I can not believe another month has passed, and I am just now blogging again.  Well, that’s what happens when you stay busy producing and preserving your own food.

 The hubs and I finally got around to dispatching and processing a batch of chickens–about 3 months later than planned due to his shoulder surgery, and other family member hospitalizations.  But at least the first batch is done.  A couple of days after this, the chicken looked like this:

and this:

 A couple of weeks later, the backs, necks, and ribs were boiled to make this:

  Our first batch of homemade broth!

Our American canner stayed pretty busy the past month, and this larger model canned 16 pints of broth all at once. I love that!

  And yes, it works beautifully on our Chambers stove…but more about the stove in later post. But I did not need the American canner to produce several jars of applesauce.  They were done in a simple water bath canner.

We also tried  a new vegetable this month–roasted cabbage:

 I thought it was great, but the hubs was not as impressed.  He did love the fried deer backstrap and baked potatoes we had with it, though.

 A few days ago, we processed a few older rabbits, and then yesterday we ate this:

 Rabbit breakfast sausage with whole grain pancakes and real maple syrup.  It was sooooooo good!  We used the recipe from this site. They have a few unique recipes I would still like to try.

Next post (sooner than four weeks, I hope) — Baking with whole grains!

Last week was full of rabbit meat.  We ate oven baked rabbit, then, from the same rabbit we enjoyed rabbit dumplings a couple of nights later.  The dumplings were from the easiest recipe ever that I found on the internet a few years ago.  I usually double this recipe. The dumplings are almost always perfect.  Personally, I love the flat dumplings like my great grandmother made, but the hubs and my girls always love the fluffy ones.  Later in the week, we ate White Chili which was made with ground rabbit.  It is absolutely delicious, and comes from a recipe adapted from The Greene Acres Old Fashioned Cookery Book. A pound of your favorite white beans, cooked, two onions, garlic, cilantro (optional), cumin, and parsley browned with a white meat, throw it in with lots of chicken broth, salt, pepper,  a little jalapeno or red pepper and apple cidar vinegar–yum, yum!  Works well with ground turkey, too. Not only did we eat our fill of rabbit, but I also canned 8 pints of rabbit for quick meals in the future.

 

Looks beautiful… to me.  🙂

I had planned to be on here sooner bragging about the 32 pints of deer meat we canned, but we were involuntarily off the grid for six days due to an ice storm.  And before the electricity was back on, we attended the birth of our fifth grandchild, a beautiful baby boy named Luke. The past few days have been spent washing and cleaning, and catching up on chores that were delayed when off the grid.  Now, I am busily preparing our Christmas feast and treats, which include cinnamon rolls, sweet potato biscuits, Belgian waffles, Egg Nog dip, some cookies and candies, and the wonderful southern Turkey and Cornbread Dressing Christmas day dinner.  So, look for this blog to be updated and in better shape after the new year.  Merry Christmas to All!

Well, after taking a couple of years off  from the blog to return to work in the rat race, I am fortunate to be able to return home and get back to the homesteading activities I really enjoy.  Back to blogging my escapades again! So this is what has been going on this week on the homestead:

Rabbit Meatballs!

Canned Deer Meat!

And today, making and refrigerating cookie dough is happening before all the girls and their families get here for Christmas. And White Chili for dinner…

 

I write this blog because my hubby, (the one giving the thumbs up; the other one is Billy) works away from home.  And three of our kids live in other states, and so does my dad and his wife,  and all of my brothers, and most of the in-laws.   So this is one way of keeping the peeps informed.

And, this blog exist to share interesting stuff like this: This is why you are fat. And this: Sea Pearls.  And this: Jar Pies.

Which begs the question:  Is there anything that can not be found on the web?  Well, as a matter of fact, I could not find printable steno (6 x 9 in) planner pages today.  Therefore, I spent most of my day putting together a 2010 planner…

that I really will use this year because it’s one of my resolutions…

And I wish I had not.  They took a story with sex, war, the Holocaust , a trial, a death and made it b-o-r-i-n-g!  HOW DID THEY DO THAT?  I say “they”, because I don’t know if the author or the translator is responsible…but somebody did it! 

The only reason I will watch the movie is because Ralph Fiennes is in it, and I love to watch him act.  Oh, I hope Ralph and the director salvage what should have been a fantastic story!

