Knock Knock... Is Anyone There?

Once again, the busy-ness of life has taken over, and this poor blog has been sorely neglected. So what, besides 10 children, a husband, and the running a household of 12 would possibly be keeping me busy?

Let me explain. No, it's too much. Let me sum up.

1. Canning, Canning, Canning. We have canned and frozen tons of fruit.

- 7 Gallons of Blueberries were turned to 20 pints of jam and 12 quarts of frozen berries.
- 8 Flats of Strawberries were turned to 24 pints of jam (which didn't gel too well, so it is almost like syrup) and 30 quart bags in the freezer
- 2 bushels of peaches made 20 pints of jam and 12 bags of puree for shakes and baking.

And the best part... see the front of the picture... the stuff that looks like pink grapefruit juice? Well... I couldn't stand to see all those peels go straight to the chickens, so I boiled them, added half the sugar of jam, and some gel to make it a little thicker (I could have just boiled it longer, but I was in a hurry to get it done that day), and canned 24 quarts of peach syrup! We used a pint of it when making oatmeal the other day and they say it was delicious. (I don't eat oatmeal. It's a Mama's perogative.) This can be used on ice cream, pancakes, or anything else we want. DELICIOUS!!!

2. Our garden is taking a lot of time, since we had s much rain at first the weeds went crazy. It is finally back under control. We are getting green beans and starting to get cucumbers.

The sugar snap peas have come and gone. We didn't get anything from the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. The Kohlrabi was wonderful with some lemon pepper sprinkled on it. Another we tried with garlic oil. Yum, Yum. I will def. plant more next year.