Picture Time!!!

Yup, my camera and I have been rather busy today...almost as busy as poor Frank has been!!!
I wanted to share the pictures of the apple tree's that Frank planted today. The first picture is of the Red Delicious, and the second one is the Granny Smith. Both of them are Semi Dwarf trees.

Getting pictures of the rabbits is proving to be quite the challenge. But I did manage to get some pictures. The first is of Doris and her brood of kits. As you can see they are growing swiftly. The second is of Ethel and her Lilac Kit, who has been named Judy. Yup, the Lilac is a girl!!!! it didn't take me long to give her a name did it???? And yes, she's a keeper, or she wouldn't have been named.
Then last but not least of the bunny pics I took, is Betty. I just love her face. My Chocolate Silver Fox has the best facial expressions.

As you can see, I managed to snap a great pic of Bella. Pics of her standing still are hard to get, but I snap them as I can.

Now the last pic is of the peach tree we planted 2 years ago. We bought this from Lowes, and as you can see, its doing fantastic!!! This is a replacement tree for the ones in the back yard. We plan on planting  one more this spring, so that we can go ahead and cut down the two in the back yard. The gentleman who originally planted the trees in the back yard obviously was not thinking when he planted them. he planted them so close together that one is shading the other, and they have grown in a bent manner. We tried to save them, but from the looks of them, the roots must be growing together now, and they appear to be dying. So this spring the plan is to go ahead and cut them down. I'd like to cut down just one and see if the other can be saved, but we will have to wait and see. We do plan on pruning this one in the spring, because as you can see, it needs it. I believe this is a Dwarf peach.

And now, you have been caught up on the randomness of  our little farm!!!! Hope you enjoyed the pics...and if all goes well, I'll have more pics to share with you guys tomorrow!!!!

Franks Pizza Sauce and Pizza Crust Recipes

There is nothing that makes a weekend better than pizza, and nothing tastes better than home made pizza!!!! Now in our house, Frank is the expert at making the pizza, and he makes the crust and the sauce from scratch..sort of. Frank was kind enough to let me write down the recipe to share with you guys. Now I have to tell you, that our one pan, fills up the entire oven, so I would say that this recipe makes roughly 3 pizza crusts. For us it makes one giant pan, and one round pan. (as you can see from my pictures here) So, I'm going to start with the pizza crust recipe. (Since those are the pictures I decided to upload first) And that is Frank's arm that I managed to get a pic of.

1 and 1/2 Stick butter. (If you melt it, it makes it easier to mix)
3 cups flour
1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. pepper
enough water to make a dough that does not stick to the sides of bowl
1/2 to 1 tsp. of garlic

Preheat oven to 350

Once you are done mixing the dough, roll it out to desired thickness (We do paper thin) and then bake until dough is crisp (do this before you top it) Then after you have baked the crust, add toppings and bake until toppings are done. You will have to keep an eye on things, because Frank doesn't time it, he just watches it.

NOTE FROM FRANK: " This crust is basically a home made cracker recipe. You can have a lot of fun with it. You can make it different every time by putting different spices in it, or you can add cheese, or even tomato sauce. I like it because I don't like repetitiveness in my foods"

And now onto the Tomato Sauce, please don't pay too much attention to my wonderful coffee can utensil holder, it just seemed like a better idea than going out and paying a bunch of money for one that I would probably end up breaking.

Put all ingredients into a canning jar as you go.
1- 12 oz. can of tomato paste
then fill same can with water and dump into jar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1 tsp italian seasoning
1 tbs dried minced onions

Once you have everything in the jar, (after putting the lid and ring on of course) shake jar well. Let set about an hour to let all of the flavors fuse together. Randomly shake the jar when you walk by while its sitting. It helps to make sure that everything is mixed well.

Friday Stuff

Happy Friday everybody!!! This is looking like its going to be a good weekend here on our little farm. We are planning on trying to get baby bunny pictures, as well as some other around the farm pictures.

This evening, we are picking up some apple trees!!! Yup, finally going to get those and get them planted. We're getting dwarf apple tree's. I'm not sure if they will get planted today, or tomorrow, but I'm excited about them.

Then tomorrow is the monthly get together at the quilt shop in town. That's something I always look forward to.

The weather has gotten so wonderful here. I love weather in the fall. Of course, October is my favorite month out of all 12 of them. My niece turns 5 this month as well. I think she's one of the most adorable little girls ever...but then again, I'm partial because she's my niece.

Well, that's all that's the farm news for now. Hope you all have a most wonderful weekend!!! Of course you know, I would love to hear what your weekend plans are. Leave it in the comments below.

Canned Applesauce AND Apple Peel Jelly

Good Tuesday Morning everybody!!!! I've been canning and cooking again!!! Of course, I had to share with you guys, because everything turned out so tasty!!!! As you can see, I'm going to start with the Apple Sauce. This recipe has 2 different cooking directions, for either stove top, or crock pot. I've done the stove top once already, and knew it was tasty, so this time, I decided to try the crock pot. As we all know, I love my crock pot.