I decided I wanted some long skirts to wear with boots this winter, so I went to Stage, Dress Barn and a few other places thinking it would be easy to find a long plain black or brown skirt.  Guess what? I couldn’t find one anywhere.  So on my next trip to wally world, I picked up some fabric.  Then I drug out the Singer 15 I bought about three years ago, and hadn’t used yet.   Isn’t it great?  After some initial struggle with the needle position, and breaking thread, it is working like a charm!!! 

This website has some great information about vintage machines, and this one is great for determining the year model of old machines.  Mine is from March 1952.

While I was struggling to make the 15 work, I also decided to try out the Singer 221 Featherweight that was given to me by Alvin’s friend, Mike and his wife Pepper, last month. 

 

They were going to throw it away, even though iit’s in wonderful condition.  It was made in 1955.  I’m sure glad they didn’t look on E-bay before he brought it to me!  (No take backs, Mike!)  By the way, I learned a couple of things from this E-bay site, and hope to learn a lot more from this Featherweight site.

Boy, do I have some great toys!!

LiveJournal Tags: vintage sewing machines,sewing,skirts

I’ve noticed on other social networks that many Christians are against the term, “Happy Holidays”.  While I admit to being among those who expressed this  predominantly evangelical opinion in the past, “Happy Holidays” seems perfect to me now.  Why?  Because the Christmas holidays have very little to do with Christ anymore—and that’s okay.  Why again?  Because Christ didn’t celebrate his birthday either.  So, maybe it’s okay to admit that Christmas is really a Catholic tradition, not a biblical requirement, so Catholics and others can celebrate Christ’s Mass just because they want to.

And the protestants can have Christmas programs celebrating the beautiful, miraculous, and true story of Jesus birth because it is in the bible, and they want to remember and honor it. 

And the Jewish Christians can celebrate Hanukkah because Jesus did—even though it is not a Torah Holy Day.

So what does this mean for someone like me, a  fledgling berean, who wants to honor, appreciate and celebrate in a manner befitting a Holy God?

It means I can acknowledge the wonderfulness of Jesus’ holy birth this time of year.  It means I can learn about and appreciate the Jewish celebrations Jesus participated in and why they are important to him.  And it means I can attend parades, decorate trees, and fill stockings with simple holiday cheer.

In short, let the happy things be happy, and the Holy things be Holy!

Happy Holidays!

I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on what I want from the internet and what I don’t want to spend my time doing. While I would like to maintain a small blog of some kind for my far away family and friends, the time it takes to upload pictures on wordpress is way too long.

I’d also like to easily connect to friends and family without typing on three different pages.

The set up on Windows live looks great. The pictures upload is a little bit faster, and the latest blog is on the “tami’s space” page (soon to be renamed!), plus you can read old blogs on the blog tab.

Feel free to join my network or just visit my new space at http://ilovebigfork.spaces.live.com/.

Fork chronicles will stay up for a while.

There once was a handsome cockerel name Vegas, who freely roamed the land

and crowed over his first love, Reno.

Vegas was brokenhearted when he lost Reno in a tragic accident.  To ease his pain, Ugly Betty was moved into his castle and  roamed with him about the land.

Granted, she claimed none of the beauty of Reno, but she did eventually come into her own.

But her beauty was simply not enough, especially when Vegas became enamored with a feisty red head who escaped the confinements of the coop to roam freely, too.

Vegas loved the red head (literally), and was devastated when she was returned to the coop.  He circled and circled the coop seeking her, but to no avail.

The red head had returned to her first love, Romeo, who ruled the coop.

Now, another beautiful babe, Juliet was upset when this certain red head returned to the coop.  In a rage,  Juliet flew out of the coop and into the trees.

In a state of revenge, Juliet then abandoned Romeo to join Vegas and Ugly Betty in the free land.

Now, you would think Vegas would be satisfied with either the beautiful Juliet or  Ugly Betty-who is after all, his own kind- but, no!

Vegas turned his back on the two available chicks…and on freedom!

For in his small chicken brain, he believed love was worth it.

Vegas flew INTO the coop, and after a dual with Romeo, declared himself

KING OF THE ROOST- and confinement?!!

And there he remains, sacrificing his freedom for love of one redhead.  Or could it be for the love of multiple redheads?