Week of canning

What a long week of canning it was last week! I started off by canning lard and brisket and then Michael and I found a great deal on some fresh tomatoes. The first 75lbs. we bought were $17 per 25lbs. When I went back to buy 100lbs., they sold them to me for $15 per 25 lbs. We canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, salsa, and tomato sauce(check out the process). Then, during that process, we got 4 gallons of fresh milk and canned milk(2&1/2 gallons) and the butter we made from the cream. I also ground up our basil harvest and it takes a lot of fresh basil to make 1 quart of dried ground basil. This week I will be canning more butter and some hamburger. Not to mention the preparations going on for Ranchfest.

Jennifer(turned 11 on Monday!) got a new goat this week. Her name is Heather and she is so cute. The ladies we get the milk from gave her to us. They raise Boars and this one was a bottle fed kid. When she was old enough to go back to the herd she did not do well. She has a very laid back personality and likes to be around people. Tracy also got a new kitten from the Sustaires. I am sure pictures will be posted on their blog soon.

I recently tried cleaning up an old quilt. It went pretty well. I soaked it overnight and had Jennifer help me work on some of the spots and then she got up on a ladder and held the quilt as I gently wrung out the water. The water it was soaking in looked like pond water! I was so amazed. I did not realize the quilt was that dirty. I took it to the laundry that week and washed it on gentle. I was a little nervous doing it but I hoped it would take a machine wash. I did secure some weak spots with safety pins. I did take some before and after pictures but they are kind of misleading since there was more light the second time it looks even cleaner.
Before:

After(the dark stripe is a shadow):

Tomorrow is community work day and we will be working on getting everything ready for Ranchfest. It is always a fun time to get to meet more like minded brethren. The work, food and fellowship are always great. It is a blessing to be able to come together with these people from around the country and around Canada.

I will close with my favorite pictures. Flowers! Here is my echinacea plant that I thought had died but after the rains we had it came back strong and put off some pretty blooms.


Here are my marigolds.


And here are some blooms from our sweet potatoes.


Reforming Daily,
Danielle

What about socialization?

This is what I think about when people talk about the benefits of public schools.

He He!
In Christ,
Danielle

More Laundry Tips

This is a picture of my laundry set up as it is now. From the right to the left is my dirty clothes hamper, presoak bucket, wash basin with the washboard in it, my 2 rinse buckets, and my clean laundry basket. I do have to say the handwash system really gets the clothes clean! It has kept me from throwing away some of Sarah's dresses that a machine would have never gotten clean. Recently I brought some clothes lines from my line at my old house because the line is better than any I have ever tried. It is called Green Vinyl Coated Galvanized Wire. It lasts much longer than other lines I have tried and it does not sag much under the weight of clothes when they are wet. The lines I recently put up were already 5 years old and they are still doing great. I found some of this wire at our local general store. They sell it by the foot and you can find it in a hardware store(Home Depot, Lowe's, etc) where they sell chain by the foot. At this store it was 31 cents a foot but I think it would be cheaper at Home Depot or Lowe's. It might be more expensive than the line they sell in the laundry section but it is worth the investment.

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a surprise last week when I went to the root cellar for some supplies to make breakfast. It was about 5:30am and I was going down to the root cellar for some sausage we had canned recently. We can alot of our meat so it does not require a freezer or refrigeration. Anyway this was at the bottom of the steps:
It is sort of difficult to tell but it is a recently shed snake skin. It was about 4&1/2 feet long and really kind of cool to look at, the children thought so too. Although I did not need any thing like coffee to wake up that morning!! In the light of my flashlight it looked like a real snake! We have been leaving our root cellar door open at night since the evenings have been cooler lately. The root cellar starts to heat up a bit after a long hot summer. The skin was pretty intricate, you could see the eyes and mouth along with other details:


Later on that day after a day of chores and other work Tracy made some sugar cookies again and I did get a picture this time:


I also promised Sarah I would post the pictures that she painted that day. Here is some of her handy work:

She really enjoys painting! You all have a blessed week!

In Christ,
Danielle

Laundry Tips

It has been another rainy week here at the Ranch and today we started really thinking about Ike coming through here and dropping more rain. These storms are so unpredictable but this one does seem like it is going to be an intense one.

