Fall garden

This is the fall garden with my first attempts at growing kale. Surprisingly, it has done really well, and I really like the taste. Also, the spinach and lettuce is doing great. The collards, one bed was eaten by some unknown pest.

Culled another chicken

Unfortunately, we had to cull another one of our chickens. Admittedly, I miss her. How can anyone care for an animal for 2 1/2 years and not get somewhat attached? But I know she was just a farm animal. She had some health problems that I was not able to resolve.

What is up with these two?

These two hens crack me up! Apparently, they want to sit in the same box to lay eggs. There are only three hens in this coop so I know they are not over-crowded. Also, I have tried adding an extra box, but they still insist on sitting in the same box. So I gave up and decided to let them work it out between themselves. Two sitting in the box, while one is waiting, that is too funny!

Two new rain barrels

We recently purchased two new rain barrels; but unfortunately, they are not set up yet. We need cinder blocks to place the barrels on and rock to help level the blocks. After we get these set up, that will give us 6 (65 gallon) rain barrels. That may seem like a lot of water; but really, it is not that much. In our area, we have been in a drought and have been steadily using the water from our other rain barrels to water the garden, and actually ran out of water. So we had to use tap water to water the garden. In my opinion, the plants seem to respond better to rain water as opposed to tap water. And of course, during a disaster, the extra water on hand would definitely be a plus.

Bread making marathon

I am on a bread making marathon today. I ground wheat and made two loaves of wheat bread, and mixed the dry ingredients together (except for the yeast) for two other loaves. All of that went into the freezer. Also, I made wheat pancake mix. Now my house is really hot from the oven being on. I wanted to make something in the Dutch oven this evening, but it is too dry outside so I am a bit concerned about starting a fire.

What to do with tomatoes?

I am trying to decide what to do with these tomatoes. My options are canning them, making something like salsa, or giving some away. I have already used up some tomatoes when I made soup the other day. These are Better Boys, Romas, and Early Girls. And there are more of them in the garden that needs to be picked.

Some are hot, some are not

I am talking about jalapeno peppers. Some are really hot, and some are not that bad. This evening, I picked the only jalapeno pepper that I had on one of my two plants. It was a relatively small one. I was making creole corn muffins, and I thought chopping up a jalapeno pepper would give the muffins a nice flavor. As I cut into the pepper, it somewhat took my breath away, then I started coughing. That is how strong it was. Then I proceeded to finely chop up the pepper. After a few minutes my fingers started burning even after I washed my hands. Wow! I made sure not to touch my face or eyes. And the creole corn muffins turned out nicely and tasted great with the pot of vegetable beef soup that I made.