{Homespun Holiday} Happy Thankgiving

Happy Thanksgiving from me and the girls!

There will be more up later about our Thanksgiving. The girls enjoyed their meal this morning.

Love Always,
Rebecca

(Home} Preserving Green Beans

I love my green beans and was saddened that the last farmer's market was coming up because it meant that I wasn't going to be able to get fresh beans for making one of my new favorite dishes. With that thought in my head, I decided to buy a few pounds of beans and freeze them. I am sure this isn't something that everyone wants to know or particularly cares about, but I felt like it was necessary to put up a post about it  since it a part of the journey.


I spent last Monday morning blanching and freezing what I figure was roughly 6 lbs of green beans. I was totally giddy doing it, realizing that I was going to have "fresh" green beans to eat through out the winter. I was happy to think that they are going to be keeping the 12 quarts of corn that we froze company in the freezer. I snapped a few pictures of the process- I figured I would share what it looks like.

This is the island in our kitchen looking out into our living room. This was the prepping station

I started out by dumping the bag of green beans into a dishpan. This made fro easy grab and clip routine for takeing the ends off the beans.

My "trash" bucket. Goodies for the girls, who were not big fans of green beans.

I had the pot of water on the stove with the ice water on the counter near by. I was using the strainer to transfer them from rinsing to cooking.

I love my metal strainer. This made moving the beans from station to station much easier. I rinsed the beans then took them over to the stock pot I had on the stove. 

I boiled the beans in water for 4 minutes.

I have hot beans here, transferring them to the water bath.

I got the water cold enough this time to stop the cooking. Blanching cooks them enough to stop or slow the ripening process. I like crunchy beans, so I didn't cook them too long.

After drying the beans on a paper towel, I separated them out into a few pre-made bags I had on hand for the Food Saver system we have.

I used the Food Saver system to draw the air out of the bags and sealed them.

Once vacuumed and sealed, I used a permanent marker to write the date on the package. The date reflects when the beans were blanched and frozen.

I did 2 different package sizes. That way we can cook a family side dish or one for an individual serving.

I hope you enjoyed this. Just the beginnings of a homestead.

Love Always,
Rebecca

{Farm} The Coop is Almost Finished!

As fall time is approaching. we are working vigorously to get the coop finished for our girls. We would like nothing better to not be our there in the cool weather to finish things up. Not to mention it would be much better if the tools my dad has been using could get put away before they have a severe chance of getting wet. Its also exciting to see mine and my dad's combined vision coming to life. As I mentioned before, a neighbor of ours deemed it the Chicken Taj Mahal because of its intricate design. I want to make a sign that says that on it... The floor has been finished and partially installed since I took these photos and the girls have been allowed to venture out. Its been great fun to watch them interact.

The outside of our chicken coop

We designed the nesting boxes to be accessible from the outside to make it easier to get the eggs

I saw this idea while cruising on Pinterest. They used plastic boxees for easy cleaning. So far it has worked well.

The chicken's view of the nesting boxes.

We made the nesting boxes a foot across and 15 inches deep.

They are a foot up from what will be the floor of the coop

The bottom of the coop served as the next size up brooder while we finished the rest of it.

 The girls are getting bigger now. They are growing up so fast. I have been trying to figure out a way to keep track of who is who. The best way I have come up with is to put bands on all the chickens to keep track of which is which. Corresponding the name with a number will make it easier to identify each on as our flock grows in the future.  We also have three roosters... none of which are regular sized chickens. The Rhode Island Reds are a blast. I have a couple of them that are super friendly and will hop on my lap to eat out of my hand in the morning. There is one that is even figuring out how to sit up on my shoulder like a parrot... also the same one which flew onto my head one evening as I was closing the coop for the night.

Cute and curious little creatures.

I stuck the camera in and the immediately all grouped together. Defensive strategy?

With my mother's expertise we have since discovered that all three of the roosters we have are bantam chickens.

He already has a "big chicken complex."

I wanted to add this photo of Linus (aka Lil' Man.) I apparently adopted the great chicken herder... This is his station when I am out with the girls. Lil' Man flipped out the first time they ventured out of the coop. I finally figured out that it was because they were in the wrong place. For a herding dog, that is a big deal.When my dad did the feeding an watering yesterday morning, he left the gate open just enough for chickens to possibly escape. According to him, Lil' Man was right there, herding them back into the run. I thought it was a cute story.

I hope you have enjoyed this little update. Stay tuned for my next post which will be about my experience with freezing some summer green beans for the winter months as well as a recipe that I enjoyed making with them over the summer.

Love Always,
Rebecca

{Farm) Our New Featherd Family

Good Morning Friends!

Well, it has officially begun. We now have a feathered family. No, we didn't go through and evolution and suddenly grow sings. We did however purchase a few (by a few I mean 31, now 30) chicks of various breeds and ages. My family members can't be trusted not to come home with something- myself included. All it takes is a need to explore chicken scratch at a ranch store and then find out that they are offering 10 chicks free with a 50lb bag of feed... My dad ordered 2 bags of feed and we took home our 21 chicks. (I know that doesn't add up. my dad bought an extra chick because he felt bad about leaving one little chick in the brooder at the store.) My parents decided they wanted to get organic feed, so they went back to find out if they could exchange it. They ended up paying the difference for the feed and in the process the sales clerk supposedly insisted that they take 10 more chicks. At that point we then had 31 chicks. Unfortunately one of them didn't make it. So we now have 30.

Now the issue isn't having 30 chicks... its that we now have 30 chicks chilling in a watering trough in the loft of our house that are in addition to 10 that we are receiving from friends of ours in town. Those are the 10 we originally were supposed to be starting out with. Those chickens will be a bit older than the others, but we are in hopes that they will integrate nicely and we will have several different generations of chickens .

I don't have pictures of each individual (although it is a goal to have an info sheet for each chicken in the future) but here are a few of the collective bunch.

The little Reds seem to be pretty brave and curious

I stuck the camera in like I would my hand and this one got all excited to check out my camera.

I decided to start hand feeding them as well.  Not only is it getting them used to my hand so I can pick them up easier it is also allowing me to have a few that will be able to interact with kids when they come out to our farm/homestead.  I know that my cousin's daughter will love being able to have them eat out of her hand. The Rhode Island Reds seem to be a bit more adventurous than the others. anytime my hand goes in they come running to check it out. There are also a few of the Sex Links that will do it.

They are amazing to just sit and watch. Each of the hens has brooding hardwired into their genetics. Before we lost the little one, one of the older Sex Links chicks would burrow herself into the paper and get the little chick to go under her wing. I love how God has placed a maternal instinct in us at any age, even my niece (my cousin's daughter) has that with her baby dolls. We are programmed to love in some capacity.

Well that is all for now. I will hopefully have a {Letters from the Garden} update tomorrow or Saturday.

Love Always,

Rebecca