Milkin'

"Come on, Cookie!"

She comes walking towards the barn with just that one simple call from The Rancher.

He holds the door and she enters the milking room of the 120 year old barn and takes her place with her head in the stanchion and happily begins eating her grain.  

I wonder how many cows have been milked right there in that very spot.

The milkmen this morning are Weston and our nephew Brian, who is here working for the summer.  They have a special little observer today, still clad in her nightgown, which is happily juxtaposed with her hot pink mud boots.

With one on the left and one on the right the job goes quicker.

And 2 gallons are filled up in no time.

Saucin' (And a Shabby Sort of a How-To on Making Applesauce)

My parents came and visited us last weekend.  As always, it was fun to be with them.  And it's a good thing they're workers, because we put them to work.  We had apples coming out of the wazoo (translation: dropping off the trees at a non-keep-up-able rate) and tomatoes and squash that needed addressing.  

On Friday we women were busy in the kitchen making zucchini relish and salsa (of which I finished yesterday because I had to get some hot peppers from the store).

The men were at work on a garden gate.

They used the old door that was the bathroom door of the first little old house that we moved to in Idaho back in 2006.  That house was torn down shortly after we moved out of it.  We were only there for 6 weeks.  I was in my first trimester with Ezra and the water smelled like sulfur.  I couldn't even use it to brush my teeth or I would gag.  We bought bottled water.  When we moved out I asked if we could take the bathroom door and the front door.  We brought them to the ranch to use for something, just because I thought they were cool.  We used this door as our head board for a while and I loved it.  Then we moved to a different house on the ranch and the door got put somewhere.  It got beat up and weathered, sadly.  I wish we had taken better care of it because it was really cool.

Anyway, now it's one of the 2 back garden gates, along with some pickets.

My dad is so handsome.

My momma's so pretty.

At the end of the day this is what I look like...

Saturday was apple saucin' day.

My dad stood in that spot for pretty much 4 1/2 hours chopping apples.

He said to one of my kids, "I'll stand here until your Mom tells me differently."

What a trooper.  

My mom chopped a ton, and filled jars, entertained little hands and did whatever else was needed.  Weston ran the camp stove outside with more apples cooking until soft, and a water bath canner.  

I tried to keep the littles involved.  I really want this sort of thing to be a family thing; everyone has a job, and we're all involved in the work and the fun and the feasting.  Of course keeping everyone on task is a complete job in itself.  It's easier if they are not under foot and if I can just do my work and not have to keep everyone on task all the time.  But I know if we keep at it every year will be easier.  And it is for the greater good of teaching our offspring.

For the most part, everyone did really well.  Spencer chopped, took pictures (most of the ones here), and turned and mashed.  Kate and Ezra took their turns bringing in apples, and turning, mashing and filling jars, entertaining Oliver.  Jiles helped to fill jars and spent probably 2 whole minutes separating the wide mouth lids from the regular lids.  He is also a good Oliver entertainer.

Zoe is a good helper and likes to be involved.  She helped Grammie cut (sort of) and mashed away.

And Oliver's job was to sit in his high chair, eat applesauce and be entertain by all of the activity and faces around him.  He was really good at doing his job.  So good that he needed a thorough scrubbing at the end of it.

There are so many apples this year.  It's lovely.  There were NONE last year.  We've been out of applesauce for like a year and half.  My family loves applesauce.  

So we've been busy (step-by-step pictures courtesy of Spencer)...

and we'll call this:

How To Make Applesauce

1. pick and gather

2. bring them in

 

3. wash

4. cut into quarters - or 1/8's if the apple is really big - and cut out any yucky parts.  Do not core and peel skins.

5. boil until soft in a great big pot of water

 6. put hot softened apples into the white funnel of the food strainer (I use this one)

7. turn crank and mash down apples 

8.  spoon hot fresh applesauce into hot clean jars (or eat applesauce immediately with a dash of cinnamon)  

NO NEED FOR SUGAR - we've never added it

 9.  clean rim of jars and add hot flat lid and ring

10. put jars in a water bath canner and process for 20 minutes a batch

11. when done set on a towel on a table or counter to cool

(We found that the water bath canners were 5x as fast on the camp stove on the back porch.  That is why the jars are outside.)

 We did 62 quarts on Saturday.  I had done 28 earlier in the week (14 each on 2 different days).  So we have done 90 quarts altogether.  I LOVE seeing my pantry filling up with home grown and home canned goods.  It is glorious!

The Garden, The Garden Fence, and The Garden Fence Gate

We've been putting a lot of our time this year into growing.

