Jacob's Encounter With a Golf Club

Jacob has had his first big injury in his 3 year old life. On Thursday, the 15th, him and Ben were shooting some golf balls around our property. It seems Jacob got too close to Ben from behind and Ben smashed him in the face with his golf club. It was obvious throughout the day that it was getting worse, so we packed everyone up and headed for the hospital. The doctor put Jacob to sleep and gave him 3 stitches on the outside and I'm not sure how many on the inside. I must tell you that Jacob is loving all this attention though. We had to go back to the hospital last night and he was singing, "Yippee! Yippee! I'm going to the doctor." and he loves taking all the medicine.

Swimmin' Hole

After being stuck inside for 2 whole days of non stop down pours, the sun finally came out. My boys saw a chance to have some fun outside for a change. The rain had made huge puddles around our farm. So, Ben and Jacob put on their swimsuits and out they went to go swimming! They were splashing and running and having such a great time. My favorite part was the looks on the peoples' faces as they drove by. A couple on quads went by and the wife was saying, "Look, look!". Then my boys said "Hi" and the couple said "Hi" back. It was quite hilarious.

Rhurarb

Left - Rhubarb Pie Filling, Centre - Pink Lemonade, Right - Stewed Rhubarb

Last night I canned some more rhubarb yummies. First I canned 10 quarts of rhubarb pie filling. I use this to make rhubarb pies to sell as I need them.

Then I made 4 quarts of "pink lemonade". To make this I boil enough rhubarb with some water to make 10 cups of rhubarb juice when strained. Then in a stock pot, I cook the juice with 10 cups of sugar and a whole bottle of Real Lemon. Then I can and process. This makes a concentrate. Add about 1 1/2 - 1 2/3 cups to 2L of water to make pink lemonade. It is so good and you can't really taste the rhubarb. It really tastes like pink lemonade.

Then with the rhubarb left over from the juice, I made stewed rhubarb. I just mixed in some sugar and canned in 3 pints. I had read on All Recipes.com that a lady used to always eat this on plain yogurt for a treat. Well, I make my own plain yogurt and I tried that this morning. It was so good! Now I have to make more lemonade so that I can make some more stewed rhubarb.

Larry's Birthday

We celebrated my husband, Larry's, birthday yesterday. Dairy Queen opened up in Ponoka 2 days before his birthday. Just in time to buy him his favorite cake - an ice cream cake! (Please don't mind the "0" candle on the cake. I couldn't find any regular candles.)

Dog Days of Summer

Jacob, our 3 year old, has used his savings to buy a inflatable water slide. The kids have been playing on it for 3 hours now. As I type this, I can hear squeals of joy.
It looks like fun! They can also use the slide with no water on cooler days. Our water comes from our well which is about 285 ft deep, so it is extremely cold.

Butchering Day!

(This is Rebekah - below)

(This is Vivian - above)

(This is me - above and that is the finished product in the top right corner)

(These are the roosters we butchered. Rhode Island Reds)

We did it!!!! We actually butchered 26 roosters. George and Vivian did most of the work, but Rebekah and I were helping the whole way through. I know now that I never want to butcher chickens again. BUT, I am happy to know I could if I had to. It was even more disgusting than I thought it would be. I am so glad George killed them all. I just couldn't do that. For the most part Rebekah and I plucked. I singed the skin with a blow torch to get the pin feathers off. My husband even helped, even though he said he was going to go out somewhere while we were doing it. Larry went to the barn to get 4 birds at a time as we needed them. That saved us a lot of time running back and forth. I was very grateful to him for that. Vivian gutted them. I thought that gutting would be the worst part, but I got brave and cleaned the last one, and do you know what? It wasn't bad at all! In fact, I wish I had been doing that instead of plucking. It's not slimy and gross in there like I thought it would be. It was, for the most part, dry and warm. I liked the warmth after having my hands in the cold water as I put the cleaned roosters in it.

We started at 6am sharp and finished at 10am. I spent another 5 hours cleaning the skin more and putting them in bags and finally, in the freezer. I didn't know what the brown spots were all over the skin. I finally looked it up on the Internet and found out that with dark feathered birds there will be a "ink" left in the skin, but disappears when it is cooked. And it supposedly doesn't change the taste. I spent 45 mins on 1 bird trying to get it all off. I wasn't so picky after I found out what it was.

All the birds weighed between 2.5 - 3.25 lbs, with the drumsticks removed. My family likes Shake-and -bake drumsticks, so that is why we took them off. I was happy with their size. I was aiming for 3-4lbs and including drumsticks and that's what we got.

All in all it was a huge learning experience raising roosters for meat. I will let you all know how the meat tastes - in about 6 months when I can hopefully bring myself to eat them!

Wild Daisies

We have just come back from the Ponoka Stampede Parade. It's really fun and the kids, of course, love the candy.

I did great at the Farmer's Market this week. I sold the message board I made plus all my bread, eggs, cookies, rhubarb pies and lot's of preserves.

I am taking a moment before I go outside to set up for tomorrow. Tomorrow morning at 6am I will be butchering my roosters! I am trying to be excited, but it's so hard. I have been looking at pictures on the Internet again to try to desensitize myself. It actually worked a little. I will post pictures when we are done.

Larry and Ben came home the other day with these beautiful wild "daisy's" the other day. What a wonderful surprise! My husband doesn't think of things like that very often. But it makes me REALLY appreciate it when he does. These are my new favorite flower.