Food Preservation

So as you guys know we have been working on preserving foods. We have been dabbling in canning. 

and Dehydration.

Well for Christmas we got a vacuum sealer. I am ready to kiss freezer burn good bye. :-*

 We also got our deep freeze moved over from the old house and set up.

I cant wait to fill 'er up! The freezer in our kitchen was so full that if you shut the fridge too hard the freezer door would pop open. I moved all the stuff we don't need in there out. There is so much room I can even have ice again! The freezer has been to full since Patrick brought home the deer.

Cold Weather

I have never hated cold weather and snow so much in my life as I do now that we have chickens. Don't get me wrong I think it's pretty and I like snow days but...

I love in the summer when you can let the chickens out and I can watch them from the Kitchen window and all of the happy clucking and pecking. However I do NOT like going outside in negative deg weather to let them out / feed them. 

Even though they can leave their coop they don't and they don't like the weather anymore than I do. Cold winds, Frozen water, snow = cold chicken feet. Nope I don't think any of us are happy about this.

I have never been so happy for mid 30 degree weather in my life. We have even gotten some 50's and 60's the last few days we are not going to be happy when this ends :(

Is it Spring yet?

Chocolate covered pretzels

Sure you can buy chocolate covered pretzels, but why do that when it's so much fun to make them?

We walked in the store and what's right in front of us? Candy Melts. So my brilliant husband goes hey why don't we make chocolate covered pretzels? Um hello more importantly why didn't I think of that? 

It's great family fun all the boys took a turn making some! You must watch but the kids or the pretzels won't end up on the wax paper, you will wonder what took so long to make 5 pretzels, and the kids will be on a sugar high for hours.

It is so easy! Melt the chocolate, dunk the pretzels, shake off the excess and let cool. 

Ta-da perfection!

Snow

We got our first snow of the year over the weekend, and it was the chickens first snow ever. 

It was funny to watch them take their first steps in the cold stuff. Some of them flew from spot to spot avoiding walking in it. I had fun watching the silly babes. They did eventually get used to it.

Our first chicken tracks, they are all over the yard.

Jerky & Sausage

One of the first things that Patrick ever made me out of venison was Jerky, it's one of my favourites and my friends love it too. I am always getting requests during deer season. It's like people can just sense it.

Anyway I have inherited the job of making it, since I am the one in the house that likes it the most. This year I had a helper, Gabe is getting more and more excited about helping me in the kitchen. 

We added the Cure and Seasoning and let it sit in the fridge for 4 hours.

Then we loaded up the Jerky Cannon and filled up the Dehydrator trays.

About 6 Hours later it was done! Yay, snack time.

Sausage.

We have only attempted sausage one other time and it didn't turn out like it should have. We made it in the oven that time, so this time we made it in the smoker, decided that a different approach was the way to go.

We smoked it for

Then put it in the oven for 1 hour at 300 degrees F.

The goal was a internal temperature of 165.

All done.

Well it could have turned out better, it was dry, but the flavor was ok. Patrick said he thinks it needs more fat and I'm guessing there was too much air in the casing.

It's eatable but we still haven't perfected anything. Gabe liked it, so it's a small victory. At least it's not going to waste.

Boys room

Ah the boys room. We'll this hasn't been a hard project just a drawn out one. They started with three toddler beds then they got a dresser, next we added a second dresser and then we got twin mattresses. We then got them bunk beds and most recently got the other bed all set up. It's been crazy something has changed almost every other week.

I'm glad their room is done and so are they.

Roosting

The homestead has been in my family for generations, I am the fourth generation to live here and Gabe is the fifth. 

We have had a lot of fun looking through sheds and finding things from generations past. 

My grandpa died two years ago and due to dementia his mind was gone before that. I love finding things that remind me of him when I was younger, and things that he must have built. Around 40 years ago my grandpa had chickens and this roost was in his old chicken coop.

My chickens love it but they think it's a secret.

I had to take this picture through the screen on my kitchen window. I never see them on it when I'm outside.

They seem to roost on just about anything.

This guy likes to sit in the window sill. I think it's warm. We were watching the tv and up he pops in the window to say hi.