First Snow

 We got our first snow of the year

over night on Sunday/Monday.

It wasn't much.

Just a nice dusting.

Kyle got more than we did, out at the farm.

This is the road he built that runs from his

house, to the pig barn, and then down into

the garden valley and up to our house.

This is the little road from our house, down 

through the trees to the garden.

This is my favorite spot on the farm.

In the summer, it's shady and so lovely!

(But a bit slippery when it's wet!)

We got a pretty, soft, white carpet in the house.

If you look up,, you can see he has some of

the plywood up, but we had to switch focus

from our house to his water!

Water.

It's kind of important.

He went for 5 days without running water.

He was thrilled last night when he

could finally turn on the tap and water

flowed out!

It's the little things.

(Like flushing a toilet without getting

a bucket of water....)

It was cold, and the roads were slippery,

so we stayed in yesterday.

But we weren't idle.

I saw a post on one of my canning pages on

facebook that someone pressure canned the

onions that were going soft in her storage.

Aha!!!!

I did a trial batch of 5 jars and they 

looked good, so I did 4 more.

(Now I'm out of jars.... getting more today.)

I'm going to open one today and make sure

they are tasty. They pressure canned for

70 minutes and turned a lovely caramel brown,

and the lady said they were delicious.

So... fingers crossed!

I still have probably 10+ more bags in my

freezer and they 

1. stink

2. take up a LOT of space.

If I can them, that would be great!

(I also want to freeze dry some, but might

wait and do that next year with the next

harvest... I think I still have some in my

freeze dried storage.)

And freeze drying them makes the oil 

in the pump stink, so then you need to change

it, and I still have 15 more batches I could run

before it would need to be changed.

And I don't HAVE 15 runs right now.

Anyhow.

I hope these are delicious.

Each jar was about 1 onion.

They were still partially frozen when I put

them in the jars, so they really cooked down.

Next run I will let them thaw all the way

so I can get the jar a little fuller.

But really, what's in there is probably

what I would use in a recipe anyway.

Today?

We have a phone consult with our Medicare

rep at 10:30 to make sure we still have

the right MediGap coverage for us.

Then the guy is coming to 

FIX OUR FRIDGE a little after lunch.

Kyle and I are running into town to do

our Tuesday Hays Day.

So I can actually buy some groceries.

Not that we need much, our pantry is

getting to be well stocked.

But it would be nice to have some milk

and eggs that I don't need to go out

to the garage to get.

Last week, because of the rising price of

beef, people have switched to chicken

and pork. (And turkey, it WAS Thanksgiving

after all...)

But consequently, nobody bought beef.

And they have some EXCELLENT clearance

prices. I hate to buy WalMart beef.

But we are running low on the quarter

we bought in January.

We got some good stew meat, I used

some for the beef stroganoff last week

and sent some home with Kyle to make

his own. That's one of our favorite

winter dinners.

And I got a nice chuck roast.

So today I'll check if there is anything else

on clearance I can't pass up on.

But I really need to call the butcher and

order another quarter.

OH!

And I made a big pot of chicken noodle

soup the other day, opening a can of

my own chicken!

I grew the chicken.

I butchered the chicken.

I pressure canned the chicken.

And I made soup out of the chicken!

(Goodness, I sound just like 

Chicken Little! HAHAHAHA!)

Anyhow, it was yummy!

So I'll probably can more.

And I might get a turkey while they

are still cheap and can up some of 

that as well...

We'll see.

I don't have a lot of pantry space.

That might have to wait until the

new house.

Have a great Tuesday!

And FEEL BETTER MOM!!!!