Apple Pie Filling, Turkeys and Puppies

Apple Pie Filling Sauce...

I guess that is what you would call it. It starts out watery and ends up like gel. Last year I used a recipe with cornstarch but that's not supposed to be safe so I switched to Clear Jel. I kinda like the cornstarch better. The Clear Jel filling was so thick it was like goo. We'll see when I make something with it.

Bad picture, sorry but it got smooth after a while but was very prone to sticking so I had to stir, stir, stir.


Apples all cut up.

Put in jars and poured syrup over then noticed that the sauce was too thick to get to the bottom so I poured it all out, started over and layered it as I went.

Then capped them up and processed.

Some of the jars were sticky so I think it boiled out so I'll be watching those jars and not filling so much next time.

Looks really pretty though.

Remember the turkey with the broken leg? Well, she is fine and back to roosting on the spot where she got her leg caught. Kevin pounded the hooks off of it so they won't get caught again.

(Eileen, it looks like the one in the middle is a tom and on each side are are two hens so I'll be bringing one over when your ready.)

They are so beautiful!
The tom's starting to gobble and strut, just in time for Thanksgiving. (but we're not eating him though, just yard decoration.)

Newest puppy picture, they are getting so big. If you can count them there are seven in that pile!

Til next time,

Beth

Ducks on the Pond

Maybe two months ago I went and found some ducks for our pond. I got a pair of Harlequins, hopefully male and female and a pair of Runner ducks. They have been stuck in this pen near the house for a while until they were ready for the water.

And we finally found a use for the trampoline that I have been wanting out of my yard for two years.

We wrapped it in chicken wire and used step in posts to create a space for them to feel safe. It's working really well as long as we get no raccoons ambling by. Plus, they need to be used to being away from the chicken house. The set up is not so pretty but it works very well.



Kevin extended the fence a little into the water so they can swim a little and get away from any land creature that might try to get them.

I think they're happy.

Our little side flower garden is really beautiful now.

Every thing's blooming and it's really easy to keep weeded.

If you can see there is a pretty butterfly on the Verbena.

There little guys are missing their sister. I went out to see the chicks last week and there sis was hanging from her ankle from their roost. She had gotten it inside of a hook. I felt so bad, so, so bad! It was my fault that I didn't take the hooks off but how do you know what can happen. The hooks were way below the roost pole.

Here she is in her hospital pen. She spent a week in the house with a large immobilizing splint on it. We changed it to a smaller bandage and put her outside in a small pen. She is much happier. Her would sister spend all day calling for her and she, in turn calling back when she was in the house so at least they can see each other. They hang around outside her door off and on all day.

It's swollen but she is putting weight on it so I hope it heals. It was absolutely broken completely, both bones and would move back and forth in a terrible way. I put some of those long wood match sticks (broken to a proper length) that you use for to light a fireplace on three sides of the break and taped it nice and firmly. I'm really hoping it works. Does anyone out there know how long it will take to heal and how long I should keep the bandage on?

Back to some plant stuff. We bought some Hardy Kiwi a while ago and have been waiting for a good spot to plant it. We finally got our fence in and we plan to have it grow up and along some wire we will put on top of the fence. Kevin plans to drill holes and run some high tensile wire along through the top to make a strong place for it to grow. It is very heavy stuff and it grows really fast. I guess it takes five years or so for it to fruit. All we have is time so we will wait.

You have to get male and female and this is the tag for the male.

You have to plant it about 15 feet apart so we planted then at every other post.

Here's the fence almost done. He's left the poles long at the top to enable the wire to run through with room for the plants to spread around.

Strawberries running all around. Unfortunately the chickens have discovered them so some sort of short fence is required.

Pretty petunias. The color was much better in person and would be here if I had a normal camera and not my phone for pictures.

Another beautiful day at my sister's house below...

Hanging at the Tiki Bar...

The boys fishing. Kevin and Tom (BIL) had the boat, trying out Kevin's new fish finder out (btw, the lake is 38 feet deep at the deepest point! Never knew for sure.) so the boys were stuck with the paddle boat, their tackle boxes barely fit in the back.

I think they really had fun, no matter the size of the boat.

