Happy Fall, Garden Harvest and Kitties!

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Happy Fall everyone!!  Are you enjoying fall like days on your homestead yet?  We have been for a bit now.  Hard to believe the end of September is here all ready.  Seems like a lot has been going on at home and I have not had the time to post much and I have lots of updates but only time this afternoon for these..  the rest will follow! 

I have been harvesting corn and tomatoes!  I picked about 40 lbs. of tomatoes.. I used 10lbs to make a batch of salsa. You can find the recipe I use here:
http://thefamilyhomestead.com/cannedsalsa.htm  I got 15 pints. 
 
 

Then with the rest of the tomatoes...



I made spaghetti sauce which I canned up. I ended up with 15 quarts of sauce. I am really praying I will have enough tomatoes to do another round of both salsa and spaghetti sauce.  We will see.. so many of my tomatoes are getting mushy before ripe enough due to all the rain.  But there are some dry days in the forecast so there is still hope!

 

Then between the rain storms my boys and I picked the corn. Here is what we had when we came back to the house…



And here is what it looked like after it was husked…

 

And here is what it looked like after it was processed up…13 quarts off the cob and 9 gallon bags corn on the cob…..






We also got two new kitties.. both of them are girls. Their mama abandoned them and they are about 4 or 5 weeks old. Sierra is currently playing mama to them and feeding them 3 times a day with milk and little soft cat food.. soon they should be on solid food, but in the meantime Sierra is loving her job as kitty mama. Isaac named the all black kitty Midnight and Sierra named the black one with the white nose and paws, October. 



That's all the updates I have time for today!  Hope you are having a great week on your homestead!! 

Comments

  1. AgnesSeptember 24, 2010 at 6:37 AM

    They are so cute, want them !

    beautiful harvest

    Happy fall to you too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. StephanieSeptember 24, 2010 at 10:19 AM

    Crystal, this might sound stupid but I am new at this freezing/canning thing. Do you boil your corn before you freeze it? I've had some people tell me yes and some say no. I want to do what is the easiest, naturally! lol Your food always looks delicious so I'd like to get your opinion on it.

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. CrystalSeptember 24, 2010 at 11:07 AM

    Hi Stephanie, Yes you must boil it, it is called blanching. I have step by step instructions on my website with pictures on how to freeze corn on the cob.. http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/freezecornoncob.htm I don't have the info yet on freezing corn off the cob... but either way you do it, you have to blanch the corn first.

    Crystal :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Heather's Blog-o-ramaSeptember 24, 2010 at 12:20 PM

    wow...I'm impressed with all the canning that you've been doing. That's a LOT!!!!...oh, the salsa does look yummy and so does all that corn. You have enough to last you for quite awhile:) :) :)

    Oh, the two new kittens...Midnight and October are just so adorable...Linda over at Prairie Flower Farm and her family are raising an abandoned kitten named Sophie. she's being bottle fed right now...and she's just as cute as anything...just li ke your two little furry love bundles :) :) They're so cute...

    Are they outdoor cats? Do they follow you around everywhere?

    Thanks for sharing these photos. Have a great weekend. Love and hugs from Oregon, Heather :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. CrystalSeptember 24, 2010 at 1:26 PM

    Hi Heather! :) Yes they are outdoor cats.. we need them to keep the mice population under control! They try and follow us.. but are so little right now that they don't usually make it off the porch! LOL.. They love attention!! And they are getting lots of it from us! :)

    Hope you have a good weekend too.. looks like we may have some sunshine this weekend in our part of the country.. :)

    ReplyDelete

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