Roots and Chicks

This week we got the planter boxes mounted to the deck and did some canning. It seemed like we didn't do all that much, until we started looking at all the pictures we took this week. So lets get to sharing.
The hold over from last week was the deck boxes. We got out late in the evening and hung them up after the honeybees went home. They were heavier than expected, so we had to call out Jake for strong back and weak mind support. But we got them up, filled with dirt, and even planted our goodies in them. All we need now is a couple of steady showers to set us right.

Six inches deep, lettuce and spinach box

Twelve inches deep, cabbage and carrot box

We started another batch of cabbage last week. It sprouted in just a couple of days, so we will be getting them in the ground, and in the box as soon as possible.

Then we went to work in the garden. We have an entire row of carrots, separated by a walkway down the middle of the garden. We pulled half of one row, then tilled it up and replanted seeds back in their place. We got six pints of canned carrots from that half row.

And we did our first canning of green beans this week. Not a real big batch, but its four more quarts than we did have. Zombies will not slow down our ability to eat.

An added perk to our week was jalapeno peppers. We only planted two plants this year, but they have been turning out peppers like crazy so far. We picked enough for a batch of jalapeno jelly, then made a canning of it minutes after they came off the vine. Now that's fresh.

The dill pickle assembly line continued to churn out crunchy pickles. We perfected the ability to can dill pickles, and not turn them soft or mushy during the process. Trade secret, just enjoy them if ya get a jar.

Our last garden post for the week is potatoes. We pulled up one vine, just to see what was what. If every vine produces like this one did, we will be giving taters away this year.

Blue potatoes make us unique

Some bird related pictures to share.
We said it's hard to name all the birds, but on the chance that we are able to identify and name a bird, we like to share. The first bird, Big Man said looked like an oriole. Cupcake kept calling him "Raven" so to avoid confusion, we just call it "Baltimore" now.

The second bird is one of two white birds we have in the flock. The larger bird we named "chirp" because that's all she did after she hatched. She has a black dot on the back of her head. This bird is also white, and has black dots, and Cupcake kept calling it chirp, Big Man would say it was not chirp, and back and forth. So this bird is now "Diet Chirp"

Last bird picture we share this week is our new additions to the flock. We tried all spring to hatch guinea birds, and were foiled at every turn. Lucky for us, one of Cupcake's school chums has guinea birds, and had a mother bird hatch a batch that he didn't want, and offered them to us. We snatched them up and wanted to thank him official like. Todd Naff, many thanks from The Acre.

It wouldn't be a posting without some sort of food related pictures. We seemed to have dropped the ball this past week on those. But we did do something new one night. Italian bread. We had sketti with our home made sauce, and we usually fix a french bread to eat with it. Big Man decided to throw in some Italian spices, and bake it in a bread pan. It rocked. Fraidy Mutt loved it, and what was left over we chopped up into cubes and dried them out in the oven for home made croutons. We hate to waste food.

And on the topic of bread, we ran through our twenty five pound bag of bread flour that we picked up at Sam's a couple months back. So that should tell you just how much bread we go through around here. We made another Sam's run this week, and picked up fifty pounds of bacon, and seventy five pounds of bread flour. We plan on making both last until at least Thanksgiving or Christmas.

We made another dozen pickled eggs this week. Big Man has figured out that the blue eggs are just perfect size for a dozen eggs to a jar. They are just a little smaller than our smallest brown eggs, and fit in a quart jar perfect. Plus, how many of you can say you eat blue eggs?

We whipped up a batch of chocolate ice cream one night too. Big Man has never eaten chocolate ice cream, but he sure does put this stuff away.

Our last couple of pictures this week are random. First, we have mums out in front of the house that have already started to bloom. The do this every year, lose their bloom, then rebloom in the fall. Cupcake has the touch when it comes to flowers.

The last picture is a reminder that if you leave your blog camera lying about, you're bound to find a few glamor shots when you download them.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K