Apples and Bears, Oh My!

We canned apples this week. Every year when fall rolls around we always can up a couple of cases of apples for the coming winter. We like fried apples on Sunday morning, and we also make applesauce and a little apple butter. We are still pretty well fixed for apple butter, so this years haul is all about fried apples and sauce. We got to try out our new toy gifted to us by Brother Kevin and his family. The apple peeler and slicer was a time saving miracle.

We made about two cases of fried apples, but had to stop when we ran out of jars. We still have about a half bushel of apples left so we will pick up some more jars and get busy next weekend.

On the canned good front, we broke open a quart of our kraut. We were surprised it took this long but we had some leftover brisket and got the idea of reuben sandwiches. We sliced the brisket with the new fangled meat slicer, bacon thin. Then we heated it up in cast iron, melted some swiss cheese and topped it with kraut.

And we smoked a rack of ribs for dinner one night.

On a harvesting note, we got our first chestnut last week and it comes with a story.
When Lawman was a young chirrun, he caught the bus at the intersection of Ribgy and Ellett roads in Cambria. There was an old log home on the corner and it had two large chestnut trees in the back yard. Lawman would climb said trees and pick chestnuts, hoard chestnuts, and generally make a pest of himself to the poor old guy who lived there. So old guy gave Pop two small trees that he started from the chestnuts in his yard and cut down his big trees. He told Pop I could climb in his trees if I wanted to. It took many years, but now Pop's trees are as big as the ones of Lawman's youth. When Lawman built his house, he brought two trees from Pop's chestnuts and planted them in the back yard at The Acre. We got our first nuts this year. Grandchildren to the youth trees from Cambria.

And lastly we had a nature sighting worthy of mention. Lawman put out a couple of trail cameras when the ponds got completed just to see what kind of critters come and go from the new ponds. It captured Lawman on the Silver Hornet taking a break in the shade, then about ten minutes after he rolled out, Yogi blundered by the exact spot. We're not sure if he was waiting for Lawman to leave or if it was just coincidence, but he's lucky there was no pic-a-nic basket in the basket.

We ended the week with tacos, and a nap.
K&K

Stocking The Pond

Cupcake was gone on another whirlwind adventure for HCA most of the week, which left Lawman in a lurch for something to do. While she was gone, he decided it was time to start stocking the ponds with some swimming critters. He ordered a batch of minnow traps from Amazon and secured permission to trap in the creek behind the property he care-takes for.
By the time the traps arrived, Cupcake had returned home. She was put in charge of the camera to document the trapping in progress. Below are the photographs she grabbed while Lawman was in the water.

Cupcake got distracted, apparently.
Later that day, we went back to the creek and she did better.

First picture, Lawman falling into the water

Some bluegill, and lots of guppies 

Over a two day period we probably caught a dozen bluegill and at least five or six dozen guppies, so we are on our way.
Saturday we started the job of cleaning up the rocks and roots around the pond. If it ever rains and we do get grass growing on the dams, we will need to mow it. We hauled the rocks to where we are going to build a deck over the pond. We plan on using the rocks for a fire ring.
After we hauled a couple of loads of rocks, we took a break and worked on the wood pile a while. If we're going to have a fire ring, we will need wood. Plus it's meat smoking season, so.....

Sunday after breakfast cleanup, Pop took us to a creek he has permission to trap minnows. We set out the traps so we can up the minnow population.

When Cupcake was coming home, she requested a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies to enjoy when she returned. Lawman loves to bake. It all worked out.

We ended the week with baked spaghetti. And beer bread.

K&K

Birds and Bees

Since we finished the ponds, we've tried every day to get the ducks to find and use the ponds. We tried calling them down. Usually they come a running when Lawman calls them, but they would come as far as our fence, then turn around and go back to the coop. So we struck on the idea of grabbing the male duck and one of the Harley Quinns that are a bit more adventurous than the others, and force them into the pond. The hope was they would run back and tell the other ducks about the pond and lead them down.
So early one morning, Lawman slipped into the coop with a fishing net and planned on scooping up the two test subjects and taking them to the pond. The test subjects were not having any part of that, and flew out of the net several times before Lawman grabbed them by the feet like chickens and walked them down.

He tossed them into the small pond, since it's the closest to the coop.

They swam around for a few minutes, then ran up the hill to rejoin the rest of the crew.

So we thought they would tell the rest of the ducks about the big mud puddle, and lead them down later in the day. We were wrong.
We thought that maybe since they had a kiddie pool full of water at the coop they didn't need to wander far, so we stopped filling the pool and the water bowls. The thinking was they would get thirsty and head on down. We were wrong.
It's been crazy hot and dry for several weeks and by the end of the day without water, the birds were about to pass out. Just our luck, birds so dumb they would die of dehydration within sight of two ponds. So we filled the water bowls up and let them water down before bed.
The next day Lawman cut a path behind the coop down to the ponds with a chainsaw, so we could take The Silver Hornet down. We feed the birds twice a day, once in the morning and once when we gather the eggs, so egg gathering feed was moved a little further down the hill each day. We got the birds to the edge of the pond, and spread the food out along the shore line. After two days of staring at the pond, the little ducks figured out they could swim in it and the big ducks followed suit.

Two days of small pond swimming, and the little ducks wandered down to the bigger of the two ponds, with the big ducks following later. Now the ducks spend all day doing what ducks do.

And a bird related note, our guineas hatched a new batch of keets. The funny thing about it is, the first batch they hatched had 15 birds in it. We caught all 15 but five died before they got old enough to fend for themselves. We released 10 back into the flock.
This second batch, she hatched five keets, so we guess the magic number is 15? They're so cute when they look like cotton balls with feet.

And finishing up our bird related update, the pearl guineas we bought from Rural King and raised with the baby ducks are confused. They still think they are ducks, but wont go near the water. They have found a small tree along the pond that they hang out in all day while the baby ducks are swimming. We think it wont be long until the family of guineas take them under their wings and tell them they are not ducks.

Bees.
We've gone from feeding syrup to the bees to just straight sugar. We understand that by this time of year the bees are starting to store honey for the coming winter, and sugar is a big part of that process.

We also read that this time of year makes the bees moody. We were not lied to, they were none too pleased Lawman was tinkering around the hives.

Off topic from our headline, but we think it's neat.
We read that you can save the top of a fresh pineapple and start it in a pot to grow your own. We thought that would be neat to try, so we did. It's got new growth showing so we think we may keep it alive to grow our own. Only 18 months until we harvest.

We ended the week with baked spaghetti again, because....homemade sauce.
K&K

Labor Week

This past Monday was "Labor day," and we sure did a bunch of labor. We picked a few pears and peaches, then grapes. And while we were making jelly out of all that fruit, we decided we didn't have enough going on at one time, so we canned up the kraut we had fermenting.

We made 14 quarts of kraut, six jars of grape jelly, 24 jars of pear and peach jelly and then we canned 15 jars each diced pears and diced peaches.

Later in the week, we had six bags of pork belly curing in the fridge, so we smoked it over fresh cut maple wood and sliced it up for breakfast bacon. We don't understand why everyone wouldnt make their own bacon.

And the pond progress is coming along nicely. We have our first live critter living in the ponds, a bull frog.

We still haven't had any luck getting the ducks down to the pond, but it gives Lawman something to do during the day.
We changed things up this week and ended it with baked spaghetti.
K&K