Canning Dry Beans??? Yup

Hey there! Yes, you read that title correctly, I am going to try canning dry beans. Now, I know that sounds awfully funny, canning dried beans, like...what's the point of that? Why would you want to?  wouldn't that take up more room???
Well, let me tell you, yes, it would take up more room, to a point, but no more room than all of my empty jars already take up. I buy dried beans in bulk, and I don't necessarily have to can them all up, but I can, can a good bit of them up. In the long run, it does save time, lets say its been a particularly crazy day, I come in, and what do I want to make for dinner??? Open the pantry..and hmm...oh I have everything I need to make chili, pull it all out, dump it in the pan, and walk away for a few minutes, and let it heat through. There are so many reasons though other than just chili. Being able to cook home cooked meal, without a lot of fuss, really makes life easier.
I'm going to be following this link from Little House Living for my first go round. Its straight forward, and simple. Plus it sounds rather tasty!!!!

I'll post pictures of my bean canning as I go!!

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

Yes, pumpkin bread is tasty any time of the year!!! Especially when you are snowed in from Jonus, the blizzard of 2016!! I decided that I couldn't hoard all of those jars of pumpkin that I canned back in the fall forever, so I pulled out one of my most favorite recipe sources, and found a nice, simple, yet tasty recipe for pumpkin bread. I hope that you all will enjoy this as much as I did, because after all, there is nothing better than an uncomplicated recipe that's just easy to whip up in a jiff.

3 eggs, well beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 and 1/4 cups sugar
2 and 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
2 and 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Beat together all of the first 4 ingredients
Then sift together the rest of the ingredients, and slowly mix in, until all in and well mixed.

Pour into 2 greased 9x5 loaf pans and bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Insert butter knife to see if it comes out clean.

for a little something extra optional, before baking fold in 1/2 cup chopped nuts, and 1/2 cup chopped dates or raisins.

Lets Be Random Today

Hey Everybody!!! I've been taking lots of pictures over the last couple of weeks, and I had to narrow it down a bit, because I seemed to have taken double of a few of the shots, and didn't want to overload you guys with pictures that all looked the same.

As you can see, we've gotten a bit of snow, so far what snow we've gotten has only been a dusting, BUT this weekend its calling for 3 feet!!!! They also said that its going to be blizzard conditions, making it well...a blizzard!

I've been working on my quilting, and have even stopped to finish some of the side quilts that I had started. I finished a quilt that I made for my niece Faith, that only needed the binding. She loved it!  My big basket quilt is going well. I'm 2 rows in. Two down, Five to go! That's only 25 more blocks to make. Thankfully I have all the little pieces sewn together, all of those billions of half square triangles.

Right now, I'm canning chicken. We butchered those 6 little tetra tint roosters that we hatched out. The bones in them were surprisingly big! I only got 6 quart jars out of them. I really thought I'd get a full 7 quarts, but no, the bones just made it look like that. I filled the space with broth though, so at least I'll have 7 jars of something! (I love using the broth for making rice)

I started a FB like page for my blog here. Just something for fun, I hope you guys will check it out!!!
https://www.facebook.com/reallittlefarm/
As you can see, I'm still using the cut and paste method! LOL

I'm working on going through some recipes to share with you guys. I have so many that I'm having a hard time picking just one!

For now, I've got to close this up! Hope that you all are staying warm!!!

Tetra Tints

I was trying to get some pictures of my tints markings, or feather patterns, or whatever it seems to be called on chickens...lol...I was lucky enough to be able to get these hatched out before we lost all of our Rhode Island Red Roosters. (Honestly, I've known that I needed to get new RIR Roosters back in the summer, but kind of drug my feet on it) But The one with the dark brown head is the one that I really wanted you all to see. She has heavy markings, which are just beautiful. I managed to get a front view, and a back view.

We actually thought that if we put White Leghorn Hens with Rhode Island Red roosters, that we would get a sex link. Well, with so much information out there, you are bound to get some misinformation. The first time we hatched these out, I was like oh aren't they beautiful once they started maturing. Frank on the other hand said, they look like somebody threw mud on them. As they matured, and started laying eggs, they really grew on him. Then one day, we went into Tractor Supply, and they had Tetra Tint Pullets, which I had not herd of before (had no clue that's what I had been hatching out.) So I went and looked up the hatchery that they came from, to try and see just what they were, because the name caught my interest. Low and behold, that's what I had been hatching out!!!