Growing children?  Yes, of course.

Growing cattle?  Yup, uh huh.

But also growing food.

Naturally.

  

What's a homestead without a big garden?  Well, not as legit of a homestead, maybe?  We've done gardens in the past, sort of, but this has been our best so far.  I ordered non-GMO, non-hybrid, heirloom seeds in Janurary or February from Victory Seeds, and started like 50 or more tomato plants, peppers, and a bunch of other stuff.  I only had success with the tomatoes.  I planted 24 of them, and then we had to leave for Texas, and the other plants that were in the starter things next to the planted tomatoes somehow didn't get water.  They were shriveled up and dead by the time we got home.

The garden the week of July 8th:

The corn is popping up behind me in the picture, as are the melons, pumpkins, squash, beans.  (Now - a month and a half later - they are all over the place.)

We added a little sand box to the left of the hen house.

The kids play out there forever, which works great for when I want to be in the garden.

Ezra was yelling that he had to go to the bathroom in the photo above.  He busted himself out right after I took the picture.

Oh, and the weeding opportunities that a garden provides.  Everyone is supposed to weed their age times 10.  We did like 2 days that anything over that was a penny a weed.  Kate was earning some good money.  And she and Ezra even helped Jiles weed 50 extra so that he could earn 50 cents.

The Garden Fence.

I really wanted a nautral fence, and so, after pinning a few on Pinterest, Weston had an idea of what I had in mind.   And we started to work on it.

But Weston had a hard time working on it.  Not because he couldn't do it, but because it was a lot of work to make, and not so sturdy.  He's a rancher.  Fences are a big part of his job.  And to spend time on one to not have it last... That didn't go over so well.

  

So, after having one and a half sections completed, and then it staying like that for like 3 months, and then seeing one of our best friends' garden fence, we tore out the unsturdy natural fence (sniff, sniff - i loved the look) and Weston got to work on a nice sturdy, tall picket fence.

Remember: I am the dreamer, he is the realist.

Section one (with an old door that I wanted to use as a gate):

I love it!

And Weston does, too.  And it goes up fairly quickly (once the posts are in).

The west side with the pumpkins 2 weeks ago:

I cannot wait to plant wildflowers - sun flowers to be specific - along the fence.  Flowers on the outside and herbs on the inside.

The chicken door will be on the outside of the fence with a little yard, but we'll let them into the garden once everything is harvested (probably).

I need to move that white door that's leaning up against the hen house that's been in every picture.

Of course, it is not done yet.  There is still the north side (front side) to put in with the front double gates that will open wide enough for the tractor, that section right there by the coop, and the rest of the east side.  Weston's been busy haying, and we took a trip to Nevada for a family reunion, so it was pushed to the back burner.

I have {sweetly} reminded Weston that 1 cow 1 time could ruin it all.

Like this lady: 

"Excuse me, could you please ruminate somewhere else?"

She was kind enough to oblige, without stepping hoof into the garden.

And now...

The Garden Fence Gate:

It's a door from the old ranch house that used to stand in our house's place.  We lived in the old farmhouse for the first year that we were on the ranch.  It was a sweet little place, but moldy.  Very, very moldy in the basement.  Think mold flowers on the wall.  Spencer's asthma really started when we moved into it.  That's why it was torn down.

The door was a closet door for either Kate's room or the boys' room.  The middle panels feel off just this last winter because they were left on the ground all winter.    

I put it on my operating table:

And got to work.

(How cute is Oliver? He pushes chairs all over the place.)

I cleaned it and painted it with some paint that I already had, and then sealed it with polyurethane.  Weston helped me put on the chicken wire, then we reenforced it a bit, and hung it in the back corner of the garden.

Well, ain't we handy.

We all love it.

Some Pickings:

We've been getting little maters for a few weeks now.

 And now everything else is really coming on.

Yesterday morning the kids and I went out together to see what we could pick.  It was a really cool morning, which was fun and Fall-like.

 Basil

 Dill

Dill is pretty.

All of it is, really.

Even those cracked tomatoes that got too much water (chicken food).

Lots of squash.  

Anyone have a favorite recipe.  We sauteed some up tonight and it was yummy.  (And I put some in my burrito, but I couldn't really taste it because I was paying attention to kids and didn't pay attention to the taste of my dinner.)

 Squash Patch Kids:

A great place to grow 'em.

And you thought I gave birth to them.

Ha! Sure fooled you!

And then Ollie got the boot from the wagon to make room for the bounty.

Busyness in the garden.

Real food is beautiful!

P.S. I finished journaling the trek post if ye care ta take a looksee.