Prep Challenge September 10

Garden--

-We'll be gathering all the green tomatoes in the next week, buying onions and peppers to can green tomato relish.

-Jordan has been gathering muscadines from the vines in the woods.  So far he's accumulated about 3 gallons which we are freezing.  Next month we'll be making muscadine jelly.

-Two beds of lettuce, one of spinach and one of turnips are  up.  I think we need more turnips and spinach and we have started broccoli and cabbage which will be put in their beds very soon.

-Some of my herbs have pretty much dried up due to the heat and lack of rain.  I am seeing some renewal in them as temps have gone down and we had a good bit of rain in the early part of the week due to tropical storm Lee.  Hope to have some to dry.  Unknown to me, Jackson (7) has been pressing herb samples.  He wants to decorate the walls with them.  I think he needs to start a notebook for his collection and add to it through the years.  And I thought we weren't doing any science studies right now!

Food storage-

-We eat more than I thought.  Our oil supply quickly dwindled as has our honey and apple cider vinegar.
 The oil and honey go quickly as they are big ingredients in our granola.  Not buying dry cereal means we can eat a lot of granola.     We only have 7 jars of pinto beans remaining from my last canning session when I canned 18 quarts.  Today I am canning white beans with ham.  I also need to can applesauce.  The pinto beans will wait until next week.   I did dehydrate more tomatoes, but still have tons of carrots to do.  Maybe I can talk someone into washing and scrapping them for me this afternoon.

- We will soon be getting fresh milk again...which means butter, cheese and yogurt making along with the occasional batch of ice cream.  Can't wait!

Chickens-

-We should be getting eggs soon.  Our chickens are so pretty!!  The chicken coop building project has been put on hold due to Jeff's and Jordan's busy work schedule for the next two weeks.  Jeff will take some time off after filming is complete and they will get the coop completed.  Here are some pictures from last Saturday's work.  It was Jeff's birthday and our oldest daughter was here with her children.  He had lots of helpers!!

Is that measure once and cut twice or measure twice and cut once?

Aaron looks very warrior-like here...wielding the metal yard stick.

I think they were having a good time.

Rafters are up!

It looks like a tunnel!

They did get some of the front done before calling it quits for the day.  The little boys were crawling all up under the coop and were extremely filthy.  All had to have a bath before having Pop-pop's birthday dinner.  I wonder if all the little guys will remember "helping" to build the chicken  coop in the years to come.

Grandson Chase covered in red dirt!

My two youngest sons, Caedmon-2 and Jackson -7 with grandson, Chase-4.  Oh, how dirty there were!

Grandson, Elisha-2...trying to get even dirtier!

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