Michael posted some really good articles last week. One on anonymous internet cowards and one on separatism as a fundamental principal. You all really ought to read them, they are really great articles!

With all the rain we have had this week one chore I did not get done is hand wash. I usually try to get it done on Monday or Wednesday. I have, through trial and error, come up with a system that works. I have learned many things about doing laundry and especially doing laundry by hand. One of the most helpful things I have learned recently is how valuable prewash or presoak can be. It really helps get tough stains out of the clothing. So now I presoak most of my hand wash laundry. When I first started doing laundry by hand I had only 2 buckets, one wash & one rinse. Now I have gone to 4; a presoak, a wash, and 2 rinses. I also use a washboard(from Lehmans) and wringer. Sarah, my 5 year old, really gets her dresses dirty and the only way to get them clean is to hand wash each one and give it a good scrubbing. I also use either Fels Naptha or Zote soap. They both do real well removing spots and whitening whites. And the girls and I wear white headcoverings and the Zote has brightened them up since I started using it. The Zote is less expensive that the Fels Naptha too. I also use vinegar in my rinse water as a natural softener. Here are some pictures I took of the laundry I did one morning:


Over the years I have also learned some things about hanging the clothes out properly. I usually turn them inside out so the sun does not fade the outside colors. Things like Sarah's dresses take 2 clothes pins at the shoulder:

The shirts and light towels I hang can be hung together to save on the number of clothes pins I use. I also hang the shirts upside down so I don't get the clothes pin marks at the shoulder of the shirt. They are less noticeable at the bottom of the shirt:

I hang Michael and Robert's pants inside out and upside down too. But I have not gone to washing them at home. I do need a bigger wash basin for those large items as well as stronger arms and more water!

I will be trying to do some hand washing tomorrow. I will post more pictures of the process then. Oh, also I will post some pictures of the surprise that was waiting for me Thursday morning as I started to prepare breakfast.

Tracy and I have been canning bacon and brisket this week too. Tracy also made some yummy sugar cookies too! No picture though, they went too fast!!

Keep all the people in the path of Ike in your prayers. The Lord's will be done but I hope it is not a devastating storm for us or the citizens of the Texas coast.

Reforming Daily,
Danielle

Giveaway, Workday, and Gardens

Brandi has another great book giveaway this week. It is called, HOMEMADE from Reader's Digest, and it looks like a great book! Sounds like it has lots of great information! On top of hosting another giveaway Brandi is busy taking care of her sick son so keep them in your prayers.

We had community work day today. It was busy, fun and windy! In the morning we, the women, picked up some rocks to help some repair some of our community roads. After lunch we went to the Ante's house and worked on some mending and altering. The men worked on a few different jobs like Ms. Irby's cabin, planting some trees, and working on the Sustaire's shed. The we had a taco supper that was really good.

We have been working on our fall garden this week. With the blessing of the rain came incredible weed growth! The children & I spent all of Tuesday morning pulling weeds and hauling them to the chickens. The chickens really enjoyed all that grass. Praise the Lord that the ground was still moist which made the weeds easier to pull!

Here are some homeschool articles to read.

In Christ,
Danielle

Some good news for the homeschoolers in CA:
On August 8, the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles reversed its February 28 ruling that made California's 166,000 home schoolers truants from the public school system. In order to homeschool legally under that ruling, all parents who wanted to teach their own children would have to have been credentialed teachers. The reversal came after a huge public outcry from citizens, the governor of California, and the state school superintendent.
Read the Article

Bad news for Brazilian homeschoolers(How many is that?LOL!)
MINAS GERAIS, BRAZIL, August 18, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) -
"Two homeschooled children face a battery of tests this week in a showdown between the Brazilian government and a Christian family over the educational rights of parents in the South American nation.

"The children of Cleber and Bernadeth Nunes have already passed the entrance exams for law school at the ages of 13 and 14, but that doesn't satisfy the Brazilian government, which has been trying to force them into its troubled school system since 2006.

"After over a year of battling authorities for the right to home school their children, the Nunes' two prodigies will be tested on a variety of subjects to prove that their parents are not guilty of 'intellectual abandonment,' a legal term that indicates that one has not fulfilled the obligation of providing for the education of one's children."
Read the article

Another Rainy Week!

