....And We're Back

We missed last weeks update due to computer issues, but we are back up and running this week. It was an eventful time to be sure. For all of you who doubted the bad winter predictions of ours, "we told you so".
We got thirty inches of snow here at The Acre. In town it appears more like a little over a foot, but we got hammered. Cupcake says she may have overdone the snow dance this year, and she loves snow. And since we couldn't find a shovel that would fit Jacob's hand, the first order of business this summer will be to follow in the OmniGeek's footsteps and purchase a snow blower.
Before the big snow came, we did some prep work. Big man had a leftover deer leg he smoked earlier, and it was sliced up with leftover pork loin and leftover smoked chicken to make about five gallons of veggie/meat soup. We canned 16.5 quarts for future meals after we enjoyed a snowy day staple.

We did some critter prep too. Putting out bird seed for the feather friends who visit us at The Acre, and for squirrels too, apparently.

There was what we thought would be a neat DIY project we saw on one of our chicken sites, and with plenty of free time we thought we would give it a try. Chickens love grass, and this time of year green grass is few and far between. We have scratch grain on hand to supplement their feed anyway, so this was a no trip to town project.  First we soaked a couple scoops of scratch grain overnight in plain tap water.

Next we moved the wet grain to small plastic bowls with drain holes in the bottom.

We watered the grains twice a day, and left them in the window to catch the sun, and after a few days we had grain/grass treat for our egg ladies.

The birds went nuts when we put it out, of course at the time the snow was waist deep to big man, so the timing was perfect.  Fraidy Mutt decided to check out the tunnel we made for the birds to get under the covered porch to keep the snow off their feet.

We shoveled a path for the girls, and had to keep on it for about 24 hours, this was our first pass morning of the snow

Fraidy Mutt had it worse of all, she would not do her bidness in a path we shoveled out for her, so she ended up looking like this on her potty breaks

She was not impressed. But is sure is pretty if you don't have to poop in it

We still managed chicken wing Sunday, so we passed the storm with little disruption. It may be wishful thinking right now, but we opened up our seed packets and began planing our garden on Sunday. We also started our tomato seeds. Follow up next week.
K&K

A Week in Pictures

Not much of a story this week, typical seven days for us. Kind of hard to put a new spin on DIY, smoker meat and family fun, so we thought we would just share a few pictures we took of one thing and the next. Snow, Fraidy Mutt, Egg Ladies and a batch of laundry detergent.

Double smoke, ribs and pork loin

Fraidy Mutt, worn out

Fraidy Mutt, UN-impressed with snow

Egg Ladies, also UN-impressed with snow

Laundry Detergent

Smoked deer leg, wrapped in bacon

Also this week, I wanted to add a video. Just because they have an "add video" button and we like to get our money's worth out of gadgets.
I have been told dogs will not walk backwards, they turn around and walk forward. Fraidy Mutt has her mind right when it comes to training.

We made butter and fried chicken wings on Sunday. Just another week in the life.  We would also like to thank the Olympics for putting "Arrow" on hold for three weeks. They have Deathstroke and Black Canary in the line-up as regular characters, then snatch it off the air. Like people still watch the Olympics?
See Y'all next week.
K&K

Birthdays and Blackouts

We had an eventful week here at The Acre. First off, we announced to the world we are married.

Once the DMV gets involved, you know it's official.
During a winter storm event that all predictions said would miss us by a mile, we got about six inches of snow and lost power for a day. Big Man had to drive Cupcake in to work. Cupcake's father always said a cop is the best driver in snow, but at the time he was talking about a desk riding paper pushing cop. Cupcake was riding with a head knocking, patrol car pushing, baddest man in the 'hood working cop, so she was in good hands.

We prepped for this, we had plenty of food stocked up, five cans of gas, and a generator to run the lights and whatnot.

Plus we have a fireplace for heat, which came in handy because when we woke up to find the power off, it was -10* outside.

We didn't skip a beat when the power went out. Big Man washed six loads of laundry, smoked a pork loin, and had a pot of beans and baked cornbread on the grill. The power came back on about bedtime so a day without power went unnoticed.
During the cold, the egg girls kept on laying at a high rate of speed. We have been getting about six eggs a day, which has lead to a stockpile of fresh eggs. We were sitting on five dozen at the time of this picture.

We have been enjoying jalapeno jelly with cream cheese for lunch on the weekends. Jalapeno jelly is sweet, hot, and just plain angry looking, but it sure is tasty on a cracker.

We also made another batch of homemade butter, we seem to be going through a batch a week.

Unlike most of the things we fix DIY, this is NOT cost effective. We can buy an eight pack of stick butter for about what we can make four sticks worth of homemade, but there is no comparing the taste, so we stick with it because we have free time like that.
We also had some "Mountain Man" adventure over the weekend, when Speedy caught the first of many (we hope) raccoons in his trap. They are garden and coop wrecking varmints, and we wont kiss them around The Acre.

And we pulled out one of Deadshot's deer legs and prepped it for a date with the smoker next week. Right now it's been tenderized and is soaking in buttermilk. Follow up next week.

Sunday was Cupcake's birthday, so there were spankings and chicken wings.
See you all next week.
K&K

Brutal Cold?

This past week the Facebook feed has been flush with all things cold. The lamestream news label the cold as "Polar Vortex" and "Brutal Cold". When I was stationed in Colorado with the 4th Infantry Division, we were an arctic warfare, rapid deployment force. So we called weather like this "Tuesday". Big Man has been cold before, and this aint it.
But we did see a bit of snow this past week, Chirruns got a little time off from school, and the wild life activity has picked up around The Acre.

The egg ladies were not impressed once again with the snow

But it sure is pretty to see coming down

And as we always do, when it snows, Big Man smoked some meat. This week it was half a pork loin wrapped in bacon. It was the best loin to date.

And we tried a new DIY project (if you can imagine that) home made butter. It was simple to make, but took about fifteen minutes in the mixer. We started with a quart of room temperature heavy whipping cream and a mixer with a stir attachment.

We turned the mixer on the lowest setting and let it run. It took about fifteen minutes on low, then all at once it changed to butter. I asked Pop's about this, and he said in the old days when he churned butter at home, it did the same thing, so we chalked this up to normal and moved on.

Working smarter instead of harder, Big Man poured the mixture into a towel, and squeezed the buttermilk from the butter, and saved the milk for biscuits on Sunday morning.

Once again we will say it, home made is way better than store bought. It works much better when we fried eggs and roasted pecans, and it's awful tasty on biscuits, made with the home made buttermilk. We don't waste much here at The Acre. And in the spirit of not wasting, while Big Man made butter, Cupcake repaired Deadshot's blanket.

We also made another batch of butter pecan ice cream

And we experimented with home made croutons with left over bread.

We ended the week with "Chicken Wing Sunday" as is our tradition.
K&K

DIY and Snow

This week we got our first real snow, it only amounted to a couple of inches, but it still counts. Building up to the snow, we did a new DIY project, and made a new recipe, but most of the week was old favorite meals in the comfort food category. It's winter people, it's what you're supposed to do.
First off, our DIY project. Home made fabric softener. We learned that plain white vinegar is just as or more effective a fabric softener than store bought. We thought we would be going out in public smelling like a feminine hygiene product, so Big Man tried plain vinegar on a load of his own clothes first. There was no residual vinegar smell what so ever. We used plain white vinegar for most of the week, but decided we wanted to add a little scent to our wash. We bought a couple bottles of hair conditioner from Wal-Mart. The conditioner cost less than a dollar and added a nice apple smell to the mix. We figure our home made conditioner cost 1/4 of the price of Downy. It's a keeper here at The Acre.

When the snow forecast came in, Big Man whipped up a batch of "Energy bars" he found a recipe for on one of our prep-er blogs we follow. The recipe was simple, peanut butter, oats, flax seeds, chocolate chips and honey. Toss it in a mixer and then spoon it out into balls. It's a healthy snack that we enjoyed.

 

Our snow came Friday night, Saturday morning our new birds first snow. They were not impressed, and wouldn't even come out of the coop until Big Man shoveled a path for them.

Wild birds still getting a few sunflower seeds

  Big Man spent the week in the kitchen, and the meals turned out pretty well this week. It's a hobby we both enjoy.

Monday, home made lasagna and fresh baked bread

Tuesday, home grown greens, scallop potatoes and raspberry cobbler

And a smoked chicken

Wednesday was smoked ribs, slow cooked bake beans and deep dish apple pie

Thursday, home made chicken pot pie (leftover smoked chicken)

Friday was date night, so Big Man took a day off from the kitchen, but Saturday we made home made butter pecan ice cream and a peach cobbler from the canned peaches in the pantry. We ended the week with "Chicken Wing Sunday" as always.
K&K