Have to end with this awesome picture.

Til next time,

Beth

I'm Way Over It!

Well, well, well......... now it's time to test everyone's patience. Christmas was almost two months ago and now what do we look forward to. It's nowhere near time to even think about getting excited for spring. The other day I told someone that I think spring is in the air and they looked at me like I was crazy, I'm not kidding. I really wanted to believe it.

Two days later we got dumped on. I think it was 400 inches that we got here in the snow belt. (Any people south of the Mason Dixon line will never understand.)

People say I shouldn't complain, you live in Ohio, get used to it.

They just don't understand.

I don't think they have to carry five gallon buckets of water to their chickens through 45 inches of drifted snowbanks. Trying to maneuver along a thin trail that the dogs have carved out is impossible. The bucket of water bumps along, usually dumping a half a gallon down my leg and into my boot. Although I actually did get some eggs yesterday! FOUR, yes, four from 12 chickens. That's all since the first of January.

This spring I'm investing in Australorps! I'm going to thin out the flock and get some chickens that actually lay eggs. I'll keep my favorites hens though, the ones that I love. (Which is actually all of them so it's going to be really hard!)

This guy has decided to start sitting up at the top of this tree. It barely looks strong enough to hold him. My brother in law, Tom said it looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book.

Look how funny. He's lucky he's so beautiful because yesterday we went round and round. Him trying to kill me and me trying to get away from him. I ended up wrestling him to the ground, laying on him, with one arm around his body the other hand around his neck (so he wouldn't peck my eyes out). Yelling at him, explaining that I can't clean his water bucket if he is trying to kill me. I think I almost strangled him, the look on his face was crazy. And by the way, he is huge and scary. I had to wrestle him down two times and then he almost left me alone... let's just say he was a little more respectful of the crazy woman.

The other day when I pulled into the driveway after getting home from work I saw that he had flown over the fence, probably from this perch. He ran to the car and commenced to try to surround me. His head reaches up above the car window and he was staring at me, chattering, daring me to come out. If you've never heard a mean turkey- that is the sound they make when they want to kill you, it's kinda like a really mean chattering sound but it ends with a really cute sigh. I'll have to try and record him sometime. I got the snow brush from the back seat of the car and used it as a defense weapon to get out. If I have any kind of long stick in my hand I can bonk him on the head with it and he will back away.

Here is the 400 inches, of course it's not 400 but it may as well be.



This freezer is on the back porch, (how hillbilly is that) anyway, look at the snow and how it drifted. Funny, huh? I couldn't wait for Kevin to get up and show him but it collapsed shortly after this. It was still dark out (maybe 5:30 a.m.) when I took this picture.



That's a lotta snow on that table. Looks like 400 inches to me!




The doggies making their way to go potty. That's similar to the path that I walk through to the chicken house, nice huh. Kevin plowed it once for me but it was just before we got the 400 new inches.

Even with all the snow and everything there is still one thing to look forward to in February!

A box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne.

If you've never had Austi Spumati champagne you need to try it. It's not expensive either. At least this bottle wasn't. I think Kevin said it was like $15.00, not too bad for a special occasion?

Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

Turkey Butchering Day, Thanksgiving and Remodeling!

This is a very long post with lots of pictures so if you're just interested in the turkey butchering go straight to the bottom.

And we absolutely did not butcher the tom you see here, even though his whole goal in life is to attack me. At least he has something to live for.

Thanksgiving was really nice this year. Actually it's been nice every year of my life except maybe last year wasn't so nice what with my mom just getting out of the hospital the night before and my sister, Amy living in Georgia (she is home now).

I used this bottle of $3.98 wine for basting my turkey, the bottle was the prettiest of all the wines.

I cleaned a couple of pie pumpkins and roasted the seeds. I found a recipe that calls for you to boil them for 15 minutes before you bake them with a little oil and salt, very good! Usually I don't like roasted pumpkin seeds but it seems that boiling them first causes the shell to soften slightly making them much crunchier after baking.

I ended up giving these to my chickens to eat. As I was taking them out of the oven my sister told me that my mom bought pies and I was so busy with everything else that I figured the chickens and turkeys would love them. I have another one that I'll cook up maybe for Christmas.

