The apple day...

The apple day came, and it went. I am so glad we all survived. What an undertaking 18 bushels of apples can be! We had a family over to split the apples and work load and I am so thankful for all the extra hands. Two moms and various combinations of children were working all day long. The dads were smoking eight slabs of bacon and the hocks from four pigs, as well as cooking down the scrap bones to make a very tasty stock to can for later use. Wow...at the end of the day, we had 112 quarts of applesauce, 12 gallons of cider, and about four bushels of apples for eating and possibly for making apple pie filling (if I can find the energy!).

I will post the meat smoking pictures when we are all the way done with the processing...we still have some hams to smoke! Yummm!

My new soap recipe!

There is such a feeling of satisfaction that comes from a successful batch of soap...Here is a new recipe I created. It is a mixture of mango butter, home-rendered lard, and 76 degree coconut oil. The fragrance is an citrus blend, hence the orange color I chose. I highly recommend the book by Anne L. Watson, called Smart Soapmaking. She explains how to create your own soap recipes which opens the door to your imagination and creativity. I am currently awaiting the arrival of her new book on milk soaps and am hoping it will help to take care of our surplus milk supply! Happy soap making and God bless!

It's time for apples!

This Saturday we will be smoking our hams, bacon, and hocks for those of you who ordered a pig or part of one from the last butchering. As if we didn't already have enough to do, we decided to make a "day" of it and do our years worth of apples as well. We will be making applesauce, sweet apples for pie, and apple cider with a cider press borrowed from a friend. Come on out and visit our farm (and help if you want to get your hands dirty!) as we make a day it! Bring a lunch and some chairs and rediscover some forgotten skills. For those who can not make it, we will post pictures and file this project away for future reference. Have a blessed day!