from our good neighbor, Larry. The only store bought ingredients were celery and barley, and salt and pepper, too. I made a couple of loaves of home made multi-grain bread and we had lovely warm soup and bread to our heart's content on these rainy and chilly fall days.
I decided to buy a big dutch oven this year and I am really enjoying it. Previously, I just had an aluminum stock pot that was too thin on the bottom and it burned easily and didn't hold the heat like this enameled cast iron one does. I can't believe it took me so long to get one! The only problem is finding a place for it when I'm not using it. It's pretty big, but it's also a very pretty red, so I'd like to leave it out, but it still hasn't found a home yet. Hopefully I'll keep it busy this fall, so it won't be unused often!
Frank and I are loving our on-line teaching jobs, as well as the bit of extra income it is bringing in. We are paying down our bills, but we have also started tackling a list of three big projects we wish to accomplish. On the list is: a new front porch, a wooden fence around our upper pasture, and new cabinets in the kitchen. We finally have enough for the porch, and another good neighbor is a wonderful builder, and he was willing to take on this project!! Yeah! Here is Sandy, the faithful farm dog, watching over the lumber that was delivered.
We have been in this house four years this past August. It's hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly. One thing that always bothered me was the 'temporary' front porch we had all that time, so I was not unhappy to see it finally GONE! I put the porch on Freecycle (an email group of people in a geographical region whose sole purpose is to give stuff away) and a nice young couple from a nearby town came to get it with plans to turn the deck of it into a floor for a new shed. It's wonderful to see things recycled rather than put into the landfill or burned when someone might have a good use for it.
So far, the progress of the porch has been mostly in the planning and the purchasing of materials, but just a day or so ago the footings were poured. This is the first time we can really visualize its size and how it is going to change the look of our house for the better. It is roughly 15 wide and sticks out 12 feet; enough room for a small table and chairs and a glider. I will make sure to take pictures and update on the progress. Our builder got the swine flu right after he started, so we've got a little down time before they start back up again on Monday. I saw him today and he's feeling better, and that's the most important thing. We have two other entrances to our house, so there is no hurry to finish this one, although I am really looking forward to putting up Christmas lights on it this year!
So that's a quick update of the things that are going on around here. All the horses and donkeys are fuzzy and happy in the chilly fall weather. They are coming into the barn every night now and are enjoying their cozy stalls and lots of local grass hay. We're noticing that Bailey is a little creakier this winter as he gets close to 20 years old, and we're supplementing him for that, but time does march on for all of us, doesn't it?
I hope to write again before Thanksgiving, but if I don't, we want to wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving time with friends and family, reflecting on the rich blessings we all have and enjoy. God bless!
