We Are Blessed

Thanksgiving week is always a big deal around The Acre. We are lucky enough to be able to cook not only a big meal, but a meal big enough for the entire family. It's a fact that's not lost on us, and we are thankful every single day for the life we live.
Family kicks off the update for this week. Denephew and Denises came out Thursday, and each one has a special request when they come out. Henry likes apple jelly, Haley likes chocolate chip cookies, and Katie likes homemade biscuits. After we ate, it was mentioned that Henry needed a hair cut. Lawman does his own hair, and lately has been cutting Pop's hair. We sat Henry down and gave him a good old fashioned trim.

Henry and Lawman loved the Mohawk look. Mom? Not so much

So long Mohawk

And here is little Haley on the cookie making

But prior to the family coming over, we had our nose to the grindstone. We are such a well oiled machine, we got everything cooked and ready over an hour before everyone arrived.
We started out the day before baking the pumpkins for the pumpkin pie and baking the sweet potatoes (fresh from our garden, sweet potatoes)

Two small pumpkins made exactly two cups of pumpkin puree

Chance to use up the really big sweet potatoes

Then we made the pies and cake. Pumpkin pie, buttermilk pie and chocolate cake with our first batch of the year of boiled custard.

We only use scratch made pie crust

Buttermilk pie we gifted to The Walters Clan

Pumpkin pie

Chocolate cake

 Cupcake's granny recipe for boiled custard

Knocked it out of the park

The morning of Thanksgiving, Lawman was up at 0500 starting the smoker. We smoked the turkey and it was a huge hit. Then we fixed the rest of the meal, home made (not the crazy granny version) mac-n-cheese. Fresh from the garden mashed potatoes, fresh from the garden corn pudding, stuffing and fresh from the chicken deviled eggs.

Macaroni, cheese sauce and gravy going all at once

Corn pudding

Smoked turkey

Christmas pickles and "half eggs" as Henry calls them

Our Kattie Grace made the center piece for the Thanksgiving table this year.

And we found a recipe that called for our strawberries. We froze a couple of bags of our strawberries this summer, this was the perfect amount.

Fraidy Mutt got all dressed up for company, and waited patiently for something to hit the floor.

And as is one of our Thanksgiving traditions, we used the turkey bones to make broth. We now have three gallons of broth, minus one quart we used for the scratch made gravy for Friday leftovers. We had two quarts left from last Thanksgiving that we used for gravy and for the stuffing.

We put a sprig of fresh from the plant rosemary in each jar before we canned it.
And the other Thanksgiving day tradition is the Christmas tree. We put the tree up and got the presents under it. We are almost done with Christmas shopping, so we can sit back and enjoy the holidays.

We heard about using home made quilts for window covers to keep the cold air out, and we did use quilts last year. But we got to thinking, those quilts were made by Lawman's grandmother, and probably wouldn't hold up to sunlight, and a hand sewn quilt is not something you want to squander on shoddy construction work by Bill Price and Timberwood Log Homes. This year we used moving blankets we found at Tractor Supply on sale. They get the job done, but we curse "Uncle Billy" every time we feel a gust of cold air blow past us.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Henry Returns

We had another visit from DeNephew Henry this weekend. He stopped over for breakfast Saturday morning, and we had a big ol batch of garden fresh pumpkin pancakes. He's also a big fan of the farm fresh eggs, we went through a dozen of them in one sitting.

We got to use the new skillet to make Cupcake's over easy egg this weekend. This was a great idea.

Followers may remember we did a huge canning of white peaches a couple of months ago? Well now that it's cold outside, we put them to good use by way of peach cobbler.

We made two cookings of lye soap this week. Since it's getting cold outside, we are gearing up for more inside projects. Plus it's the only soap we use now and we gift a few bars to Pop every now and then too.

We made one batch of lavender soap with our straight from the pot lavender that Cupcake has been growing. The second batch we made using essential clove oil. We made thirty bars, that should hold us for a month or two.
And speaking of growing things, we started our garden for next year. We did this last year and it turned out really well, plus the Druids thought that keeping green things in the house over the winter kept the spirit of green growing things alive. That's how we got Christmas trees inside the house. But we just keep celery alive so we can plant it in the garden once it warms up. We enjoyed fresh cut celery this year.

