Meeting of the Minds

We ended the week with a gathering of Light men to do manly things. Pop has an engine he needs rebuilt, and the first step is to remove the hood. It's a three man job so all the Lights gathered to conquer the task. Henry supervised.

After Henry directed the removal, he got a chance to check out Deathstroke for the first time.

He said he can't wait to take it for a spin.
Saturday we picked the rest of our pumpkin patch. Thanks to the patch wrecking deer, we didn't get nearly as many as we did last year, but it still was more than we expected.
Lawman was allowed to take the machete out for the first time since the 'incident' but it was with strict adult supervision.

We had already picked a dozen or so that we put out for decoration early.

We found a couple of impromptu decorations for Halloween.

There was a bit of cooking. We started the week off with a new cheesecake. Chocolate covered Butterfinger cheesecake. It changed Cupcake's life.

There was fried chicken and scratch made dinner rolls to go with it Monday night.

And Cupcake loved the cheesecake so much, she had Lawman make another one for this coming week.

The toppings went on after the update, but we used white chocolate on this one. Reviews to follow next time.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Mo Jelly

We started and ended this week with jelly making. Monday Lawman went out and picked all the peaches we had left on the trees.

We had enough to make five jars of jelly, but the flavor? Fughetaboutit! This stuff will not be gifted. At all. Maybe next year.
The end of the week we made apple jelly. We usually pick the "cow apples" off the ground but this year the apple tree did not give up any apples. They have been in the tree all year, even the chickens and deer have been walking around looking up wondering why. Lawman took matters in to his own hands.

We picked a five gallon bucket full. It made lucky 13 jars.

While we were in the mood to fill canning jars with goodies, we made a batch of deer chili. Cupcake has been Jonesing for deer chili. Five or six years ago, not so much.

Deer roast. Now diced deer

"Baltimore" peppers

More Jalapenos? Yes please

We used the hot bath canner to cook it up. Lawman slow cooked it all day so none of it scorched the bottom of the pot this time. It made four gallons (16 quarts) so we're pretty much fixed for soup and chili. Bring on the snow.

And speaking of snow, we're seeing signs of a good winter headed our way. One morning after Cupcake dropped the girl off at school, she found this at the end of the driveway.

Then Saturday morning while we were starting breakfast, she noticed webs on the back porch.

We also "found" two yellow jacket nests in the pumpkin patch. There seems to be a lot of wasp activity this year. All we know is, we're glad we have a basement full of canned goods and a big ol truck to get from here to there if we need to go in snow.
We planned ahead this week for football goofs and bought our wings early. We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Hurricane Prep

We are pretty sure everyone on the East Coast is doing something to prep for Irma. The farther South you go, probably more than others. We like to think we stay prepared and could shelter in place on a moments notice. We wish there was something we could do to help, but when the government tells you "There is nothing we can do" it's a situation nobody can prepare for or help fix. We hope everyone weathers it safe.
All we could think to do was wax Deathstroke so the rain beads off.

Picking up from last Sunday, we had to make a pizza because everyone bought out every single chicken wing in town.

Homemade crust, with fresh chopped basil in the dough

Meat lovers

Monday we took advantage of the holiday to clean out the coop de ville and dump the poop in the garden for next seasons fertilizer.

Later in the week, the next new obsession arrived at The Acre. Our first bee hive. We ordered this one to get acquainted with the makeup and possibly make our own from it's design. We figure we have all winter to tinker with woodworking and try to replicate the design.

We know "The Outlaw" has a garage full of woodworking tools that would make this a snap, but he's taken the path of batshit crazy so that's not an option for us.
Prior to the weekend it cooled off quite a bit, we like to think fall has arrived. Since it was cooler, we decided to smoke some meat. Brisket was the red meat for Thor's day offerings.

An added perk to smoking meat was a destroyed hornets nest. When Lawman fired up the smoker it backed up and made a smokey mess until we noticed what was left of the nest billowing out of the smoke stack.

This is the second time we've found a hornet nest in the smoker. We think it's poor planning on their part.
When the weekend hit, since it was still chilly, we decided it was time to break out some of our canned pumpkin from last season and made our first pumpkin pancakes this year.

Then we picked a basket of jalapeno peppers from the garden. Peppers and sweet potatoes is about all we have left. We have a late row of green beans that are coming along, but the deer and Lawman are having a nightly battle for who gets to eat them. We will keep the updates coming on that.

Lawman candy was on tap for this picking.

We found that one plant of our "Baltimore" peppers came in. These are the first peppers from it. We are saving these for deer chili next week.

And we found our regular brand of wings this week, so we ended the week with wings.
K&K