Getting veggies in and making spinach salad

We did not get a hard freeze last night but we did get frost.  I am working furiously to get everything dried, canned or frozen for the winter.  Yesterday I watered everything...and as it goes I realized I forgot to water a couple of the trees. They get watered this morning.

Went out to the greenhouse and got spinach for dinner.  We are having the classic spinach salad with hard boiled eggs and bacon topped with a warm bacon dressing.

For the salad -4 cups  spinach, 1 hard boiled eggs, half sliced onion and 4 pieces of bacon. 

For the dressing - about a tablespoon of the bacon grease, 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, teaspoon of sweet hot stone ground mustard, a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper. Mix all up warming in the pan. 

Next up was parsley. I needed to get it in the dehydrator to dry. 

Last for today was the zucchini.  I need to shred it and get it in the freezer.

Tomorrow, I am excited to can Thai Dipping sauce using our garlic (you need about 36 cloves).

Hope everyone has a great day. 

peace, health and happiness.

Animal update plus craft/sewing time

Our goat, Skippy has been sold. He is an awesome goat. We wanted to make sure, even though we were selling him, that he went to a good home. Well, I am sure he is thinking he has died and gone to heaven.  A mom and daughter team purchased him for their herd of  Alpines and LaMancha does.

Good luck in your new life my gentle friend. 

Remember our milk goats we traded for a pig?  The pig has gone to market.  We went to the butcher to select our cuts and our freeze will be full in a couple of week when it has cured.

This morning I put one of our chickens in the crock-pot.  A very simple recipe of a packet of onion soup, a 16 oz jar of apricot jam and a cup of French dressing.  I washed the chicken up real good. Then popped it in the pot with the sauce poured over it for 8hours. 

Then time to sew. I made some cloth pumpkins with scraps of Halloween fabric.

I used small spools for the stem add vines and a crow. 

The pumpkin in the back is from last year. Just glittered up a dollar store pumpkin and added an owl with some extra bling. The ceramic pumpkin is also from the dollar store and my daughter-in-law colored it with permanent markers.

Sewed the background of a baby quilt. I hope to trace the appliques for it at dinner at work tonight.

This is last year's wreath of crows.

Pumpkin wreath. I just used the log cabin pattern using purple and autumn fabrics.

Hope you all have a great day. 

peace,health and happiness

Sunday Funday, Family Fun and Pinto Beans!

Our weekend began yesterday with making breakfast burritos of egg(from our hens), cheese and potatoes for a Sunday family get together.  I made about twenty of them and by the time I got home from Saturday evening mass, five of them were gone. Mr Man was hungry.   We cleaned the house and got ready for family to come over on Sunday. 

Sunday came and we put tamales we had canned earlier in the year in the crock-pot to warm. 

The burritos were put in the bread warmer. 

Cheesy green chili pinto beans (from a local farmer)was put on the stove to warm. I forgot to get a picture of them but they were sure good.  It did my heart good to see all the food enjoyed by everyone. 

Everyone met the new horse Mr Buttons. 

We went to the pumpkin and squash patch and taught a young buck how to pick them without pulling up the whole plant. 

Everyone went home later with many zucchinis, spaghetti squash and pumpkins. 

Crafts were made.

Then it was time to sing happy birthday and have tons of laughs. 

After spending the day on the homestead everyone left, the day began to cool down and we thought we were settling in for the night. Dude's phone rang. It was one of the farmers he knows. Seems somehow during pinto bean harvest some were accidentally dumped. He said if we wanted to glean them we could have what we could get. We said sure, jumped in the truck, grabbed my crocheting and drove the 45 minutes to the farm. 

Pintos dry in the field before they are harvested.

This is what a harvested row looks like. 

I think it is all so beautiful. 

Someone had gotten to the beans before us but there was still plenty to glean. 

I was able to get 3 buckets of beans. I will clean them out throughout the week.  If you knew how much I love them you would know this is a treasure beyond belief! Plus I can share with others and I will can them too.

Combine harvesting beans

It was a very busy and fun Sunday. 

Hope yours was grand. 

peace, health and happiness