Free food!

Kelsi and I came across a sweet deal on apples and grapes yesterday. They were free! A friend of my parents is moving out of state this month and they had grape vines and apple trees that were loaded, and the fruit was going to stay that way all winter. So we went and picked some! I picked 80 pounds of apples and 50 pounds of grapes. My mom and dad picked 112 pounds of grapes and 193 pounds of apples. If anyone out there has any suggestions for us on how to us all of this, let us know!

The unfortunate thing about grapes, is that they are on a vine. We diligently separated the grapes from their stems for a couple hours. We had some help from our animal friends to. 

It was hard work!

This is the end result. The grapes are in a 7.5 gallon pot. 

 Yumm! This is what 114cups of grapes looks like! But, we couldn't have done it without all of the help we received from our four legged friends

 Khma

 Khma

 Henry

Julies!

Thanks for reading!

Free food.

My parents are in the relastate

Busy fall

We have been absent from the blogging a lot this fall. This is supposed to be our winding down time where we plan our garden for next spring. Not so. I started nursing school this past August and it has taken up most of my time, what time I have left is spent working and getting the farm ready for winter. Kelsi has also been very busy too, she took at full time position at her job a few months back which keeps her very busy. 

So I have a bunch of photos to show all that we have been up to

 We recently harvested 18 of our meat birds. We did 8 one day and 10 on another day. We have decided that we aren't going to raise meat to sell to other's. The line between profit and loss is very thin in the meat business. Plus I really don't like having to harvest the chickens. Taking another creatures life is not a very rewarding experience. In these pictures you can see the difference between a standard commercial variety(Cornish Cross, left side of photo), and the kind we raised(Right side of photo). Very different

 Redstar Rooster

 Cornish cross rooster

  Pierre has become very friendly these past few months, he follows me everywhere and lets me pick him up. 

 He's pretty silly

 He gives hugs

 We also recently adopted a cat that we named Henry. The mice have been terrible this summer. They ate all of our potatoes, some melons, and a few squash. We are hoping to fix this problem with Henry's help. He is pretty helpful around the house already.

 He keeps my seat warm when I get up

 He checks for leaks in the dishwasher

 He gives a thorough inspection

 He asks us for our opinion

 He checks the laundry to ensure they are dry throughout

 We have also been doing quite a bit of preserving. These are our tomatoes. 

 We had a lot of extras, so we decided to can them.

 Kelsi dellegently stirs the pot

 We gathered nearly 5 gallons of green and purple peppers from the garden

 They look so small here, but there is a lot there

 We also went to the farms market and bought more fruits and veggies. This 37 pound box of tomatoes only cost us 20 bucks! Sweet deal

 This is the extent of our canning so far. The table was nearly covered.

 Looks pretty good!

 Hot cinnamon apples: 6quarts

 Applesauce: 7quarts

 Peaches: 12quarts

 Pickles: 18quarts

Crushed tomatoes: 20quarts

Pickled green tomatoes: 7 quarts

That's it for now, thanks for reading!