Tuesday on the Homestead

-

 


Tuesday is almost over now.  But this is the first time I have had a chance to sit down long enough to post a blog entry. 


 


Yesterday was a busy Monday and a lot of things on my list did not get marked off and were put on today’s list.  I am happy to say that I am making great progress for today!   


 


I had frozen goat milk cubes to bag up and more milk to freeze.  I use this for my goat’s milk soap. I also had a few orders from my store to package up and send out.  Then I updated my website a little. 


 


While I was doing that Hannah took Jacob, Sierra and Isaac to swimming lessons. I have been so thankful for Hannah’s help!  She is a good daughter that enjoys being a help to me. 


 


I have finished almost all the laundry for today..  but like I have said in the past when you have 6 kids at home is laundry ever really finished??


 


I fed my sourdough starter.  I now have this daily ritual of grinding up my rye berries, pouring out the starter into a bowl, adding the freshly ground flour and water and pouring it all back into a clean gallon size jar.  Tomorrow I will be making more bread! 


 


My cheese cultures arrived from Leener’s!!  I am so excited!  I pulled milk out of my freezer and tomorrow I am going to make some cream cheese and some buttermilk.  Then later this week I want to make some feta cheese. 


 


I vacuumed and dusted my bedroom and picked things up and just organized it a little.  It looks and just feels so nice now!


 


Yesterday Sierra came back from my best friend’s house.  Tobin picked her up after work. She had spent 3 days there.  It felt like she was at camp she was gone for so long!   I could not believe how much I missed my little girl.  She had a good time while there.  My friend has 2 daughter’s close in age to Sierra and so the 3 of them had a blast doing little girl type things.  Something that Sierra does not often do seeing as how she is sandwiched between 2 brothers. 


 


Tomorrow is Emily’s birthday.  She will be 16!  I can’t believe where all the years have gone!  Of course I say this with each of my 8 children, every birthday, and funny thing is I am equally shocked each time! LOL.. 


 


She had a birthday get together wither some friends on Saturday.  We took a van full of teenage girls and Jacob, Isaac and a friend to the ice rink to go skating.  They all had so much fun.  Even Tobin skated.  He had fun too..  he used to play ice hockey when he was a kid.   I did not skate.. I watched purses, shoes and monitored the hot cocoa! 


 


But tomorrow, we will have a small party for Emily any way and enjoy some pizza, cake and ice cream.  I am still trying to think of a good cake to make for this.  Something somewhat healthy would be nice! 


 


Dinner for tonight is Red Beans and Rice and a salad. 


 


Well that sums up my Tuesday on the Homestead! 


 


 


Comments

  1. CathyMay 3, 2006 at 12:49 AM

    Crystal,

    Happy Birthday to Emily. Give your girl a big hug from me. I hope she has a special day. What a great blog entry...love reading about your days. Glad Sierra had a great time at your friends house...I know that was fun for her. Thinking of you all and wishing you a blessed day.

    With love,

    Cathy

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All messages are moderated. After approval your message will be posted. Thank you for your comments!! Crystal :)

Popular posts from this blog

Canning Chicken Noodle-less Soup

-
Image
Today was one of those busy days that it seemed I was moving from the time my feet hit the floor until this evening.. But, I got so much done and that is a great feeling! :) One of my accomplishments today was canning 14 jars of chicken noodle-less soup. I call it “noodle-less” because you can’t can noodles. They end up falling apart. So I canned the chicken, veggies and broth. When I go to use the soup I will bring it to a boil and then add a handful of noodles (any type of pasta will work) and cook it until the noodles are done. Because I plan to add the pasta after the fact I wanted to make sure there was enough chicken broth to do this. So I only filled my jars about half to two thirds with chicken and veggies and then filled with chicken broth. Here is how I did this…. I started off with 2 chickens that were a total weight of about 10lbs. I put them in my 14 quart stock pot… I then added 2 gallons of water.. And 3 tablespoons salt.. I brought this ...
Read more

Canning Cabbage

-
Image
I had 4 large heads of cabbage that weighted about 25 pounds. We had some really hot days and I figured I better get the last of them picked soon. My daughter Sierra and I ended up processing 3 of them yesterday and I have one left for a meal on my menu this week. I made pickled cabbage and then canned up the last of the cabbage. Here is the recipe for the pickled cabbage (according to how I made it)… 8 pounds cabbage 1 large onion 1 ½ red peppers 1 lb carrots ¾ cup salt 9 cups water 12 cups white vinegar 10 cups sugar 1t mustard seed 1t celery seed Slice cabbage thinly. Slice onion and peppers. Grate carrots. Mix all veggies together in a very large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix in well. Let sit for 2 hours to soften veggies. Rinse veggies well.  In a large stock pot (mine was 14 quarts) combine water, vinegar, sugar, spices. Bring to a boil. Add cabbage/veggies. Bring to a boil. Fill hot pint jars with veggies using a slotted spoon. Fill jar with brine...
Read more

Canning Beef Stew

-
Image
In my last blog post I shared that I had bought 10 pounds of beef roast. I cut it all up and used 4 pounds in 2 crockpot freezer meals ( http://homesteadinghomemaker.blogspot.com/2012/02/two-more-crockpot-meals-for-freezer.html ) . I used the other 6 pounds of meat along with potatoes, carrots, onions and celery to can beef stew. Here were the general proportions I used in canning 7 quarts of beef stew.. 6# beef 2# potatoes 2# carrots 1# onions 1# celery After I cut up the meat and got the freezer meals done I moved to the beef stew. I peeled and cut up the potatoes and carrots. I chopped up the onions and sliced the celery. I pulled out 3 quarts of veggie stock from my freezer to use for liquid in the stew. You can use beef or chicken stock or you can use water. I did not add anything to thicken the liquid as usually thickeners don’t hold up in canning. You can thicken the broth after it is opened if you would like. I added 1 teaspoon salt to each of my ...
Read more