Oven Canning

Well I read some stuff about oven canning and thought it was a pretty cool idea.
I have read that you can do this with all sorts of dry goods flour, pastas, cornmeal, etc.
 Buying in bulk is a cost efficient way to buy food, but being able to use all of  you item before they expire is not always easy. We bought a large bag of macaroni at the store the other day and I thought it would be a great opportunity to try out oven canning

I used quart jars and filled them using a canning funnel

after filling them I placed them on a cookie sheet and put them into a cold oven. Then you preheat the oven to 200 degrees. This allows the glass jars to warm up slowly and not crack under the sudden temperature change. When the oven reaches 200 degrees you then leave them in the oven for 1 hour.

When time is up you take them out of the oven one at a time wipe the rim with a damp cloth and place on the lid. Do this one at a time so each jar doesn't cool down while waiting for you to get the others sealed.

Set the jars on a towel on the counter and wait to hear the Ping of the lids sealing.

I feel like it was a successful journey. It should be fun to try other foods as well.

Even more additions!

Nope we aren't done yet.  You have already met our yellow ducklings but now we have two black ones and a brown one as well.

In addition we also got 3 new chicks they are Rhode Island reds.

Quack

Well when Patrick came home yesterday he had 2 little friends with him, so now we have 2 ducklings. Aren't they sweet. they were very cuddly last night sitting in my lap in the back yard.

New Babes

Well this year I tried to get all girls. Like I said before I don't like that we have more boys than girls now, and the whole reason we are doing this is for the eggs anyway.

I found a couple different pictures about it that I used to figure it out. Hopefully I did it right. I guess only time will tell.

We got 8 new chickens.

They are all breeds that we don't already have.

We got 2 Cochin Bantams they have feathers on their legs, which is neat, they are different from all the rest of our Chickens.

2 Barred Plymouth Rocks which are going to look really cool when they get big.

We also got 4 Americanas (they lay Blue eggs)

I am excited about our new additions!

Brooder

Well last year we started a little late in the summer before we got chickens and that made it a little hard. We had issues with preditors and with the weather. We are wanting to get some more girls his year and we are going to start earlier so that he babes will be fatter when the weather turns cold again. Our roosters out number our hens at the moment and we want to get our numbers back the other way.

Our latest project is to make a brooder. Last year we used mineral buckets and then When they got big enough he would fly out and make us chase them around the house while the pooped everywhere.

We are being smarter this year now that we have experience. 

It's such an improvement!

EGGS!!!

Spring is just around the corner! Atleast that's what I keep telling myself, the weather has been crazy a around here. We go back and forth between negative temperatures and 60 degree weather. 

We'll on one of our pretty days last week one of our lovely ladies decided to do something new. TaDa we have eggs. 

I think it's funny some times she lays for almost a week straight and then she won't, hopefully the cold will be over soon and the other ladies will start to lay as well.  We have gotten 7 eggs so far and it is a new and exciting time at the homestead.