John Cooking

He's focusing on getting the chicken broth started, after it's done simmering we'll put it in the fridge (he used my hot water bath canner to make it in) and in the morning skim the fat off the top, strain it, then can it in quart jars for soup making etc., this winter.

Making Broth

Making chicken broth I don't have a steam juicer yet so I'm still doing this the old fashioned way. That's 20 pounds of chicken hind quarters in the pot, one whole onion, four carrots, and some salt and pepper - oh and one huge dollop of chopped garlic! This is John's project, mine will be making jam in the morning, after more berry picking in the woods.

Today's Harvest

Six gallons of sour cherries, hopefully I'll be able to get permission to pick the other two cherry trees tomorrow or by Monday.

All American Canner

My friend Nancy brought her All American Canner over, I believe it's the 941, anyway who knew how greatful I'd really be! Dh bought, on spectulation that the freezer that was arriving yesterday would actually work, 40 pounds of chicken parts! Well lets just say I'll be canning lots of chicken tonight.

Yes I love color and tried a few things on the walls in my kitchen, but then got busy and wasn't able to finish the job. In the next few weeks I'll be painting the kitchen a very nice medici white (sherwin williams) and the ceiling a nice pale yellow. Haven't decided on a cabinet color yet.

Freezer Woes

Remeber back on June 26th I recieved a call from Sears informing me that my newly arrived chest freezer had been dropped and was damaged beyond repair? If not go read that post. Now for yesterday's exciting news, Sears calls our replacement freezer is here!!! Yippee I'm walking on clouds, until dh opens the box and finds that it's damaged and very badly

Hands

Post berry picking! Normally my hands look like this after a day of working in the studio not tonight though this is juice of the berry on my hands!

Clematis

My clematis vine is looking especially nice this year!

Heaven in a Bucket!

John took me on the best date ever tonight we went berry picking! The black raspberries and gooseberries are ripe and ready to eat! I've plans for gooseberry jam and black raspberry jam tomorrow, then tomorrow night we've plans to pick two cherry trees north of town.

Art Yarn In Progress

Here's a start, I need to change my maiden/flyer over to the jumbo flyer/maiden if I want to spin any appreciable amounts of yarn. The oriface on the standard Ashford flyer is too small for this type of spinning, some day Ill have a second wheel base!

Art Batt

Wool batt, silk carrier rods, silk sliver, flax, mohair roving, and thrums are available in my shop.

Normally I don't post here but wanted to share what I was up too tonight, I'm experimenting with some new art yarns. Right now I'm tired and am hurting a lot from doing yard work today, so I cheated and instead of making up a new batt I pulled a half used one out of my stash. The silk carrier rods to the right are rust dyed the others were dyed using acid dyes.

Thomas in Window

Kitty Still Life! Thomas my Maine Coon cat sitting in the window sniffing the great out doors after a down pour.

Clematis After Rain

Sounds like a good name for a beautiful plant that has been recently drenched!

Flees!

Well tonight ensued an emergency trip to the pet departmeent of my local super megalomart! I found not one but three flees on Angel, our sheltie, this meant bath time again (the poor dogs just had a bath last weekend), for all of them and then application of the anti-flee medication. Tomorrow I will commence cleaning the whole house, using the cleaner on the sofa and easy chair, and clean the carpets, I will then go to the big box megalomart super hardware store and buy flee and tick killer for the lawn!

Paranoid? Maybe. But experience has taught me that I'm VERY allergic to flee bites and this is something I'm just not willing to mess around with. It's been in the back of my mind as it's been really wet here, and a wet spring equals lots of flees, and now I have proof. Back in the 90's I had about a dozen bites on my legs they both swelled up to about twice their normal size and turned a purplish black color, I looked like I had been half beaten! Two trips to the doctor later and it was discovered that I had been bitten by a flee or two and had had a nasty reaction.

Oh and cats really don't like taking a bath!

Grape Arbor

John got it built finally! Orignally it was supposed to have reclaimed columns and a brick patio but at the last moment we decided to put the vegetable garden back in this year. Next year I'll work on container gardening.

Sour Cherries

Will post pics tomorrow, we picked about 4 gallons of sour cherries tonight. My friend, Becky, invited us down to pick the cherries at her place! tomorrow I will can them, it's a lot of work right now but will be well appreciated come January.

New Freezer - NOT

Well our new chest freezer was scheduled to arrive next week but now it's not coming until July 3rd! Sears called leaving several frantic messages telling us it was being "reshipped" the last message I recieved informed me that my chest freezer had been damaged when it was dropped off, literally and figuratively, of the back of a moving vehicle. Nice well at least they told us the truth, I'm figuring it must have been damaged and really badly for them to admit to the fact that it had been damaged.

Until the new freezer arrives it'll be an ongoing archeology dig in the upright as it's still producing a ice at a breakneck pace! There may be no glaciers atop the mountains but there is definately one growing my my upright freezer!

First Harvests

Rhubarb Sauce!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam this will be really tastey this winter on homemade bread!

Antique Coffee Grinder

Here's another view of the coffee grinder.

Antique Coffee Grinder

A view of my antique coffee grinder, this would be suitable for grinding grain in, if you can figure out how to get it apart!

Homemade Pizza

I made homemade pizza on Friday using our freshly ground Hard Red Winter wheat berries and it was incredible! Things I'll do differently next time, divide the dough in half so I don't end up with the thick crust, I'll make cinnamon rolls with that instead, and bake the crust an additional five minutes before loading it with the goodies. Oh and we are also making and canning our own pizza sauce because the stuff from the store was well - GROSS! John has a recipe he makes up and it is light and it is wonderful.