Month: October 2022

For those of you who have been following along with my Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you have seem some of the busyness that’s been happening on the homestead. Some of this may be “old news”…but I’m just going to do a recap of the past two weeks.

In the heat of summer, when tomatoes are coming off the plants in droves, no one wants to heat up their house with canning. The past two years, I have started storing my harvested tomatoes in the freezer until the weather cools and I need an excuse to warm up the house. I have 3 refrigerator freezers and a deep freeze, and they were/are stocked full. Last week we had some pretty chilly days, so I decided to knock the chill out of the house by starting up the canner and making my first ever attempt at condensed tomato soup. Truth be told, I was a little skeptical as to whether or not it would go over well with the kids….BUT IT DID!!!! They love it!

Those cooler days also brought an end to the few plants that were still in the garden, so I took a couple days and cleaned it out. I pulled the last of the plants and started the process of covering the rows with straw/grass for the winter.

Colder weather does lead to the planting of one crop that I have not attempted before….garlic. We go through a LOT of garlic in our house. When it calls for 1 clove, you can bet that we will at least double it. So, this year, I am trying to grow some of my own. In this hill, I planted three rows. If all goes well, we will see a bunch of garlic bulbs this spring/summer! That might last us a couple months LOL

This next fall chore, I will save you from all the graphic, gore that went along with it. We started the process of butchering our meat chickens. Our roosters were getting to the point where they were almost the size of turkeys, and they were pushing the hens away from the feed, and had starting fighting for dominance. It was time for them to go. Last Sunday, we separated out our 7 roosters, set up a little production line, and started processing the birds. I held the chicken’s feet while Luke was in charge of removing the head. We let it bleed out, and then Ella and I started skinning. In previous years, we boiled and plucked….but that was horrible, and smelled awful. Skinning the birds was easier, went so much faster, and didn’t have the bad smell. WIN! Taking the roosters out of the mix, this is allowing for our hens get put on some more weight, so we can process them in another week or two.

Last week was another canning first for me. With all the chickens we had just butchered, I cut the meat off the bones and processed it in the pressure canner. Why had I never done this before??? Easy and I don’t have to worry about it getting freezer burned or looking at it in the freezer and not wanting to mess with it. I also took the bones from the chickens, added some celery, onion and bulbs of garlic, boiled it down for several hours, strained it and canned the broth. It is SO good!! Canning chicken and homemade broth is a game changer in the Faithful Friends Homestead kitchen!

Our newest dilemma with trying all these new canning products…I am quickly running out of jars and storage space! But that’s a good problem to have! Means we have lots of food stocked up!

This past weekend was beautiful, so we had to make the most of it and get some final things done outside. Lily and I shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled…moving more dirt onto the rows in the garden that we had added this year, building them up. The herb garden got cleaned out. The basil had all died with the frosts, the chamomile was done, and the cilantro had all gone to seed and needed to be pulled. We also took advantage of the beautiful weather and Ella got our final mowing of the year done, while the rest of us cleaned out the shed and the garage making it possible to fit more than one vehicle in our garage again.

As a homestead, I definitely think that fall is the busiest time. Spring has a lot going on, but fall has a lot of chores that need to get done before the snow starts to fall. We still have 8 hens to butcher, but other than that, I think we are ready whenever winter decides to show up. Hope everyone has a great week!

Reader question of the week…. What is your favorite recipe that uses canned chicken? Our family, hands down, would vote for shredded chicken sandwiches.

With the beautiful crisp weather we’ve been having, things have been busy around here. As I’ve mentioned before, fall is my favorite season…but that also brings on a new set of chores to get done around the homestead.

Back in July we acquired a bunch of tree trimmings, which created quite the beaver dam in our front yard. We had slowly been chopping it up over the summer, but with the start of school, soccer season and karate…our schedule became full overnight. This past weekend, we finally had a free day where we were able to get the beaver dam cut up and stacked along the tree line. We wanted to get this done before the first snowfall, because we are using it as a natural snow fence.

Another chore that we have been working on, is slowly getting the garden “put to bed” for the winter. As vegetable plants finish up for this year, we are pulling the plants and putting the rows to bed. The rows get one final good weeding (if there are any), and then are covered with straw to protect them from the coming winter. Not only does this protect the rows from compacting and becoming hard from the winter weather, but the straw will also decompose and improve the rows for next year’s planting season.

The past two weeks, we’ve also been dealing with the issue of going from getting a dozen eggs a day, to getting no eggs. One day, Wyatt came in from being out by the chickens, and he was afraid that we may have had a predator get one, because there were feathers everywhere! We did a head count, and all the chickens were accounted for, which meant one thing…. they were molting. If you don’t know what molting is, it is when chickens renew their feathers. Chickens molt every year when the weather starts to get cold and the days get shorter. They drop their feathers and grow new ones. During this time they stop laying eggs, and build up their nutrient reserves for the coming winter. This is also a sign that we need to get the coop ready for winter, as chickens lay best when they have 14-16 hours of daylight, so to assist in that we place a heat lamp in the coop. It offers both the warmth and additional light to encourage egg production.

Even though we have a lot of fall chores getting done on the homestead, we also take time to appreciate the beauty of the season. The leaves are starting to turn colors, which shows the wonders of God’s artwork.

What is your least favorite fall chore? I’d say mine is probably pulling the tomato plants. It’s just such a pain having to pick up all the tomatoes that fall off the plants and taking it all to the compost. But, it’s all necessary to get the garden put to bed. Have a great week!!!