harvesting on all fronts

Harvest is now officially in full swing… Brian got home Saturday night at 11pm yikes… I’ve been finding evening projects now that he’s working late (like updating the blog) … Friday’s project was homemade mozzarella. It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and I finally made the time. I managed to make a complete mess of my kitchen and used way more pots that the directions made it sound like I needed but the directions also said I needed a microwave which I do not have so I had to improvise a bit…

I certainly didn’t’ master it but I did manage to make what looked and tasted like mozzarella and was pretty tasty. Who knew so much milk made so little cheese!

I will say my pigs and chickens loved the whey! Which there was quite a bit of. I picked some of the season’s last tomatoes and found a little basil that hadn’t gotten hit with the cold fall air.

We are officially in “fire season” the wood stove is now in full swing… and I made my first “stove top stock” of the season on Thursday evening : )

Yesterday we had a nice breakfast, enjoyed our last melon from the garden (sniff sniff) with our home grown sausage and eggs.

And let me tell you we needed a good breakfast we spent the whole day working and hiking around the hill moving the goats pasture, shed and water tank and generally getting ready for winter.. this farming thing is a TON of work did I mention that yet…

On my mom’s suggestion I brought in about ½ our remaining pepper crop and put them in the freezer (Saturday nights project).

I’ve been picking some of the apples and pears for winter storage. After filling 4 boxes I just stopped. There is so much fruit out there I feel a little wasteful not collecting it all but maybe next year I can do more canning and freezing of the fall bounty.