Canned Apple Sauce

12 Cups apples, peeled, cored and pureed in food processor or finely chopped. (Save those peels and cores)
1/2 to 3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
3 tbsp lemon juice

Peel, core, and slice the apples, then sprinkle with Lemon Juice

Puree the apples to consistency, then place into stock pot or crock pot

Add the sugar and cinnamon and stur (put lid on)

In Stock pot method, stir every few min to ensure apples are not burning, cook for 30 min.
In Crock Pot, cook for 2 Hours.
Then, put into sterilized jars. Then water bath Pint jars for 15 min, and quart jars for 20 min.

This really is tasty, when I've made it and shared with family, they absolutely raved about this.

And now, I knew I wanted to try to be able to get one more use out of those peels and cores before I fed them to the worms (and my worms are just so happy to have gotten such a yummy treat too by the way) I had been seeing all of these lovely jars of jelly made with the fruit peels in the many groups I belong to on FB, and I kept thinking, I know I can do this, how hard can it be???? Well, it wasn't hard at all, and yes I could do it!!!! When my mother in law gifted me with all of these wonderful beautiful red apples, I knew I was going to make apple sauce, and I was even more positive, that I was going to make apple peel jelly. I now have some green apples as well, and am going to be making another batch of something with those, but for sure, will be making jelly again. I just cannot wait to see the color difference. I'm honestly thrilled with the color that this jelly came out.
Now, I've read several different directions for this exact same recipe, so I just kind of went with the one that I liked the best. One requires you to let them sit over night in the water, and one wants you to let them drain for two hours. I went with the 2 hour drain. I just wasn't wanting to get up and make jelly this morning, I was more or less wanting to just have my coffee, and watch a little morning Doctor Who.

OK, so on with the Directions!!!!

Apple Peels and Cores
5 Cups water
1 Box pectin
7 cups sugar

1) Add peels and cores to a 5 quart stock pot. (Now, You will know you have enough if its filled with peels and cores, I used an 8.5 quart stock pot, because well, that's the smallest I own, and mine filled up pretty good)

2) Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes

3) Strain Juice through a cheese cloth, or a jelly bag. You should get about 5 cups of juice. (This is where the directions were different with the recipe's I just sort of meshed together. This is where I let everything drain for 2 hours)(don't squeeze the peels and cores, just let it sit and drain)

4) (optional direction) Let juice sit overnight to reduce sediment. (I had no sediment because I just let it do the slow 2 hour drip)

5) Add 5 cups of juice to stock pot, and gradually stir in pectin

6) Bring mixture to a rolling boil for 1 minute

7) Add in 7 cups of sugar

8) Return to a rolling boil, and boil hard for 1 minute

9) Skim foam and place in hot sterile 1/2 pint jelly jars

10) Process in a water bath for 10 minutes

So, that's it. Honestly, this last recipe probably requires more work than any recipe I've ever done. Now I will admit to you guys, that I had my most handsome husband helping me to peel the apples. He grew up in a church that did apple butter every year, and he had been trained to peel apples in a way, that makes the work go very, very quick...although, we have one of those table clamp apple peelers, and he can work that thing way faster than I can.

Found My camera!!!!

Happy Saturday everybody!!! I finally found my digital camera that I "lost"...turns out it wasn't lost, it was in the bottom of my purse, which sometimes is almost the same thing as being lost.  I took these pictures of the dogs last week, before my camera ended up in the bottom of my purse. The funny thing is, I don't even have a big purse, its a smaller purse to keep this very thing from happening.

As you guys can see, My Trio of pups are getting along just fine. Its not always easy to get a shot of everybody together. Sometimes somebody sneezes, blinks, see's a squirrel, or decides they need to pee.

Its been a slightly busy day here. I set 42 eggs in the incubator, that will be this springs meat. Then of course there is the basic, put gas in the car, get chicken feed, feed the chickens, gather eggs, feed the rabbits, snuggle the babies, wash and put away laundry, fix supper...you get the idea...the best part is, its Saturday night, and that means, new Doctor Who episodes!!!!

Now, here are some bunny pictures from last week as well. They have gotten a little bit bigger since I've taken these pictures, but are still just as adorable!!!

Friday

Happy Friday everybody!!!! Lots of stuff going on around here. I Just finished cleaning the incubator, and setting it up. Right now I'm running it to do the heat and humidity test, to make sure that it will still hold, and that the egg turner is still turning. I'll be able to put the eggs in, in the morning. We are putting a full 42 eggs in there.

I've been working on my quilting. Yesterday I finished putting together another quilt top, and pinning one together that I had gotten done before. I'm planning on getting that one quilted this weekend, and then pinning the recently finished one together once that one is quilted. As soon as I can find where I put the digital camera, I'll get some pictures of everything.

What do you guys have planned for this weekend, the first weekend of fall????

Happy Autumn

Good Morning!!! Fall is here!!!! Soon the leaves will start turning colors, and falling to the ground. I'm hoping to get some good pictures of that this year.

I took the Nest box out of Ethel and Doris's cages. Ethel is my biggest Silver Fox doe, and was really starting to look cramped in there with the nest box, and her kits, who weren't really using the nest box for anything other than a potty. I plan on getting some pictures of everybody here hopefully today as well. Everybody is growing so fast, and it wont be long before my first 4H kid gets their bunny from me, and I'm so excited about that, because 4H is one of the most wonderful things out there in my mind.

Well, that's it for this morning!!!!