Gadgets, Grapes and Greens

Gadgets, Grapes and Greens. That's what's been happening around The Acre this week. First was gadgets. We got a bag of The Green Arrow's coffee in the first wine club shipment from Stephen Amell, but it was whole bean. We tried using a blender to chop the beans up, but we got inconsistent grinds, some like powder, some chunks.
Cupcake and I both worked at Kroger in our earlier lives, and we remembered they had a coffee grinder in the coffee isle, so we schlepped the coffee to town with us, only to find Kroger had done away with the grinder. So, Cupcake being the research specialist she is, did a search and found this little gem online. It's suppose to be the bees knees in the coffee grinder world.

 We ground up about a half of a batch, and mixed it with half of Deathwish Coffee. Straight Deathwish is akin to a syringe full of adrenalin, so we like to cut it back a little with a mix. Makes it last longer too. Cupcake even polished up the cowboy coffee pot for the occasion.

Our second entry this week is grapes. Our grape vines are only three years old, and last year we got one bunch of grapes off of it. This season we got about five bunches. Not enough to make jelly or wine with yet, so Cupcake fed them to the Big Man while he was lying on the couch, head in her lap. Big Man was OK with this usage of grapes.

We had a rain delay one day this week, so Big Man was trapped in the house. Instead of taking a nap he went out to the garden and picked a bushel or so of collards, and canned them. It made 16 pints, which will come in handy this winter.

They will be good with smoked meat, which is a thing here, as our two loyal readers  can probably tell you.

This was a seven pound roaster, we smoked up on the rainy day. We got a main meal, the big man used about half of the leftover meat for chicken salad for Cupcake's lunches over the week, and we gave pop the other half. Nothing goes to waste here if we can help it.
Speaking of, we had a half carton of heavy cream left over from our Sunday biscuits, so we whipped up a batch of home made butter for the week.

And we ended it as we always do, with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

Fall, Food and Fruit

It rained most of this week around The Acre. Big Man managed to get his mowing in, but it was an adventure. We've started to let the garden go, weeds and crab grass are less annoying than it was in past weeks. This time of year, the fall decorating stuff is starting to come in. We pulled a little of our Indian corn and it is very vibrant this year.

It's going to be colorful around The Acre soon.
We did another batch of pickles this week. We picked another basket full of cucumbers between rain drops, and sliced them up for their crock bath Saturday.

The slices made twenty five more pints of pickles. That takes us up to 134 pints, with four more vines of lemon cucumbers yet to come in.
Speaking of lemons, our lemon trees we started are still coming along.

Big Man always has dinner ready for Cupcake when she gets home from work, and there are only so many nights you can smoke meat or fry squash, so this week we tried something new. Big Man whipped up a batch of pizza dough, then made two calzones. We stuffed them with our home made pizza sauce, ham, mushrooms, peppers and cheese. They turned out really well, and we have a new dish to throw into the dinner rotation.

And for the fruit portion of our post, we took a fresh bottle of bourbon and made a quart of raspberry infused bourbon. We found a recipe on Facebook, and we like bourbon. Our guests seem to like a more fruitier brand of refreshment so we made this for visitors to The Acre. We like to stick to bourbon, neat.

We ended our week with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

Ice and Pickles

This week, Big Man was called out by "Elvis" Perron to do the ALS ice water challenge that's going around Facebook. Not only did he do it, but he did it double. He had two buckets of ice water because he's been cold, and this wasn't it. You can check the video out here https://www.facebook.com/retiredlawman

We picked another huge batch of cucumbers this week. The yellow cucumbers are coming in so we made another batch of "them yellow pickles". Twenty four more pints, which takes us up to 109 total this season. We may have overdone it just a little, but the season of giving is approaching, so, it's all good.

We are still getting squash, collards and corn from the garden. Big Man whipped up some Kimmie Crack for dinner one night, along with grilled corn on the cob.

Believe it or not, we are still getting strawberries too.

And the potatoes show no signs of dying off just yet....

The Indian corn and broom corn Cupcake planted has really done well this year, should be a very decorative fall around The Acre.

And speaking of fall of the year, we still have smoker meat visiting the apple tree out back. They seem intent on eating our pie filling before we can make it.

And on a chicken related exit, we moved the two lavender chicks to the coop this weekend. We have named them "Dumb and Dumber", since they seem to have issues with simple chicken related things. But they appear to be thriving in their new home.

