Happenings on the Homestead in the Appalachian Mountains

Weekend Coffee Share

Hello there Adventurous Friends & Family, greetings from Georgia. How you doing this 39th week of 2023? One or 2 of the hens have started laying. Kevin got a bear. We both guessed there would be 15 packs of ground meat come out of the bear. Grab a coffee or your favorite beverage & I'll tell you how much meat was processed, come walk with me...

Soft shell egg.

*  The 1st chicken egg harvested was soft shell. Rose got to have it. Kevin got a bag of oyster shells, a size bag he says will last for about 10 years. It don't take much. The oyster shells provide extra calcium that helps the hens lay healthy strong eggs. 

The nest boxes are working, sometimes they
 don't. It's so exciting to be getting our own 
eggs again.

The rooster perfecting his crow. These 2 are speckled sussex.

Fans in the stands cheering & clapping
 at the football game along with
Cheerleader Sister.

*  Kevin figured his bear probably weight around 150 pounds. He cut up the meat & processed it himself. He cooked us up some of the ribs for supper. There was enough leftovers for lunch.  The meat was cooked in the crockpot on high for about 8 hours. Then Kevin put BBQ sauce on the ribs & grilled them on the charcoal grill. Boy, the meat was good! It was juicy & no weird wild taste. It was compared to having pork ribs. The meat produced 2 roasts, 3 packs of ribs & 17 packs of ground.  Kevin cooked the fat & made a jar of bear grease that we'll use to make biscuits or anything else that would use lard.  He had enough rendered to make 2 jars, but it seems the liquid was too hot for the jar.  The jar busted, oh what a mess.  Several years ago, that happened to our glass tea container as I was making tea. Opps!

*  The garden is still producing okra, peppers & strawberries. Kevin has been working a little all along pulling stalks & getting the garden ready for next year. He's been adding real dirt to the beds in hopes that it will help maintain moisture better. The dirt in the beds was a potting soil type mixture that seemed to dry out very quick.

The fall garden is not very pretty as the plants are dying back, when it's time to
cleanup & pull up the stalks. Grand had a time last weekend hunting strawberries &
 eating them on the spot.

Happy Daughter's Day 
this week! 

These are some of the things that's been going on in my neck of the woods, how has your week been?