Perfect Timing

Anyone who remembers Lawman from the People's Republic  will get the reference.

Cupcake was on another whirlwind adventure for her company this week, so Lawman stayed in close to the house. We got a lot of rain early in the week which caused our cucumbers to swell up faster than we expected. He was going to make another batch of lime pickles while Cupcake was away, but the cucumbers were too big for pickles. He saved a couple of them for cucumber water then fed the rest to the birds.
Second on his list to do was more sketti sauce. We are getting tomatoes at a steady pace.

When Cupcake got back, we drove to a local produce stand and bought some more straw for the slanty shanty and found they had peaches on sale. Last year we made a small batch of peach jelly, and it was at a premium all year, only being opened for special occasions. So when we found these, we bought a half bushel and juiced them for jelly.

 We started on the juice late Saturday and had to bottle it and keep it overnight until Sunday morning. This made one gallon of pure juice.

Sunday Morning after breakfast, we made four batches of jelly. Twenty seven jelly jars and a pint jar we used for leftover jelly to eat on.

And at the same time we were making jelly, we picked a new batch of cucumbers which were just the right size for pickles. We had to break out "ol #5" once again. More lime pickles are in the tube for next week.

On a couple of food related notes, before Cupcake left Lawman made a scratch batch of dinner rolls. This recipe uses cottage cheese and pineapple juice in the mix. It changed our lives.

We switched our chicken wing oil this week from peanut oil to lard. The Interwebs say it's a better taste for the wings, we will report on our findings next week. We also used lard in the Sunday morning biscuits, going "old school."

We end the week with wings. And ducks, because ducks are just stinking cute.

K&K

Got Wind?

We had a quick but strong storm pass through this past week. It blew down a pretty big tree across from our egg stand. It also knocked down some trees along Fishers View Road. The Girl's boyfriend lost power for a few hours, but the linemen were quick like bunnies getting it fixed.

Predator drama happened this week as well. Lawman was on the front porch early one morning enjoying a cup of coffee with the mutt when he saw a red fox walk out of the woods. He had no creep to him what so ever, he just came walking up the hill toward the slanty shanty like he was King Shit of Turdville. Lawman jumped up and, learning from his last encounter, grabbed the M4. He got a good bead on KSoTV and heard "click."
Forgetting he cleaned and lubed the M4 last week, the chamber was empty. Foxxy didn't stick around for a charging and made good his escape. We've been on high alert all week, but so far we've not lost any birds or seen him back.
Between sweeps for foxxy, we did some work in the garden this week. Starting with a half bushel of green beans.

Lawman canned them up, one hour from vine to jar. You can't get any fresher than that.

Then we opened one of our jars of lime pickles from a couple of weeks ago. We are not ashamed to say they were life altering good. So good, we went straight to the garden and picked another mess of cucumbers.

So many cucumbers in fact, we filled our usual two gallon crock to the rim. So we had to break out ol #5 for this job.

We made another 15 pints of pickles.

Monday we grilled chicken old school. Tuesday we had scratch made biscuits with sliced chicken, fresh from the vine tomatoes and lime pickles. Chick fil-a can kiss our butts.

A second trip to the garden was for tomatoes and peppers. This picking made two batches of spaghetti sauce.

Saturday night our usual date night was cancelled. Dude's Drive In closes one week in July for staff vacations. So we bought a box of "Bubba Burgers" and grilled them ourselves. We finished the night off with grilled smore's.

Sunday morning after we cleaned up the breakfast dishes we made another batch of laundry detergent. Because someone has a problem.

All the blue ducks have settled in with the flock. They do their police line in the front yard chasing bugs, then settle in for a nap.

With everything as it should be, we ended the week with wings.
K&K

He's Got The Touch

Cupcake was gone on a business trip all week so Lawman kept himself busy catching up on garden and housework. He did take a day and go fishing with Pop on Thursday.

They got underway on time, found minnows for sale along the way, got to the boat launch and found no crowd. It was shaping up to be a great day on the water. That's when the everything went sideways.
The boys found a spot and put in with the trolling motor, and the trolling motor would not work. So emergency repairs began.

They couldn't make it work, so they hit on the idea that they could go out in the middle of the lake and use the sonar to find a school of fish, and just drift along with no need for a trolling motor. That's when the sonar stopped working.

They tinkered around for a few hours, but decided to call it a day early. Pop still caught two small fish. He truly has "the touch."

Last week we mentioned there was a crock of lime pickles soaking. Lawman canned them up Monday. They made five pints.

Later in the week, Lawman went through the garden and picked everything he could. He canned everything up. That filled a whole day.

One of the things we got a lot of this year is cucumbers. Lawman liked the lime pickles so much, he put on a second crock full. By the time Cupcake got home, they were ready to can.

While the pickles were canning, we went back to the garden and picked a basket full of tomatoes, kale, onions and peppers, then made a batch of fresh from the vine spaghetti sauce and canned it.

Fresh basil and oregano from the deck herb garden really sets it off. This batch made another gallon.
By the weekend, we released the guinea birds we hatched and the new baby ducks we ordered. The big ducks welcomed them into the group and have been showing them how to duck.
The best part of it is, guinea birds are stupid as mud. Every single time since we've had guineas, the first night of freedom meant crawling around under sheds and coops trying to round them up and get them into the coop. Since these little guys think they are ducks, they follow the ducks into the coop. The big ducks even hop out of the coop and lift the small birds up into the coop with their bills. It's the cutest thing we've seen in a long while.

All we have to do now is keep predators away from them until they get big enough to fend for themselves.
We ended the week with wings. And naps.
K&K

Celebrating and Canning

We had our annual visit from "The Good Doctor and his wife" this week. Every 4th of July we invite them out for a bite and to get caught up. Lawman enjoys a reason to make desserts, this week he made two.

Cheesecake and chocolate pie were both from scratch, and seemed to be a hit with the guests.
Instead of our usual smoked brisket, we changed things up and had pulled pork and pulled brisket. We start them in the smoker to add a little smoke flavor, then we finish them off inside. The pork shoulder we finished in the crock pot, the brisket we finished in the cast iron dutch oven.

Add a little home made BBQ sauce to each and we had a pretty decent 4th.
The last smoking we did was a roaster chicken. Lawman picked it and froze the meat. This week Cupcake wanted chicken salad for lunch, so thats what she got.

Lawman took a day and played with his new toy, a steam juicer. We found some cherries locally and have had them in the fridge for a while taking up real estate. He dumped them whole into the juicer and steamed them for about thirty minutes. He got enough juice for two batches of cherry jelly.

By mid week we picked a handful of green beans. Fraidy Mutt loves her some fresh green beans, so we rationed these out as front porch treats for her.

Saturday morning we woke up and were planning our day. We started the day off with nothing to do, so we had breakfast and sat on the front porch enjoying the break in the weather. We decided to check the garden after a big day of rain on Friday.
We found a basket full of goodies. Cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, squash, peppers and kale.

We broke the beans and canned them in pints for Pop, he says pints are just the right size when he wants a quick meal, and he was almost out of pints. Then we found a recipe for canned squash. We canned this picking up so we didn't waste any of it. They will be squash casserole come Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The cucumbers were highly anticipated. We've been getting one or two at a time, just enough to keep us in cucumber water during the week. Now Cupcake had enough to do a canning of lime pickles. So that's what we did while we waited for the canning to get done.

It's a four day process, so results will be reported next week.
We ended this week with "Ant Man and the Wasp" then wings.
K&K