This summer, when I'm hopefully going to be hatching them out again, I hope to be able to hatch out a nice batch of them, some to keep, and some to sell, and the boys to butcher for winter meat.  They really are a fascinating bird to me, probably because I love watching to see how their feather pattern will turn out.

a little quilting and crafting as well

I've been doing more than just raising chickens and rabbits around here!!! I've also been working on a little bit of quilting. This was a quilt I had cut out last summer, or winter, I'm not sure which. But I had cut everything out, pinned stuff together, made the marks, etc... so, I decided that my craft room needed to be cleaned up, and what did I find? The clear box with all of these wonderful pieces in it, and the magazine with the pattern in it. So..I decided that finishing up projects would be a great way to clean my craft room...which means...2016 will not be the room that my craft room is clean and organized...because after I finish that one, I have to figure out exactly what kind of a quilt I was working on that I have cut and pinned, and partially started in the shoe box I found. So, 2 quilts may possibly get made this year.

So, I saw on Facebook, this really "cute" project, using hot glue, and a canning jar lid, to make a pin cushion/storage jar. You know, they really make it look so much easier than what it actually is. I burned myself multiple times, hot glued stuffing to my thumb, and threw away 3 starts before I got this one made. But, its made!!!

What has everyone been crafting here lately???

Chicks and Chickens and Rooster Goodbyes

Let me start by saying Happy New Year to you all!!! We had such a warm December, and a lot of rain over the past couple of months that the cold and sunshine of this month has been quite welcome. We ended up with so much rain, that Frank and I had to put a lot of extra oomph into the chicken run. We bought 8 bags of horse bedding, and covered the entire run!!! Then we put down 4 big bags of bedding on top of that, and it worked wonders!!! The chickens are happy, and we are happy. (Most importantly, the chickens are happy)

As you can see by the first few pics, our chicks that Hatched out December 14th have grown a good bit. I must say, these guys have been on the Chick feed from the local Co-op (Rockingham Co-op here in Woodstock). these are probably the healthiest chicks we've had, and they have grown and matured much quicker than most that I tend to forget that I'm going to need Chick feed until the wrong moment and have to dash to Tractor Supply and buy a more expensive bag of feed, that's not as fresh. Don't get me wrong, I like Tractor Supply, and think they are a great farm store, but the feed I buy from the Co-op is local, and fresh.  My Buff Orpington chicks look like they are going to be fantastic! Out of the 5 of them, only 1 is a boy, which works out perfect for us. Less meat in the freezer perhaps, but perfect, because we are adding Orpingtons to our breeding program. I'm really excited about that.

The 4th picture down are the "chicks" that we hatched out October 1st.  Those are our Tetra Tints, lots of boys there. We are going to have 3 to go into our egg layers. However, I have to find where I put the leg bands, because I need to make sure that I can identify these as being young, because I have 3 or 4 older ones in the main run right now that are older girls at this point, and are almost done laying. I have to say, if you want a bird that's not going to take up a lot of room, but is going to be a good egg layer, and not lay tiny eggs like most smaller breeds do, this is the perfect breed for you!!!  I really think they are pretty birds.

The rest are random pictures of our flock. They are a tad bit muddy, but hopefully getting to take the dust baths and such, they should get to looking better soon. (And trust me, they are taking some good dust baths in the bedding as it is.)

Now, as I said in the title, Rooster Goodbyes. I am very sad to announce that Sinatra, my oldest rooster, passed away of old age this past week. (Tuesday) He was a great boy, and will be missed enormously. I did order some Rhode Island Red Rooster chicks, which will be here before the end of the month. I ordered 3 just in case 1 doesn't survive the shipping process. I'm not going to give them names until they are mature, and are showing their personality. Some people don't like Rhode Island Red roosters, they seem to think that they are evil, I don't think they are. All of mine have always been very mild mannered, and Gentlemanly around me, but maybe its because they have all for the most part been used to me. Now, I'm not going to lie, Sinatra was our first rooster, and I was terrified of him at first. After all, I had always heard nothing but horror stories about roosters.

Well, that's it for tonight! I hope you all are having a great New Year so far! I know here, it did start out a bit sad with the loss of our Rooster, but I guess that's farm life!!!