Family Spotting

There was some construction going on at The Acre this week. Big Man planted four posts, two for a fence corner that has been a problem since the electric fence was built, and two more for grape vines to run along. We hitched up the trailer to the big blue bus, and went to town to do some trading. While at Home Depot picking up cement and posts and whatnot, "Uncle Billy" pulled in beside the truck.
We can only figure that he recognized the truck, because he pulled out and away without so much as a "boo-scat-or kiss my ass". It's true what they say, you can't pick your family. However, if anyone reading this would like a log home built, we can SOOOO put you in touch with him. After Cupcake and Big Man both had homes built (started anyway) by Uncle Billy, we have loads of stories we can share about his business practices.
But on to the pictures.
First, we hung a new picture in the bedroom. Cupcake found this one, and we agree

Next, the construction portion of the week, posts

Fence corners, fixed right this time

Grape vine run, under construction

Some DIY pics. Toothpaste and deodorant.

Finished products

We smoked meat this week

Ribs

And we have a few pictures of our future garden, and the lemon trees are still with us

Tomato seeds, about ready to transplant to pots

The wild tomato we dug up in November is full grown now

We hoped to have new hatched chicken pictures to share this week, but the first round seems to be duds. This first batch of eggs were from the first week "Boomer" started laying, so we were thinking they may not have been fertile yet.
Each week we save the blue eggs, and put them in the incubator on Friday. It's a twenty one day cycle, so we plan on weekend hatching. Looks like this weekend is a bust, but we have three more batches in the hopper. We will be keeping our fingers crossed.
We ended the week as we always do.
K&K

Time to Plant

We started off the first weekend of spring with some hole digging. We planted seven more rhubarb roots. Well, eight if you count the one Big Man lobotomized from an established plant and we had to replant.

Two buckets of cow manure to add to the holes

We also made another big batch of homemade ketchup this weekend.

A throwback to last week, the pictures from our new chicken wing fryer.

And, speaking of chicken. We had a smoked chicken leftover from our last smoke. We cubed up the meat, then Cupcake made a batch of chicken salad for her lunch at work.

We also had a bunch of salmon left over from a grilled salmon dinner. Cupcake made fried salmon cakes with the leftover meat.

And last week was St. Patricks day. Everyone does corned beef and cabbage, but we are little off center, so we smoked a beef brisket. Boiled cabbage and corn bread for sides.

Then we had a couple of projects to report on. The first was a fresh batch of deodorant.

Then Kattie Grace got a new bed. Some assembly required. It only took us a couple of hours to assemble the bed, and there wasn't a single part tossed out the window or set on fire.

And speaking of Kattie Grace, she got the fever to cook again this weekend. She made a batch of cupcakes, and Big Man had four of them. Big Man does not usually indulge, so you know they rocked.

We added another batch of eggs to the incubator.

Plus, we just couldn't wait for the eggs to start hatching, so we picked up a box full of chicks at Tractor Supply. We got another batch of the penguin looking birds, we lost all but one of last years to the hawks.

Last but not least, we got a new washing machine. Apparently we do a lot of laundry, so we had to go commercial quality this time.

Then we ended with wings. Next week, there should be some hatched bird pictures. See everyone next week.
K&K

Spring Thing

This week at The Acre, we see signs that spring is near. Tulips have popped out of the ground, along with rhubarb and strawberry plants.
Kind of working backwards from this weekend to last, we added fruit trees to our farm. Last year we planned to add plum trees, but we waited too long to pick them up for some reason. When we did go to buy them, everyone was sold out. This week we stopped in Tractor Supply to visit the chicks, and walked out with $70 dollars worth of rhubarb, asparagus, and plum trees.

Every year we like to try one new thing in the spring. This year we bought a fig tree and a Kiwi bush. Cupcake asked "what do you do with figs?" and Big Man's first thought was "figgy pudding." We will need to find a recipe for figgy pudding before the tree starts to produce. But we are sure we are the first kids on our block to have a fig tree. Same goes for the kiwi plant.
Next, we noticed signs of spring. The rhubarb is beginning to emerge from the ground, along with strawberry plants. So either mother nature has pulled the trigger too early, or it's about to warm up.

A couple of food related notes this post. First, Philly cheese steaks. We found a type of meat that really fries up well. Much better than brand name sandwich steaks. We try to have them at least once every two weeks.

Fried on a cast iron griddle, of course

Onions and peppers, fried up in bacon grease to top the sandwich

Smoked chicken, with glazed carrots from the garden. We canned them up for a special occasion, this week was it.

Our two or three regular followers know that we always have chicken wings on Sunday, and with the wings we have "Good-er-er rolls" as Jacob named them. Last weekend we forgot to re-supply the rolls, and ran out. So, Cupcake sprang in to action and made home made pretzels to go along with the wings. Man, they were sooo much better. An extra special treat for us.

And speaking of Jacob, folks may remember we posted he joined the fire department. The past couple of weeks, members of the station house Jacob works out of, lost family members. Jake has attended the funerals in his dress uniform to represent the station house.

Notice the military sharp creases in the sleeves? That's Big Man's Army training, and twenty five years of uniform setting up, right there. A trait that will be passed along to Jacob. "If you're going to wear a uniform, you're going to know how to set it up right"
To end the week, we once again go out with chicken wing Sunday. We added a new frier to the appliances, so next week we will be showing off the results. See you then.
K&K

Spring's Broken Sprocket

We know it's not technically spring yet, but we were looking forward to it. Then we got another dose of "Aww hell no!" from mother nature this week. We thumbed our nose at her anyway, and put on our first batch of eggs in the incubator. We hope to start rolling out chicks in three weeks.

While we were snowed in again, we had a two meat smoke day. Big Man has been slipping on the smoking meat front, so we did a batch of ribs and brisket. Big Man started a brisket for St. Pattie's Day, so first order of business was tenderizing and butter milk soaking.

Then we cut off the short piece and gave it a rub down with secret spices until we were ready to smoke it.

And we did the same with the ribs. We made a mustard based rub, then soaked the ribs in it until cook day. The bone fell out of the meat.

We sliced the brisket up, and kept it for eggs and collard flavoring and whatnot. We had about a half rack of rib meat left over as well, so we froze that for beans, or whatever else we can think of.
And when you have two meat Thor's Day, you need some fried cabbage. Cupcake pulled out the stops on this batch.

And Cupcake made a request for another batch of orange marmalade. Big Man sure does like making her smile, so orange marmalade she got.

Then for a new item this week, Jake asked for a peanut butter pin wheel kinda thing. We went by the recipe for the first round, next time we will make this our own way, because it's how we roll.

Then Cupcake made fried apple fritters for grown up dessert one night. With Big Man's from scratch pie crust, of course.

Last item this week was spaghetti sauce. We were down to only a couple jars of our sauce, so one snowed in day we made a batch of our sauce. It's not like we didn't have 96 jars of tomatoes in the basement to use.

We ended like we always do. Chickens beware.
K&K