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Saturday, September 10, 2011

Squash and cushaw harvest

We got out this afternoon and went to the garden to get a ripe watermelon. I had already eaten the 2 we picked a couple weeks ago. We got 3 watermelons and I told Rodger we should probably go ahead and harvest the squash and cushaw. We pulled probably 30 winter squash and about 10 or so huge cushaws. We didn't load them in the truck because it would involve toting them a good bit so he said he would go back tomorrow with the tractor and bucket and get them. Will probably take most of the cushaws to Jason's house so he can feed them to the hogs. They sure do like those. I am hoping we can also get them to eat some of the winter squash as we have far more than we can use or give away. I had also ordered some sorghum seed to raise for the seed heads as chicken feed and we cut those while we were in the garden. A nice lil bunch to save seed and plant more next year as chicken feed.
I really miss not having fruit to can this year. I never did get any peaches to put up. But I do still have enough to last us till next summer. Our pear tree has very few pears this year so not sure about them yet. No one near us had apples this year so no apples to freeze for frying. I think I still have enough of those from last year as well. I guess thas why when we can get lots of fruits I do put up far too many and it can last us thru years when we don't have any. Harvesting is about finished here for this year. We still will need to pick corn but that will be another month or so. The sweet taters will need to be dug before frost and that's it for us.
I brought my herbs in from the summer kitchen that I had dried this year and I think we have more than enough of those to supply us and another family or 3. So I got to toss out last seasons dried herbs and replace them with fresh ones.
In our supplies I had made sure to stock plenty of bread flour for making homemade bread. My wrist don't cooperate enough now to allow me to knead bread by hand but I still have a bread machine. It only takes about 3 cups or so of bread flour to make a loaf of bread. I started with 25 lbs of flour and there is 3 1/2 cups of flour per lb. So from that one bag I can make about 25 loaves of bread.  Including yeast, powdered milk, sugar, butter and the flour I figure I can make a loaf of bread much cheaper. The 25 lb of flour sells for about $9 at Sam's club. So I dragged out the ole bread machine and have been making bread the past couple weeks. In our town we have a very limited selection of breads to choose from but if I make them myself I can make any kind I like. And the up-side is I don't make my joints hurt more. Nothing like a hot loaf of fresh bread after a long cool day of working outside.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

1 comment:

The Apple Pie Gal said...

Our fruits are next to nothing this year either. Hoping to get at least one batch of pears soon.

With the cooler weather coming, I hope you joints cooperate more!

xoxox