Homestead and Folly

A friend of mine gave me a jar of her crab apply jelly and I loved it so much so that when I passed by an apple tree full of crab apples set off of the road, I filled my nap-sack with semi-stolen apples and was inspired to make jelly. I acquired the recipe from my friend which seemed simple enough, but (unpeeled uncored apples, sugar, cloves and cinnamon sticks)  found out I needed way more apples than one nap-sack held, so I went and picked more. Still enthusiastic, and a bit smug with my free bounty, though growing suspicious, I got out my canning stuff and cute little jars and got set to make jelly on a Saturday. Step one was wash, remove sticks and cook apples. Done. Next step "put in muslin over a sieve, let fruit drip overnight and don't force through". Crap. So this is going to require more attention than I initially thought. I don't own muslin or a sieve. "wait, I know" thought I, I have that natural burlap bag from the "bag o' sprou...

We have new chicks! We have just picked up our meat chicks that we will raise for the summer and our broody layer hen is hatching chicks as we speak that will hopefully grow up to be good layers. I have been raising chickens for a few years now and am still in love with them. I was reluctant to get chickens. I knew they were an inevitability but I dragged my feet getting into raising them. My husband said "let's get them" and I said "let's wait". I was afraid of making a mistake and we did, lots but over time our chickens have trained us to be good caretakers. Okay, so the baby chicks are pretty cute and fuzzy but that is fleeting. What I really love is the simple joy of watching them socialize in their strange chicken ways. I love feeding them, and I love watching them work out the pecking order, I love seeing them turn into broody, obsessive mothers and I love watching them find something new. The first chickens we had were duel breed chicken...

Picture perect blueberry-lime jam in the making We are still selling the house but as that is not something I can actually claim as a job title we are going forward with all kinds of projects. I am looking for a truck or van to buy to make hauling easier and so I can get around.  We are about to get meat chicks, and then the next project is to build rabbit tractors as we try out raising meat rabbits. I have never had rabbit but am hoping to will myself to like rabbit. I was raised a vegetarian so like many of you thought rabbits were pets but the Globe and Mail says "r abbits produce 6lb of meat on the same feed and water as cattle will consume to produce 1lb" @ globeandmail http:// bit.ly/13UBjZr   . They taste like chicken and are easy to keep. That is good enough for me. Reading up on the subject I have discovered that rabbits are very easy to care for, having almost no diseases or illnesses, requiring no shots or antibiotics and I can tractor them outdoors m...