We had a package of their cousins for chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

Lucky Me

I just wanted to share a brief thought with all my "you don't know how lucky you are" friends. Just over seven years ago, Dorie Greene carjacked a couple at gun point, and I was in the right place at the right time to intercept and stop him. During our encounter, he managed to break both my knees, but I was so jacked up on adrenalin I did not realize I was hurt.
Seven years later, I am reminded how lucky I am. Today my left knee buckled, like it's prone to do if I do not place my foot just right. Only today, it buckled on stairs. So I took a trip on the "assholes and elbows" roller coaster straight to the bottom of a muddy, rocky, sudden stop.
I recently had someone tell me I didn't know how lucky I was to have the life I live. I am lucky, I managed to survive 25 years in a dangerous job.
I did retire twenty or so years before most people. I was able to build the log home I always wanted to live in, and I found a woman who was willing to share her life with a broken man.
I'm lucky enough to live in constant pain, but I do not let it rule my life. There are many of my brothers and sisters who stood a post who wish they had knees to hurt, so I try not to complain.
I am lucky enough to have Anne Arundel County give me all the Vicodin I want for free, but I refuse to take it. If I'm going to have a three day hangover, it's gonna be from Knob Creek, not an opiate.
  I do have to make a conscious effort with every step I take to plant my foot in such a way that my knees do not buckle. Think about that for just a moment. Every single step you take each day, imagine having to be aware of it.
I will lay here and bleed, then wait to swell up and ache while you ponder.
Just K today

Summer Canning

We did quite a bit of canning this week. Tomatoes from Pop's garden came in, and we did not let any of them go to waste.
We started the week with five pints.

Then by Sunday, we got serious about tomatoes

Twenty pints later

We also got another huge picking of cucumbers from our garden. "Them yellow cucumbers" started to come in this week, plus the green ones were in full swing as well.

We put up another 15 jars of pickles. We are up to 85 jars, and the yellow cucumbers are just starting to come in, so we should be well over 100 soon.
We also got a few green beans from our vines, and another basket of collard greens. We canned both.

We have a well stocked basement already, we may have to add more shelves since the potatoes have not even slowed down yet. We will be canning them soon. We are ready for whatever mother nature has to throw at us this winter with a diverse menu.

We have a tree full of apples in the back yard, we plan on making apple pie filling soon.

We had a couple of meals we thought we would share this week. First was from scratch, buffalo chicken, deep dish pizza.

Home made dough for the crust

Deep dish, cast iron skillet

Pizza Hut? Never heard of them

We are also getting fresh lettuce and rhubarb from the garden. We still fix fresh garden salads, and Big Man whipped up a rhubarb pie for dessert one night.

Home made pie crust

All this was growing an hour before baking. That's fresh

And it shows

But the big ticket item was beef brisket. Big Man soaked one in buttermilk for ten days, then put a salt and dry rub on it for several days before he smoked it. This was the longest prep we've ever done on a brisket, and it really paid off. When we did smoke it Saturday, it came out looking and tasting exactly like a corned beef brisket, falling apart tender.

Big Man cut up a couple slices for Sunday morning gravy. Brisket just keeps getting better and better around The Acre.
We ended the week with chicken wing Sunday.
K&K

The Fox Says....

There was chicken drama this week at The Acre. Birds started coming up missing at the evening head count, and we figured the hawk was back. One morning while Cupcake was getting ready for work, she heard chicken drama in the front yard. When she looked out she found a red fox with a mouth full of one of our birds. In broad daylight, in the front yard. Big Man grabbed the nearest handgun, which was his 1911, and put three .45 ACP rounds down range at a running target. No blood found, but he was pretty sure Foxy Fox escaped, only to get his mind right (and I do mean, right). Until more birds came up missing two days later. Updates to follow, this aggression will not stand, man. We also lost one of our lavender birds this week, so it's been a rough week for our feathered friends.
 We hit the jackpot with cucumbers. We made a garden check Monday afternoon, and got half a basket full of green ones.

We sliced them up and gave them a bath in the crock with lime. It's how we make pickles

After 24 hours, Big Man whipped up a case of bread and butter pickles while Cupcake was in the salt mines.

The last picking of green beans was made from Pop's garden this week. We pulled up the vines as we went this time, so unless our garden comes in, the beans we have in the basement will have to hold us this winter.

And speaking of our garden, we got a weird ear of corn this week. We have never seen an ear of corn quite like this one....

Instead of closing to a point at the top of the ear, it opened up flat. We are sure it's Obama's fault, we just aint figured out how yet.
And one last garden item on the docket this week. Kimmie Crack. Our tomatoes started coming in, and Cupcake started picking them green. We will never see a ripe tomato this season.

But you wont hear us complaining.
Big Man did his Thor's Day rib smoke, which is becoming a thing around The Acre, plus he added a brisket tip to the mix. This one he rubbed down a little longer before smoking, and you can see what a difference it made with the smoke ring.

We are keeping this one around for collards and bean seasoning. We also had it in Sunday eggs. It's good to have smoked brisket on hand, we have learned.
We leave this post with pictures of our sunflowers that have started blooming, and of course, chicken wing Sunday.

K&K