BLACKBERRIES!!

Holy crow it really is that time of year again and wow, oh wow, do I have a ton of them. I'm almost not exaggerating either. Keeping track thus far I'm at 12 gallons of berries. I have not scratched the surface of the amount that is still actually out there. And to think I fussed and complained earlier this spring when I got off and trimmed back the dead canes. Egads.

These berries are thornless, so at least I don't have to give any blood up for treasure. Being thornless they are also on the more tart side. Sun sweetened though, they are almost as sweet as the standard berry. Another added benefit to these is that they are huge. The majority of them are almost the size of a quarter.

Yesterday I spent the day picking and juicing up about 8 gallons for homemade wine. :-)

I'm also in the process of harvesting the last bit of garden, protecting some things I will be keeping in the ground until I can get to them (like carrots and potatoes) from the chickens. I will be letting my chickens back out to be the free rangers they love to be, I just need to get some of my goodies out of there first and protect the rest. Chickens do a fine job of clearing out the seasons bad bugs, fertilizing for the following year and general clean up. One more month to go. But in the meantime, still some garden left out there provided the rains don't come in and turn everything to mush. Some of the carrots, the spotted trout tongue lettuce (fun name, no!?) and tomatoes from this year so far. Just some mind you, I harvest as I go on some of these and don't always remember to take pictures. I have a great harvest this year, which is surprising. We had late rains and late planting. Nice Indian summer thus far though so keeping my fingers crossed. I'm actually going to be getting some zuchini which wasn't planted until July...so not bad!

Not only am I canning potatoes, tomatoes and blackberries (among other things) I'm also fermenting vegies this year again as well. This is a medley of goodies and I will also be fermenting two large heads of cabbage. Traditionally, with salt only and no vinegar. Really makes for a nice crunchy and very healthy addition to the natural diet. Good stuff. Those jars above are being used to push the vegies down into the brine. Once everyone is down under the salt brine I cover them up and they will be good for months.

I have more to do, more to post and hopefully I will actually get it together enough to post again very soon. I have some really fun photos and videos of my goats and rabbits and of course chickens to share as well. So...out to pick more blackberries!

UPDATE: Picked 2 more gallons of the blackberries this afternoon. Ran into many, many spiders too. A nice symbiotic type relationship, the spiders keep most of the bad bugs away but you know what? I don't really like them in my hair. These girls are big girls. Today I had them, their webs and their bugs in my hair. I can only just barely stand it. Just barely. I also ended up having that song go through my head by 10cc "The Things We Do For Love"

Not because it's all for love per se, but the "the things we do for...." part is where I started yammering at myself while fighting through the spiders and webs...and bugs, oh my. Whew.

I've been working on painting (again) Just trying to find that groove. I've started a new folder at Facebook with a time line of the progress. The image above is the first, you can visit my art page at Facebook to see the continuation. While you are at it, and perhaps inclined, "like" my page to stay tuned for updates that I may very well miss putting up here. Thanks!

https://www.facebook.com/christinewasankari


5-9-13 UPDATE!

I have indeed been working on it. It hasn't really taken me this long to paint it, but it has taken this long for me to get back to it. I am actively working on it and here is a link at my FB page to see the progress.

See the Progress Here

SPORTS: Crescent boys win own invitational; Port Angeles varsity performs well at elite meet in Tacoma -- Port Angeles Port Townsend Sequim Forks Jefferson County Clallam County Olympic Peninsula Daily news

SPORTS: Crescent boys win own invitational; Port Angeles varsity performs well at elite meet in Tacoma -- Port Angeles Port Townsend Sequim Forks Jefferson County Clallam County Olympic Peninsula Daily news

Nice little shot of my daughter, just had to share :-)

Protect Your Farm from Listeriosis - Hobby Farms

Protect Your Farm from Listeriosis - Hobby Farms

An excellent article for those of us who have livestock., especially ruminants.

Cats sleeping in the liter box??

I've been baffled of late. Why, oh why does the cat feel inclined to sleep in her liter box? Is it because I'm using aspen chips? What?! I've had many cats over the years and not once ever felt compelled to sleep in it's cat box. Silly girl.

I have several more frozen blackberries to go through, for pies, for preserves etc. Never ending blackberries from my own back yard, and thorn less too. Can't quite beat that. Some more little images worth taking too, like the crab apples from my dad, who lives in Cheyenne. I hope to have some trees from these pretty little babies one day. And my yams are growing pips. Pretty little things.

And finally, more dehydrated mushrooms and some dehydrated rhubarb. If you have not tried it, I recommend it highly. Keeps the tang and the tart just fine.

Momo in her litter box.

Yams growing pips

Blackberries

Crab apples from WY

Dehydrated Rhubarb and Mushrooms

New Babies, Berries, Good Food and Fun

Garden Potatoes, Onions and Basil in Olive Oil

Just a little of this and a little of that this time around.

I was having a fit for potato chips one night, so I sliced up some fresh potatoes from my garden, sliced in an onion, tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and sauteed in a cast iron skillet. Killed the want for potato chips just fine :-)

I went for a lovely evening walk down to the lake with my daughter and of course got distracted by all the blackberries coming in all along the way. Picked some here and there, along with some apples and pears and thought "Hey! I'll make a nice Blackberry Baked Halibut. Gently baked in our own blackberry wine, the fresh blackberries and our own basil...absolutely stunning.

Baked Halibut in Blackberry Wine w/ Blackberries & Basil

Raspberries

Smoked Goat Ready for Canning

Horseradish

Last week I picked the last of my raspberries. I think I got about 2 gallons or so. Not bad. Most are in the freezer right now, I'll probably make jam out of the majority of it. Delicious!

