Qapla'

Busy week here at The Acre. Picture wise anyway. We start off with an addition to our wine collection. It ain't for drinking, it's just for lookin at.

We wished we liked wine, everyone makes drinking it look like so much fun.
Last week we mentioned we harvested the gem corn and stalks, but we didn't include a picture of the gem corn. Our badd.

Every Monday is change the camera card day down by the ponds. We keep eyes out for foxes and bobcats, coyotes and whatnots. We got a picture of the DT's in what appears to be them running for their lives...

Then we saw why they were running for their lives.

Seemed legit.
And we are getting a picking of bell peppers like this one just about every week. We've had to start freezing them, all our sauces and whatnots are done for the year.

We are still getting jalapeno peppers on the regular. We try to find unique ways to use them up, this week it was Jalapeno beer bread.

And just for fun, we dug a hole in the sweet potato row and pulled out two taters. We are going to go ahead and get the rest of them out this coming week we think. Depending on the weather.

And speaking of the weather, Cupcake spotted a solid black wooly worm this week. Solid black, people.

It was a wet and dreary Friday/Saturday here, so we stayed in and put some beans in the crockpot along with some ham shavings and a pone of scratch made cornbread.

And Cupcake found a recipe for a peach crisp she wanted to try. There is nothing like straight from your tree peaches. Well, these went tree to jar, then to dessert. Still counts.

Sunday after breakfast we went to town to do some trading, and picked up another five dozen minnows from The Sportsman.

Once again, The Boy and the DT's went with us to stock.

The Boy has decided to try his hand at duck hunting this year, and is picking up the gear to go.

After we dropped the minnows we came back to the house and canned up the kraut we've had going for the past couple of months. It made 14 quarts, but we lost one in the canner so we ended up with lucky 13.

Then we ended the week with wings. And a nap.

K&K

Fall Fell

All at once, BAM!
We woke up Sunday morning to frost on the ground. Lawman says he's OK with it, because fat people do better in cold than in heat.
Back when it was still hot on Monday, Lawman fired up the wood smoker and smoked a brisket. It had been a while since we had a brisket. He has not lost his touch.

We had planned on saving some of the slices for brisket gravy (see what we did there?) but when we were moving the frozen stuff into the new freezer, we found a pack of deer tenderloin. Cupcake loves her some deer gravy, so deer gravy is what we had.

And on a Sunday breakfast note, Lawman has been walking past the scrapple isle in BJ's for years. This week he stopped and picked up a pack.

When the weekend rolled around we went to town and did our trading, then we bought the slacking birds some feed, and then stopped by the Sportsman for another five dozen minnows.

The Boy and the DT's walked down to the ponds with us when we did the stocking.

Then we stopped at the Riner Food Center and picked up two bushels of apples, because it's apple sauce and apple butter season.

But before we got into the sauce making, Cupcake put a pot of veggie beef soup on to slow cook all day. We knew we would be worn out after canning and wouldn't want to cook. She's the bestest.

After we ate, we had about a quart left over. We hate to waste food and hit on an idea to save the soup. We took the giant ice cube makers and emptied them out, then froze the soup in one cup blocks, then put the soup in ziplock bags and stored them in the freezer for the next time we don't feel like cooking.

Back to the apple fixings. We got home at 1430hrs and got underway. We had the kitchen cleaned and everything stored back where it belongs three hours later. We are a well oiled machine here at The Acre.

While the apple sauce was cooking down, we put on a batch of apple jelly. It's "The Boy's" favorite, next to Christmas jam.

We made three cookings of jelly, but one went bad, so we only got six pints of jelly out of the batch along with 18 pints of apple sauce. It's a good thing we bought the double size pressure canner. We did the whole apple sauce in one cook.

But we didn't stop there. We put on a crockpot full of apple butter and let it cook overnight. Sunday after breakfast we canned up the first batch of apple butter, and put a second batch on while we mowed the yard.

And we threw in a second small batch of apple sauce while we were messing around in the kitchen.

After that, we went over to the barn and cut two wagon loads of corn stalks to decorate with. Because it's cold now.

We harvested the gem corn stalks, and Cupcake made several corn decorations that we will save and use for seed in next year's garden. Nothing goes to waste around here.
We ended the week with wings again, but this week Lawman cleaned out the oil fryer. It's the little things that make life happy around here.

We didn't get a single nap this week.
K&K