What to say about the past 3 weeks..... I have been busy. I made some apple sauce, and then apple pies for games night, I've made about 3L of dried apple slices(with more to come), and I'm in the process of making apple scrap vinegar.
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After fighting tooth and nail with the apple sauce trying to puzzle out why some jar seals failed to seal, I'm happy to announce that I'm pretty sure I was just being to delicate with them and the following 6 jars of stew pork, 6 jars of beets, 5 jars of "red relish" and 19 jars of various pickled beets ALL sealed with no issues!
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Unfortunately I did NOT get to the carrots before they went off. Somehow, they were the cleanest and nicest of the three (apples, beets, carrots but by the time I finished with the apples, they were just straight up nasty even though the beets right nest to them were fine. Now the compost pile contains $30 of rotten carrots. :-/ (Don't worry, no pics of this one.) I did learn my lesson though. DO NOT get $60 worth of seconds at a time. It least until I nail down my process.
I will be getting more carrots but I'll have the jars and everything ready to go and I won't have apples begging for attention first. In happier news, my crocus and garlic pre-orders have arrived and I'm looking forward to seeing them again next year. :-)
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| Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash |
The chickens have started to get along better now that I've been making them stay in the shed whenever the weather is bad. Exposure to each other without the possibility of being 50-100 feet away from each other has helped them talk through their issues. There have been TWO tropical storm things gone by now and a few days where the heavy rain and winds just made it easier on my nerves to keep the chickens indoors.
Isabella(black) is the new lead hen after Henrietta's death, and she happily ignores the new girls as they calmly get out of her way. Jennifer(Barred) seems to be in the middle of the main pack, with Kelly(white) still pulling up the rear,... which is of course why she's constantly chasing and nipping at the new girls. Can't let these whipper snappers overtake her.
Lily and Marsha are maturing and starting to get closer to their full size and proper colouration. The grey feathers are coming in more and darker as their moult progresses but they are still mostly white. I am a bit confused about why Marsha's comb and wattles have got dramatically redder and larger than Lilly's. Seems Marsha may be a Marshal which would be bad for her... but it's also possible she's just a few weeks older than Lilly. We'll have to wait and see. Neither of the new girls are laying yet but all of the chickens seem to have a nice gentle autumn moult happening. No naked chickens here.