My big blackberries on my property will be coming in soon. I've been picking a few here and there, the ones that are ripe, but there are thousands and thousands of berries on these plants. I will probably get another 100 gallons this year if last year was any indication.

A couple of weeks ago we smoked up a whole bunch of goat to can in jars and it turned out fantastic! One little thing was bugging me though...I really thought we would have more than we got. Turns out I was right because my husband forgot to bring in ALL of the meat from the smoker. We figured this out after a couple of nights of outdoor campfire in the yard, over near the smoker. Egad! The smell was none too nice, yuck! But at least I know I was right! I was starting to complain a little bit about the amount of goat we had for canning. It really should have been more. He said, well, that's all there is. Hah! :-)

The horseradish is coming in beautifully. It should provide us with a nice yearly bit of horseradish for years to come.

Lastly...we had some of our chicken eggs incubated by a friend with an incubator because we need to get our flock up a bit and cull some of the girls out. It's also nice to have chicken in the freezer. So, we gave our friend 24 eggs. 18 hatched, 14 survived. We also had a VERY broody hen who beat me up every single time I went in to gather eggs. So we thought, why not, let's just let her have her eggs. So we moved her over to where the new babies were and she sat nicely on her eggs while the new ones were in their baby box. We were concerned she might try to hurt the babies, so they stayed in their box. But the time comes when they just get too big for the box. We decided to see how she would react if we let them out.

Funny thing. She thought they were hers. She still sat on her eggs but they just weren't getting a full throttle sitting and some were disappearing. We think she may have eaten them, but maybe not because the shells were gone too. Rats? Hard to say. But none of the eggs she was sitting on survived but she sure thought those other babies were hers and she has fully adopted them. To the point where my husband tried to pick one up, it fussed and she came flying at him and pecked his arm a good one! Don't mess with Momma's babies!

She really is a very good Momma. Show's them how to dig, how to catch stuff. It's really neat to see. And they pile in with her at night. I went out to pick some lettuce, beets and berries for a salad and I heard a ton of fussing in the little baby house. Looked in and the babies were all fussing because they each wanted to be close to Momma. So cute. She was very patient, gently clucking. Believe it or not, there really are 14 babies in there somewhere! I just love this stuff!

Momma chicken and her adopted chicks

Raw Goat Butter

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I've last posted. I guess that tells me how busy I've been. And indeed it has been busy.I was unable to document anything from the process's of getting items from the freezer put up, but we did can quite a bit. I was also offered a bit of a respite by my neighbor who is only using about 1/3 of his freezer and said I could balance it out if need be. So I took him on it and have not had to fully go crazy right away with processing all the meat. Some jostling around of milk and meat among other items, but I had more time to get it done.

The one thing that does bug me is that I ended up having to give a whole lot of my milk to my dogs. While I love my dogs, I gave them a good 8 gallons that I would have liked to have for us over the winter. Oh well. Live and learn. I also pulled my girls back to milking once a day, another maybe not so wise decision. You get less milk once a day, which is fine because I was getting buried in it and had no where to store 2 gallons a day. We can run through about a gallon a day, but running out of room to make my soft cheese too. So how to solve the problem? Bring them down to once a day. The only problem is they are now only giving me about 3/4 of a gallon a day. Sheesh. I was hoping to run them through to next year but if they keep dropping and drying off I may have to get them going again this fall with new babes for the spring. We shall see.

My one girl Cassie is probably pregnant. Due in November. When the weather starts to get rougher. Some positives and negatives there. Not good to have babes in that kind of cold that comes in December and January, but I do have a green house converted into a baby nursery for babies to keep warm in. Plus, if my two big girls start to dry out, then Cassie might be able to help us to stay in milk. It won't be much, but could get upwards of 1/2 a gallon a day from her alone. Always good to keep barn records.

All of that said, these are things I was able to get finished up. Smoked and canned the two young bucks I had to take out. I also dispatched two young animals for meat this Thanksgiving. Absolutely gorgeous little roasts, I couldn't believe it. They were both 6 months old. So young enough to be very tender and still manageable size for dispatch day (we do it all ourselves) and small enough to fit in my existing freezer well. I love it. I canned 30 qts of cherries too, made bread, you know...the typical stuff. I have harvested about 5 qts of raspberries thus far, and have more to go. The wild blackberries are ready and my thorn less will be ready in about a month. Potatoes need harvesting...onward. Oh, and we have 14 new chicks with hopefully 10 more on the way. They are sitting under momma now. Half will be roosters most likely, so some fowl for the Thanksgiving table too :-)

Another thing I'm really looking forward to next year is even more milk (I'm crazy I suspect) Because look at this picture!! My very own butter!! It's the first I've made. It is raw goat milk butter and wow, I've never had anything this amazing. Smooth, really lovely flavor, ever so slight tang. It was extraordinary. But I don't get enough milk right now to make anymore. I actually insisted the day I made it that I will never do that again for such a small amount of milk, but really, just because whey was flying all over the kitchen and huge messes were being made for one softball sized ball...doesn't mean I should not try again. I was being too fussy. I've since come to my senses and cannot wait to have more next year. I should have 6-7 milking does. Instead of 2.

Yeah, I need that freezer don't I?

Ok, a few of the sights and sounds of the last month. A lovely rabbit salad and some fried rabbit "wings" and my fabulous, over the top butter!

Fresh Raw Butter from Goats Milk

Rabbit Salad - my Rabbits and Garden w/Blackberry wine