Blueberry Picking

     There was a fantastic crop of wild blueberries this year. The bugs did really well too, so going berry picking was not on the top of my to-do list. Corey, Peyton, Nora and I went south of town a few weeks ago though, Peyton was trying to earn enough money to buy a lizard so she wanted to pick some to sell.

     It's not easy to pick a gallon even when the berries are good.

     The berries in the purple bucket Nora picked all by herself. Then she spilled them, and ate all the rest.

     It really is beautiful out in the woods.

    All cleaned. That's the worst part of the whole experience. Peyton and I pick pretty clean, but Corey puts the whole blueberry plant in his bucket.

The Chickens are nearly grown.

   The chickens are getting so big. They are so fun to watch. If one finds a bug or blade of grass, it takes off running and all the rest chase it. They are so entertaining.

  This one had just pecked at Nora's face. That's what the weird expression is for.

   All the colors of the rainbow.......Sort of.

     These two found a little depression in the dirt and used it for a bathtub.

     There was lots of scratching and fluffing the dirt. 

 

     They get to be free range during the day now, and they love it. 

 

    He's avoiding the photographer.
 

     They are pretty independent now, and don't much care to be held and petted, but they can still be lured close with food. 

 

     Since we have mostly roosters, there are quite a few stand-offs every day. Everybody's a tough guy....

 

    She loves her chickens.

     The turkens are getting cuter, they've grown a patch of feathers on the front of their necks.  I don't really know how much bigger they need to get before we butcher, I guess a few more weeks. I'm really dreading that part of this experience.

Tea for...Ewww....

  My Mom and Dusty have a huge mint patch in their garden, so one day Peyton and I decided we should try to make some homemade mint tea. We picked a bunch and washed it up. 

    

    Then we picked the leaves from the stem and put them in a regular coffee filter.

     We tied it up with dental floss.

    Popped it in a cup..

     And used our single serve coffee pot to get hot water.

     We let it steep for about 10 minutes..

 
  And it was gross. Even after adding a liberal amount of honey it really had no flavor. I thought maybe the leaves have to be dry first so I took the leaves we had left and put them on a cookie sheet on the deck where the hot sun would hit them.  The strong wind also hit them, and when I went to check on them all but a few had dried up and blown away. This experiment was pretty much an epic fail all the way around. I'm going to try to make homemade mint extract at some point, hopefully with better success!!



 

Freezing Tomatoes

    Organic tomatoes are expensive, and hard to find in our area. I would love to be an expert canner, but I struggle with it. I've dumped out more jars of food that I ruined than I like to admit. Therefore, my preserving method of choice is freezing. One year I froze my tomatoes whole, but then you have big chunks of peeling in whatever dish you prepare, and your uses are limited. Last year I used the following method and it worked great. It is really quick, today it took me less than 20 minutes start to finish. I put a pot of water on to boil and went to pick tomatoes. I washed the tomatoes and put them in the boiling water for about a minute, just until the skins started to split.

    Take them out and let them cool for a few minutes or you'll regret it.

    I planted Romas and another kind that I didn't keep the tag for, so I can't remember the name. Any kind will do.

     Cut the tomatoes in half and remove the stem.

     Dice.

  
     I added all the tomatoes to a bowl and mixed the two types together.

     I labeled quart Ziploc freezer bags and added about two ladles to each bag.

  Press as much air out of the bags as you can. You can either freeze them flat or have all the tomatoes at the bottom. I like to put them all in a container together in the freezer for better organization.  Happy preserving!