Busy Week

Tried out the Perfect Pickler perfectpickler.com and it worked great - got a huge jar of pickling cucumbers together on Sunday ($1 per lb at the Farmers Market) and they were all briny and ready for crunching today.  My oldest daughter has already consumed 1/2 the jar, but we plan to set up a second jar tonight!

Then the beans came in.  They seem to be on steroids right now and we can't eat them fast enough.  So a whole bunch got crammed in a jar for later - thank you Ball Canning Bible for making this so simple!

I also picked up 5 ambrosia cantaloup for a buck a piece and made this cantaloup jam I have been dying to try.  It is truly heaven, and I highly recommend it.  The recipe comes from Blue Chair Jams, which was featured in ReadyMade magazine this month and is coming out with a new jam recipe book.  Not only is this jam very pretty, but it made 8 12oz. jars, so I have lots for gifts, if I don't eat it all!

Remember the apple pie filling that went into to jars a few weeks ago - we made apple turnovers that were to die for!  Our neighbors who shared the apples were mighty happy to have breakfast made for them that day too - they were in the midst of boiling meat for their homemade dogfood - not exactly breakfast feed.

The final achievement of the week was finishing up the larger chicken coop.  The girls seem to have settled in, although I still hear occasional squawking due to their pecking order maneuvering.  The egg laying has slowed a little, and although I put kitty litter boxes in there (on a tip from Mother Earth magazine) for nesting, they haven't taken to them.  They like laying during their foraging time, which results in us finding eggs here and there around the yard.  It's like Easter everyday!  Here is their new feeder, sleeping quarters and an antique doorstop that my mother-in-law found us.