Its been a day!

Yesterday we butchered 7 chickens, actually 6 young roosters an 1 older hen that was not a good momma. She is the one that tossed her babies out of the nest an tried to kill em and I ended up with 4 orphans in the house.So she did not get a second chance. My friend Lori came down to hang out and help us. This was her first chicken killing experience. She was a lot of help, she and Rodger plucked the chickens an I cut them up. I deboned the breast to use in gumbo later and froze that. I deboned the thighs and canned the thighs and legs in stock today. I made stock with the bony pieces and fat from the birds. So the stock got done last evening and I strained it and let is sit over night. Today after I got able to walk around, (thas a whole nuther story) I went out and put the stock an chicken in jars an got it canned. I ended up with 6 quarts of meat and stock an 7 quarts of stock. Not bad for a days work.

On the walk around business, I obviously walked around too much yesterday. OMG I had leg cramps from hell last night. Not sure what the deal is unless its the new meds stripping my potassium or what. The new meds I am taking (Lyrica) does help some with the pain. For that I am thankful. But dang the leg cramps. That is one of the side effects of the medication so I can learn to function within limits to prevent the cramps. Last night I woke several times with bad cramps and decided I need some potassium to calm em down. So off to the kitchen to get some sauerkraut, and had a few bites of that and back to bed. I did this twice before I realized I was a goober an sauerkraut did not have potassium in it but is loaded with vitamin C. See my mind don't work well when I wake up, it takes a bit. I have moved a lil slow today but am OK I think.

When I was in the summer kitchen today I took the dried red Roselle out of the dehydrator an put it in a pint jar. Dang it I started with a gallon bucket of that stuff cleaned. Anyway I got a message from my future daughter in law that the red Roselle is used in Jamaica to make a Christmas drink. So I guess we can wait till she comes home with Rob for Thanksgiving an let her make us a traditional Jamaican drink. Something tells me it will contain rum. Looking forward to that.

Not much happening here this time of year. Rodger is battling the muskrats and beavers for our field of corn. He put up an electric fence yesterday evening and put the wire low to the ground in hopes of deterring them from totin off the corn. I may try to move some manure out of the chicken house tomorrow and get it ready to take to the field so we can transplant our grape vines that I have started. I think I have 25 or so of em. They really need to be in the ground so they can get established before frost kills them back for the season. I would sure hate to go to the trouble of setting them out to have em all freeze to death. And I probably need to pick raspberries again. They will produce up to frost. Not to mention I am still picking strawberries. But I love it.

So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella