First Blog of September

Our weekend update is another busy one this week. First things first. Fall has fallen here at The Acre. Cupcake and I have been harvesting pumpkins and gourds for the past couple weeks, today we started decorating. When I say we, I mean I tried to stay out of Cupcake's way.

We dug our first five gallon bucket of potatoes this weekend. So we scrubbed them up and did our first canning of the year. Being a holiday weekend, we went all Red/White/Blue. 'Merica

We also had a gallon or so of jalapeno peppers from the garden saved up. Last year we canned "Lawman Candy" which is code for candied jalapeno peppers, but we still have quite a few jars of those left over, so we went with jalapeno jelly this time. First step in our jelly making is to slice the peppers and cut the seeds out. Cupcake uses a lit candle to beat down the pepper mist. If you've ever been hit with OC spray, you understand.

Next we put the peppers in a blender with one cup of apple cider vinegar and blended them smooth.

After we got them smoothed down, its into the cook pot with the Sure-Gel, add sugar, bring to a boil, then off to the jars.

We got nine jelly jars full this go around. Now we can hear you all saying "who could stand to eat that?" The sugar really cuts down the heat, and although it's still a little hot, we found a way to enjoy it. Take a cracker, a bit of cream cheese spread on it, then a dollop of jalapeno jelly, and you have a very tasty snack for entertaining folks, or just a special treat after another 14 hour day of working around The Acre.

What may be our last round of tomatoes came from Pop's garden this week, and to make sure they didnt go to waste, we made another batch of tomato sauce. This time we went all chunky and we believe this is how we will make all of our sauce next year. It really turned out well.

Eight more quarts of sauce in the basement, ready for a long cold winter. Tomorrow is opening day of Dove season, and "Critter Gitter" has decided to spend it in the bush, with any luck an opening day blog will follow with a few squab for supper. And as always it's 'Chicken wing Sunday'. We hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday weekend. If you see one out, thank a Lawman/Fireman/EMT/Soldier for what they do, because they dont get to enjoy holiday weekends off.
K&K