Canning and Chickens

I love Fall! I love the crisp, cool feel of the air but still can feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. I love the hustling of harvesting and canning. I have been so busy putting up everything that I grew, bought or friends and neighbors have given us. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to continue building on my food storage when I changed jobs and wasn't working very much. But the Lord has blessed us, I don't think that I have canned so much. I have canned 30 qts of green beans, 10 qts of pickled beets, 30 qts of tomatoes, 9 qts of peaches, raspberry/peach jam, raspberry jam, strawberry/rubbarb jam, 6 qts of rubbarb, 1 1/2 gal of dried apricots and froze 6 qt bags of corn. I still have carrots, more beets, onions, potatoes in the garden. Today there was a free farmers market at the city park where I got banana squash, canalope, watermelon, corn, onions, giant green and purple cabbage. This is just half of my jars and this is what my kitchen has looked like for the past 4 weeks.

We have added a lot to our home production this year; fruit trees, berries, rubbarb and chickens! We have inherited a chicken and turkey from Casey, Troy's brother. They were pets and so they are very tame. They follow us everywhere and roost on our porch (yes, our porch is a complete disaster!) They loved getting the worms out of the fresh soil I was digging in. While Troy worked on the chicken coop the turkey would still nails out of his tool belt.


Then we inherited Rich's 5 hens, 3 chicks and rooster. The turkey and chicken would have nothing to do with the "others", they are wild! The cats weren't excited about all of these new intrusions either. I told Troy that he had to build a coop, it wouldn't be long before something ate the birds. Well it didn't take long for the raccoons to find them, it didn't help when the rooster would announce their arrival everyday all day long. Blue wasn't too excited about the rooster so it didn't hurt his feelings when I told him that the raccoons got him and a hen. That rooster thought he was soooo tuff, but he was the first to go! When we would walk away from him in the yard you could hear, "thump, thump, thump, thump....." We'd turn around, and he would be stopped and pecking at the ground. We would walk again, "thump, thump, thump....." turn around and he would peck at the ground. We would walk away again, "thump, thump, thump..." turn around and there HE was! with his feathers puffed out, screeching and clawing at us, trying to peck our eyes out. Pretty freaky. So good riddens.