Fall Things

We started decorating for fall around The Acre this week. Cupcake tore the bone out with planting for fall, and it paid off this week. We started off with a couple pumpkins and Indian corn.

Cupcake also planted a big row of broom corn, and we started making a few decorations with it.

We also cut a few wild flowers and placed in vases around the house.

It's not really a decoration, but chestnuts began falling this week, so we picked up a couple of pockets full, and planted them in flower pots on the deck. We hope they sprout next spring.

While we were out in the garden cutting broom corn, we planted our hanging strawberry plants, which we are still getting berries off of, by the way.

And while we were digging holes in the garden, we grabbed a couple of carrots for the coming week.

And while we were coming back to the house, we noticed a volunteer tomato plant had started growing in the walkway. No doubt, a result of chicken poop with seeds in it. Big Man decided to dig it up and transplant it into the strawberry hanging basket. We are going to keep it inside this winter, to see if we can manage a fresh tomato or two over the winter.

Speaking of winter, we predict it's going to be another cold and snowy one. Our mountain laurels out in front of the house began to bloom this week. They are only suppose to bloom in the spring, so when a spring flower blooms in fall, be ready with a snow shovel.

And since we are predicting a harsh winter, we whipped up some snowed in comfort food. Tomato soup. We used nine quarts of our tomatoes from last week, the rest of our garden onions, a couple stalks of celery, plus a few herbs from Cupcake's herb collection, and now all we need is some grilled cheese sandwiches fried up on cast iron, which we also have covered in spades.

Cupcake says "Crazy Granny" loves her some tomato soup with macaroni in it. She is soooo going to miss out, because this will make Campbells soup taste like dirt. There is no comparing to home made.
We also gathered the last of our jalapeno peppers, and started making jalapeno jelly. It is our most asked for item, after them yellow pickles.

 The first batch of jelly made eight pints. We have about three more cookings like this one, so we may get two cases of jelly out of our peppers. That should last us through the winter (maybe).

Our last entry this week is home made pizza. We broke in our new half price pizza rack, and it did not disappoint. Big Man whipped up a from scratch pizza dough, and then cut the dough to fit the rack. The crust turned out perfect this time. This entry is a smoked brisket/pepperoni pizza. It rocked.

We ended the week with our thing. Chicken Wing Sunday.
K&K

Greens and Maters

Food seemed to be the theme again this week around The Acre. The canning machine was at full throttle, and we managed a couple pretty good meals too.
First of the week, Big Man picked another bushel or so of collard greens. For some reason our collards have done very well this year, and we're not complaining. Collards with little chunks of brisket is a favorite around The Acre.

Ten more quarts of greens in the pantry

And speaking of brisket, Big Man smoked another flat end during the Thor's day rib smoke. This one is just for collards flavor, maybe a brisket pot pie next week.

The next big canning adventure was tomatoes. One of our local gardens was full of tomatoes and we managed about two bushels from it, and made sure not a bit of them went to waste this weekend.

Hey, we forgot to take a picture before we got started

Problem solved

45 quarts, and one pint in one day. Or 91 pints. Last year we did all pint jars, and we always used at least two pints per whatever it was we were making, so we went with quarts this year. We told you all to invest in Ball and Kerr, if you didn't, you lost out.
Our one stand out meal this week was foot long hot dogs. We know it don't sound all that fancy, but when was the last time you saw foot long hot dogs, and foot long buns sold in a store? Lucky for us, Mrs. Wade does at the C'burg Wades supermarket. We found them once before and had them for dinner, but this time we had the forethought to take a pic before we ate. They taste just exactly like a Dude's footlong, you heard it here first.

We topped ours with home made squash relish, banana peppers and some Vallydale chili. Washed it down with a little home made lemonade, and we had a fine meal.
We had a little excitement around the house Saturday, the tree trim folks were out in force, and a short time later, the helicopter limb trimmer started working the lines near the house. Cupcake had never seen one in action before, so it was a big deal.

And speaking of trees, the maple trees have started turning colors. Fall has arrived.

And on a tree related note, one of our apple trees that we had planted in an old flower pot has been overtaken by volunteer petunias. We can only figure the chickens pooped in the pot or the dirt before we planted the tree in the pot. Either way, it's kind of neat.

And last but not least, a cast iron brag on Cupcake entry. We were at the C'burg Wal-Mart picking up a few more cases of jars for the tomatoes, when Cupcake spotted cast iron pizza racks from the good people at Lodge.

The advertised sticker was $19.95, and we jumped to buy one before they changed their minds. When we got to the checkout line and it scanned, it rang up $40 dollars. Cupcake grabbed a manager and showed her the display and the stickers, and the manager said somebody on the staff made a mistake, but gave us the money back, so we ended up with a cast iron pizza maker for half price.
We ended the week with chicken wing Sunday, like always.
K&K

Is it Fall Yet?

It sure seems like fall has fell here at The Acre. The weather has broken and cooler temps are becoming the norm. We've even seen a few trees with leafs turning, oaks are starting to drop their acorns, and we have been canning apples.

We grabbed the few apples we had left on the trees out back. There are two apple trees near the house that have never produced apples that we've noticed, but this year they did. Deer and cattle have ravished the low hanging fruit, but we managed enough for a half bushel.

Cast Iron Cooking

Good day's work

We made thirteen pints of apple pie filling, and the rest of the apples we used for homemade applesauce. We got another six pints of applesauce.

We have a new addition to The Acre this week. Our cousins (Bill and Frances) passed along a six gallon crock. We are excited for next years pickle season.

We are always making our homemade laundry detergent, but Big Man has put his own spin on how to make it. Instead of adding the water and dry ingredients together first, Big Man puts all the dry ingredients in the stand mixer, after mixing the soft bar of soap and dry things, he scoops it into the jars, then adds boiling water to top off the jar. A hand blender mixes the things together like mayonnaise, and we found that if we put a fresh lid on the jar, it will seal on it's own from the heat. This keeps the detergent soft and moist until we're ready to use it.

And as always, there was food and drink on tap.
First, we are still getting a few strawberries.

Then there was Thor's Day pork ribs smoked (it's a weekly thing now)

And Big Man made another calzone. We're still working out the appearance presentation part of the meal, but it sure is tasty.

The two regular readers may recall we joined Stephen Amell's wine club a few months back? Our second shipment came this week, two bottles of red win and a company logo tee shirt. It was a big deal for us.

And as always, we ended the week with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

 

Quick week

It seemed like a quick week this past week around The Acre. Big Man fell down on the job of photo documenting the week, but the stuff we got done does not really photograph well. We worked with the chickens quite a bit, Cupcake cleaned out the garage, we hauled off a lot of junk that we have collected. We cleaned the hen house, prepping for winter. Big Man spent every morning on the deck with his M-4 waiting to put his red dot scope on the foxy chicken thief, but so far he has been "out foxed".
Cupcake did a cast iron project all on her own this week, I call it a pecan upside down cake. She used cast iron (imagine that) to bake a tasty treat.

We even use cast iron to melt butter

After our weekend of cleaning the garage and hen house, we had our traditional fall lunch, jalapeno jelly with cream cheese on crackers.

And we ended the week like we always do

K&K