Problem Solved, Problem Staying Solved

Last week we shared our killer raccoon pictures. He was too sharp to go into a box trap, so we borrowed a foot trap from Brother Kevin, and went old school mountain man on him. It was a success.

He met a killer's fate. Problem solved, problem staying solved.
It was another busy week when it comes to prepping for winter. First off, we started getting cucumbers from our garden. Cupcake came home from work one night and said "lets make a batch of pickles". So we did.

Our yellow cucumbers have yet to come in, so we started our stockpile with green pickles. We also went berry picking every night around the house. We found all the berries we could pick, and we would gather about a quart every night.

Except Saturday. Saturday we took a drive and hit the mother load. We must have picked over ten pounds of red raspberries, mixed with a few handfuls of blackberries.

There was some cooking going on too, if you can imagine that. Big Man had a brisket soaking in buttermilk for the standard ten days, then he washed it down and rubbed it with a dry rub for two days before a slow maple wood smoke. It almost fell apart when it was sliced, which was a good thing, because Big Man had his knife so sharp he nearly sliced the tip of his finger off. There was a "discussion" of going to the emergency room for stitches, but Big Man put his foot down, and it was not spoken of again.

Monday was a washout around The Acre, so Big Man made a batch of home made bourbon BBQ sauce. A quart over two gallons turned out, using our home grown tomatoes, onions and herbs. We canned it to keep, but next week is vehicle inspection week, and that means one lucky fix it shop will have a lunch treat of Big Man pulled pork BBQ soon.

We also got behind on picking and eating our collards, so we picked about a half of a bushel and canned them, so they wouldn't go to waste.

And speaking of canning, Pop's shared a huge picking from his garden over the weekend.

We ended up with a dozen more pints of squash relish, and 18 quarts of green beans.

We are on our way to our goal. We hope to surpass our target of 60 quarts, you can never have enough green beans or squash. Or collards.
We ended our week with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K