These days we are up to our ears in chickens and tomatoes!
chickens
A couple of weeks ago we added 28 cornish rocks to our homestead. These are our "meat birds" that we will butcher at the end of October. Every year a group of friends and neighbors go in together on a large order of birds, we raise them on our own, then get together for a joint effort experience "turning the chickens to meat" butchering day work party. These are meat birds, that will live a good, healthy, but short life on our homestead.
tomatoes
Our garden tomatoes have been extremely bountiful this year. The past couple weekends I have been busy picking and peeling. Last weekend I made salsa. (7 pints) This weekend I had so many tomatoes I made pasta sauce. This was a first for me. I was in the kitchen for a good part of the day, but it was gloomy anyway and I started a good audio book.
I used this recipe and was able to use tomatoes, basil, oregano and parsley from my garden. I was very happy with the results. I ended up with 13 pints!!!
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We are definitely putting a little more work on the front end of things, but the products of our efforts are pretty darn good.