Lessons Learned

I have made so many mistakes in my life, more than these readers will ever know. On the bright side though, I have learned from many of them and here is a list of just a few.

1. Never trust a guy that has on two different shoes. (Yep, done that)
2. Snakes really will bite you.
3. You don't have enough gas to make it to the station on the other side of town where the gas is 2 cents cheaper.
4. Never sell a truck that you like.
5. When building anything buy twice as much as you think you need then you will at least have half enough to get the job done.
6. Big tires cost you a lot more in gas but, they are still cool !!
7. Don't shuck corn inside the house.
8. The garden will do best when you just leave it alone.
9. When you are wating for something important in the mail it will run very late that day.
10. No matter how hard you work there's still more to be done.

My Little Garden Girls and Help From a Friend !

The girls and I thought that we should probably go ahead and dig some of the potatos today. The bugs have pretty well got the best of the vines. That's ok we will just have some little new taters to add to our green beans and to cook with other meals. Savannah (the one on the left) loves new potatos and will be eating most of them I bet, Katie (the little darling on the right) love the tomatos. After digging the taters the girls still wanted to work in the garden so we looked around to see what else we may be able to harvest today. They got maters, cuke's, bananna peppers and bell peppers too. Zucchini and squash were in the basket too, look what a huge cucumber Katie is holding. We had a great time in the garden this evening.






I ofcourse had the canner out today too. Canned some tomatos and some tomato juice. I ran into a little problem and had to ask a fellow blogger for help. MOH, who has a great blog over at Throwback at Trapper Creek came to the rescue. I was putting hot juice into hot jars with hot lids when the lids started to seal. I wasn't sure if I still need to put them in the canner or not so, I jumped over to Trapper Creek to ask MOH for some advice. I was lucky to catch her out of the hayfield for a min. The answer, can them with new lids and rings just to be on the safe side. She responded quickly to my question and saved the day. A GREAT BIG THANKS to MOH !!!!

Got Kraut ??

We have been so blessed latley ( Not that we aren't always ) with an abundance of food. Neighbor down the road gave MMIL ( My mother-in-law ) 4 huge heads of cabbage yesterday, and I'm talking HUGE. Well she came straight to our house and said that we should make kruat and then split what we can up. You gotta know I was ready to tackle the job. Having never made kraut before I went to my favorite canning site, pickyourown, and read all about it. Much more involved than I thought, mix cabbage in a brine and let sit for 4 to 6 weeks and then process in the canner. Got to be something better and faster than this, so I moved on over to Jackie-Clays blog and found just what I was looking for. Gotta love the internet!!! Shredded the cabbage and packed into clean jars add salt and cold water and place lid and ring on, let sit and ferment for 4 days and then give it a good boiling water bath. Now that sounds more like what I had in mind. Be sure to check out Jackie's blog for more great information. All said and done we got 13 qts of great looking kraut. I gave MMIL 7 of them and kept 6 for my pantry. Wed. or Thur. they will get their hot water bath in the canner. I know I have talked alot about canning for the last few weeks but whats the point in growing all this stuff if you can't preserve it? We have had so many people give us their extras because they either don't know how to preserve it or didn't have the time. I guess if things get as bad as I think they are going to we will have plenty to give a helping hand to those in need. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

The Ol' Boy Can Even Bake Bread

As most who have planted zucchini we have them running out our ears. We have been fixing them alot of different ways just to try to eat them fresh rather than freeze them all. We had zucchini baked with tomato (from the garden)and cheese for dinner today and it was great. Well they just keep on coming so why not zucchini bread. I have always wanted to learn how to bake bread and I'm not afraid to try new things so I found a recipe at cooks.com and proceded to follow instructions. The wonderful smell on cinnamon filled the house as I waited patiently to see how my first baked bread turned out. What a hit!! We ate half a loaf within 10 mins. Nuts are optional and I would have liked to have them but we were out and I wasn't gonna let that stop me. If the other loaf makes it through the nite we may freeze it and enjoy it later on in the fall. I'm not wearing a bakers hat just yet but the project was a success. Just goes to show that even a guy can bake bread if you just set your mind to it. I'm glad to have another skill to add to my ever growing list. I love to learn new things, it gets me excited and in this case everyone in the house was too. lol

Canning for half. Good or Bad ?

My neighbor that brought the cuke's a few weeks ago ask if I would like to can his green beans for half of the crop. I thought that would be great for both of us, he doesn't have the time and he is a really good friend too, plus he is Liv's uncle and the one who let us use his tractor. I would do just about anything for him anyway. I canned 35 qts. on Tues. and Wed. I canned 29 more for a total of 64 qts. all together. I must say it was a LOT of work as anyone who has done much canning can tell you but worth it just the same. I now have 32qts. of beans that I didn't have to go through the trouble of raising. I have plenty in the garden but it's hard for me to turn them down on a deal like this. Plus it was a big help to him also which makes me feel a little better to. We both seem to come out on the deal. Some friends say that they would not do it for half. (These friends don't have any beans either I might add ) But for me it was a fair deal. He also ask if I was interested in doing the same when his corn comes in. I'm sure I will, like I say I have plenty of beans and corn growing of my own, but I have the time to take advantage of helping others and myself by canning on the half's as we call it around here. Is this something that you would do?? If you don't have room or time for a garden but have time at night or whenever to can maybe you can see if anyone in your area is interested in canning on the half's. Here is a picture of the first 35 qts. canned. Neighbor supplied his own canning jars and lids.

Wind Damage

I was away from home for 2 days and came home to 2 weeks worth of work to do. To all my readers, I am sorry for not posting sooner. Been very busy and at the end of the day I have been beat. It's 2:30 am as I write this. Had a storm on Tuesday with a lot of wind and hail and it blew a lot of the corn down. Finally got it all straightened up and in pretty good shape.The corn is starting to produce some ears now. Not the best time for a wind storm but I think everything will be alright. Here is the pepper plants that the ducks ate a few weeks ago. Doing great now as you can see.
The goats are really starting to show now, about 7 more weeks till the kids are due.


Cows are getting fatter by the day now. Feeding them corn every evening to help fatten them before the slaughter.

Baby ducks are growing too. Smokey Bear is some duck retriver. haha!! He loves to play with them as much as we do. He never tries to bother them in any way.

One Big Happy Family !!!

Well we finally made it through the wedding day and I must say it was a tough one for us all. Traci was so nervous that I thought she was gonna crack. I'm not sure who was more nervous, me or her. When the preacher ask "Who gives this woman to this man" I boldly announced "Her family and I". How those words got past the lump in my throat I'll never know. Everything came off without a hitch, thank God. It was a beautiful wedding and a beautiful bride and groom. Pictured above is my whole family from left to right, Savannah, Me (The bald guy), Traci (The Bride) Adam (The Groom) Olivia and Katie. I am very proud of the family I have produced.

You just can't imagine how glad I am to be home, back to the farm. I better get out there and pick those zucchini and squash and cucumbers.