I had no twine to tie up my turkey and after searching all over the house I finally found this light pull string, I cut off the metal tab things and it worked just fine.

I figured it was a much better choice than this stuff, it might have weird stuff in it.

My turkey basting supplies, butter and the wine in the other picture. I always roast my turkeys the Martha Stewart's Turkey 101 way. Always delicious, never dry. Covering it with cheesecloth and basting every half hour with the wine and butter is the best.

All stuffed up and ready for the cheesecloth. Check out my helper in the background.





Complete and ready for the oven. It was still dark outside when I took these pictures because I had a 27 pound turkey that had to be ready by 3:00 pm.




This is about four hours into it. The cheesecloth really protects the skin from over browning before the rest gets done.

Time to remove the cheese cloth and look how nice it is.

Another hour in the oven and it was perfect.

Yummy! Do you think my plate's full enough? I ate it all too.

He waited patiently for a bite, he got one too.

Kevin got an early Christmas gift from Tom. An awesome knife engraved with his initials.
Unfortunately, he didn't get a deer yet so he hasn't tried it out.

I collected dill that was growing at my back door and decided to dry it in case I need it for early pickles. I'm going to try to get some started early enough this spring so I will have fresh though. I couldn't find any last year until later in the summer. I'm going to try and grow some in a hoop house or something, maybe even a cold frame?

This was the motivation for my week of remodeling. I had scheduled half a week off after Thanksgiving when Kevin is off for gun week. He spent most of the week down south in a cabin so with the house empty I seem to get a lot done.

First, I painted the doors for my lower cupboards and hung them up.

I also laid down some tiles that were needed because when we took out the pantry there were spots that had the old tile under it. Plus I put down a wood border that replaced the old silver border that you can see in the picture above.

Here's the floor with the new tile and border. It still needs some finishing work but it looks way better that before. (Amy, call me and let me know how you think it looks. )

Now, back to the reason for some of my work. All of the walls in the living area used to be this awful paneling. We eventually want to drywall but I had nowhere to hang my new decoration so I convinced Kevin to let me paint. He wanted me to wait until we drywalled but who knows when that will be and I needed to hang up my new decoration. It could be years.

Everything was so dark and dreary and dirty looking.

First I primed. (Actually, first I filled all the holes and sanded and sanded!)

There was a really high spot and I had no ladder.

So I improvised and stood on this stool on top of another stool, very lucky I didn't fall. When I put on the paint I taped a paint brush onto a extension pole and used that, it worked but if you get up close it might look bad.

Lookin' better!

Much better.

Then I decided to go after the wall on the other side of the house.

I want to get new curtains now. Maybe just plain ones like you'll see in the picture of the sliding glass door. Soon I'll trim around the windows.

I also put down this carpet in the laundry room. The floor was terrible with mismatched tiles.

I then trimmed out the area over the sliding glass door and hung the curtains, not perfect but so much better!

This picture looks a little better. I really like these simple tab curtains and will hopefully get some for the other side of the room.


Turkey Butchering

Yep, it's you!


We normally use killing cones but they were not big enough so Kevin resorted to using feed sacks, worked pretty good too. You can see him in the background, he hung the bag with the turkey in it, cut them and they stayed really calm, slowly going to sleep. That's me and my MIL Kaye in the foreground.

Then the birds went into the scalder, they barely fit they were so huge.

That's Kevin and his dad, Mike running the plucker. It was so nice to have their help for the day.

The plucker was the best investment we ever made.

More scalding.

More plucking.

Kaye and I working on getting the guts out. First getting the crop loose.

Then getting the back end loose and ready to slide out.

All out and trimming the gallbladder from the liver.

Kaye's removing the lungs and I'm trimming the heart maybe or something.

There's the gizzard.

Cutting it open to clean all the stuff out and remove the lining.

All done, this one weighed 27 pounds and it was the one we had for our Thanksgiving dinner.



Our photographer for the day was my niece Stephanie. It was her first butchering experience and she took lots of pictures. The next picture that she took was a little unusual but I thought I'd include it as a fitting ending to the day. It was how we all felt after lugging around 27 pound turkeys.

Til next time,

Beth