"I am Groot"

And on a garden related note, we spread 120lbs of 10-10-10 on the garden and the pumpkin patch. We hope to get a few big snows to cover it up and let the fertilizer soak in for next year.

We are preparing for the big eating day this coming week, and Jake got a picture of a new bobcat on the place this week, so Lawman is in full tactical mode. We will update as details become available.
Our last picture is of Fraidy Mutt. She's settled in with Cupcake watching Christmas movies on The Hallmark Channel.

We ended the week with wings.
K&K

Taters and Chili

Judging from the amount of pictures we took this week, it was a busy week around The Acre. Our first entry this week is a special guest at The Acre. DeNephew Henry came to stay with Pop over the weekend. When Henry visits, we always feed him a big meal. We fed him a couple of big meals this weekend. We also made a big batch of scratch made chocolate chip cookies.

He seemed to enjoy the cookies?

On a cookie related note, we found a cookie at Wallyworld that you make in a real cast iron skillet. We're not one for store bought cakes/cookies, but we wanted the skillet so we bought it. The cookie was nasty, nothing like we fix here. We got a new egg skillet though, so it was worth the price.

The skillet is nice

We made him his very own pizza Friday night. He ate half of it all by himself so there is no doubt he's a Light.

We made ourselves one too. We like a few more things on our pizza.

Saturday morning we made our usual pancake breakfast, but we didn't snap any pictures. We made up for it come Sunday when we made our gravy biscuit breakfast.

Henry's first ever deer tenderloin gravy biscuits

Before Henry came to visit we had already made a couple of big meals. It's starting to get cold, so we are in comfort food mode now. Our pal "Doctor Chuck" posts a lot of recipes on his Faceplace page, and he posted one last week that had a chicken rub on it. We had a whole roasting chicken we were going to smoke so we made the rub part. It turned out really well, so next time we may have to rub it down a day before and let it set overnight.

The untrained eye might think it's burnt

But it's tender and juicy, or as Cupcake likes to say "moist"

Cupcake wanted a potroast for dinner Monday night. We put it on early and slow baked it all day, then made a loaf of fresh bread to go along with it.

Last week Jake killed a deer, so that means we made deer chili this week. We don't only use deer meat, we recycle any leftover meats we have handy, and we picked the last of the peppers in the garden. Green, jalapeno and hot peppers all went in this batch.

Brisket

Steak

Pork Chop

Garden onions

Garden peppers

Backstrap meat

Slow cook it all day

Jar it and can it. Let the zombies come

It made three and a half gallons of chili, we canned it up and now we wait for a big snow to enjoy a quick and hearty meal.
We get to the goings on part of the week now. We dug Pop's potatoes and our own, then we plowed under our garden and our pumpkin patch.

"Where did this pin come from?"

We rolled them out

Pop did really well for just one row this year

After we got Pop's potatoes, we switched off the blade for the plow. Then we went over to The Acre and dug our potatoes. We dug a few more smaller sweet potatoes that were put down when the vines put down runner roots. Then we made a run through the carrot row and dug out several more carrots. After we got all we could, Pop went to work turning the garden under.

Switching the blade to the plow

Bring on a big snow

Next year, pumpkins out of our ears

We are still not getting many eggs from the girls. The bobcat had them on edge, then they went into molt. We average four eggs a day, which is just enough to keep us in eating/baking eggs. Our roadside egg business is on hold until the new pullets start producing. We hope by New Years? We will advise.

Guinea birds watching Fraidy Mutt

'Prop Joe' watching Fraidy Mutt

Fraidy Mutt, wondering why everyone is watching her

Our last picture this week is Cupcake's progress on Christmas prep. She has been staying on top of wrapping presents this year, as we get one, we wrap one. We also hung all the outside lights this week, but we don't turn them on until Thanksgiving night. We just beat the cold.

It was also Veteran's Day this week. We took down our 5x8 flag and put up our 3x5, because we get a really strong breeze over the winter months. The big flag was torn by the wind this year, so we donated it to Henry's scout troop for proper disposal.
We ended the week with wings.
K&K