It has been a busy week. It has been a rainy one too. I think it rained about three times this week, and we are grateful to the Lord for all of it! We have been getting used to the humidity returning too. This week Michael's father came down and helped us run some of the extension cords, we have running outside, underground. It's good to have them out of sight now and out of the elements.

We have also been trying to get the chickens to lay more eggs. The egg numbers have been going down lately. The number usually goes up when the rains come after a long drought, and we have cooler temperatures. We cleaned the chicken house thoroughly and put lots of hay in the nests. We have also been checking them more often to discourage "egg eaters." Some chickens get into the habit of eating the eggs in the nests, but I don't think we have any of those this time.

After we got everything on the porch rearranged from the work Michael's father did, I made some Mequite bread. It was really tasty! I substituted 1 cup of ground up Mesquite pods for one of the cups of white flour in a wheat bread recipe I had tried in the past. I also partially roasted the pods because raw pods have sugar that gets "gummy" in the grinder. The partial roasting helps solidify the sugar. Here is a picture of the ground mesquite pods in the freshly ground wheat:


Then I mixed all the ingredients together and had to let that rise for about an hour:

I placed about a pound of batter in each bread pan. This bread recipe is different from any I have ever tried because it makes a stiff batter in stead of a stiff dough. So the loaves are actually spooned into the bread pans. Which tends to make the loaves look different from ones you can knead and makes smooth on the top.


I also use smaller bread pans now because the propane over never thoroughly cooked the pound and a half larger pans I used to use. They were actually more of a standard size whereas the ones I use now make small loaves but they are cooked all the way through. My first attempt a 2 loaves kind of failed because the loaves fell before baking. I think the fact that the children were cleaning the motorhome at the time has much to do with it. My oven is in the motorhome and it moves around a bit when people are moving around in it.:

I got up early Saturday, put some in to rise, and baked them. The children were still asleep so the motorhome was still, and this time the bread did not fall! I was able to get a picture of only one of them since we ate the other one for breakfast:



I am hoping to make some more this week since I have to bring a bread to fellowship next weekend.

I hope you all are reading the posts on Country Mom and Debylin's blogs. They have had some thought provoking ones lately. Country Mom also has a store opened up that has some really cute stuff she has made.

You all have a blessed week,
Danielle

Bunkies

OK, here are my nominations for the coveted Bunky Awards . Everyone get their acceptance speeches ready!

1. Best All-Around Agrarian Blog. This is the blog you read every day, no matter what. This is the blog you would miss the most if it were gone. This blog out to be a stand-out blog in the Christian Agrarianism field, so we want to recognize a blogger who is standing out in his field. A Process Driven Life, he was standing out there last night shooting at varmits!

2. Most Educational or Informative Agrarian Blog. If you have a proper education and the right information, this blog award title ought to be self-explanatory. The Deliberate Agrarian

3. Best Newcomer Blog. Also self-explanatory. Sifford Sojournal

4. Blog most likely to make you look up words in the dictionary and to challenge your brainal functuosity. This award will go to the blog that most makes you have to think. A Process Driven Life

5. Best Looking Blog. Given for overall aesthetics and attractiveness. R&V Farmstead

6. Best Blog most people have probably never read or heard of. A great way for a great new blog to get some traffic! Darkwood Farm

7. Greatest Agrarian Posterboy Blog. This award will go to the blog that is most likely to make industrialized city people chuck it all and move to the country. A Process Driven Life

8. Best Children's or Young Person's Blog. For the chillens. Growing Up Agrarian

9. Blog most likely to have its owner and author arrested and/or summarily executed by the Government. You know what I'm saying. A Process Driven Life

10. Best Feminine Blog - A great blog many fellas may not read or know about. This blog ought to be one that celebrates Christian femininity. Country Mom

And a thank you to Brandi over at Mountain Morning Homeschool for hosting the giveaway that I won! I look forward to getting my hands on Quilts From Lavender Hill Farm: 12 Projects Inspired by Life in the Countryby Darlene Zimmerman.

In Christ,
Danielle