Day Old Chick Update

In the past four weeks, our day old chicks have really grown!  In fact, they have moved off of the porch into their first coop...and then into their second coop!  The meat birds are now in a 12 x 12 portable pen that is designed to be moved daily.  They drink so much water that we are are thankful for a six gallon drip system.  I will post details on that this week.

The laying hens out grew their first coop and are now in a second coop.  The first coop needs a few modifications and then we will divide the laying hens between the two coops.  In about four more weeks, maybe sooner, they will move to the large chicken coop and covered yard.  Right now however, they could be lost if the lows at night are too low, so we keep them near the house so we can keep lights on them. 

The meat birds are growing big and strong.  I think we have 70 of them left.  The laying hens are doing well, but we are down on the white leg horns.  I don't remember how many we actually have left, but we lost several due to cats.  The cats really like the 'yellow' chicks. 

So there is our update on the current 4-H project.  More tomorrow!

Counter Clutter & Creation

I was pondering my next post...and in preparation for my 'creation' part of it, had a chuckle over how my homesteading life tends to infiltrate my house:

We have water bottles (the type

typically used for rabbit cages), fresh eggs, milled flour, flour container, apple cider vinegar, baking soda, bag of potatoes, a tomato and even a bag of popcorn!

Then on this counter we have:

In preparation for making Orange Marmalade ~ oh yum!

Gleaning - we were blessed to have someone donate oranges.

Start with 8 oranges and 3 lemons:

Wash the oranges and lemons (these were natural, no pesticides or other yucky chemicals).

I put my lemons in warm water to help make them juicier.

Next, I stared cutting oranges. I cut these into 8ths.

Each wedge, I made a slight 'V' to cut out the white pulpy part. Then cut into chunks.

Next, into the food processor. The first set of oranges I processed needed to go a tad longer. This was my first time making marmalade and I was on the learning curve.

Definitely want the peels chopped up well!

I picked up this gadget from a thrift store (hey, for 50 cents you can't beat it) but have decided I really DO NOT like it. It has a blade you can add and supposedly works well for grapefruit. I'm not impressed. It did help get the juice out of the lemons.

The recipe did not state why I needed to add lemon, my thought was to prevent browning. If that is the case, next time I will just dissolve a vitamin c tablet in there and be done with it. I have done that in the past with other recipes and it works extremely well.

In the crockpot above, cooking down the marmalade. I made the mistake of adding 2 cups of dry honey, then 4 cups of orange juice, I was supposed to add the juice, oranges, lemon juice cook for a while and then add the sweetener. I like using honey as it sweetens well, without a heavy taste and is more natural. I do not use white processed sugar in anything I cook.

Water boiling...the recipe I used said to keep the marmalade in the fridge for up to 2 months. Another recipe I consulted said to water can for 10 minutes. I opted for the water canning. I see no reason to take up space in the fridge for something that does not need to be in there. :-D

Water at a rapid boil, marmalade hot and into the jars it goes. Wipe down the lips of the jars, put the lids and rings on them and then into the pot.

I boiled these for 15 minutes, just to ensure that the water had gotten back up to a roiling boil.

Jar grabber - a friend bought this for me - WONDERFUL gift. Prior to this I was using a set of metal tongs...not a good idea. They did not grab the jars well at all.

Out of the canner, sitting undisturbed on the counter for up to 24 hours.

Listening for: bing, bing, bing, bing and ta dah, the last bing as the lids pop, letting me know that my seal is good.

The people that gave me the oranges received 2 jars - now that I have tried out the recipe and feel comfortable I will try to get a larger batch of oranges and do this again. Here is the recipe if you'd like to try making your own marmalade.