Fireworks on the 4th!

We heard the chickens upset about something in the yard, they were making a racket that usually alerts me to some kind of visiting animal. Went outside and saw something pretty cool among the lemon trees of our neighbor's orchard. A peacock! I assume he must have escaped, in fact I saw someone walking around the orchard earlier in the morning- probably looking for him.
Anyway, this display called for pictures. Very beautiful animal. We lured him in by tossing a few blackberries over the fence.

Happy 4th of July everybody!

Pickled Peaches

I haven't tried these yet, but have wanted to ever since I first read about them. 

There is no recipe exactly, it's just a technique sort of, but it goes like this.

About a pint and a half of cider vinegar, another pint of water on the stovetop- add 4 cups of sugar to this and get it boiling. 

While you're doing that, get another pot of plain water boiling to blanch the peaches in, and an ice bath with a generous amount of lemon juice to soak them in after. 

Drop the peaches into the boiling water when it's ready, let them sit till they are good and hot- about 45 seconds or so- then set them into the ice bath. The skins should slip right off. 

Press two whole cloves into the skinned peaches, but break the round head off each clove or they will make the syrup cloudy. Press one clove into each side of each peach. 

Have some clean hot jars ready for the peaches (wide mouth unless your peaches are smallish like mine were). 

Once the vinegar syrup has been boiling for about ten minutes or so, place the peaches into the pot with the syrup. You only need to keep them in there for a moment to get nice and hot, then remove each peach with a slotted spoon and put them into the jars. 

Once all the jars are full, pour in the boiling syrup and add a stick of cinnamon if you like it. 

Wipe the rims of the jars, and cover and seal them. 

Great project for using up peaches, and easy way to avoid Chemistry homework for an hour or so. 

When they're ready, we'll report back on how they turned out!

Easy Brined Dill Pickles..

The problem: You're growing cucumbers for pickling, and they are getting to proper size one or two at a time, but all the recipes you find are for a big batch. You keep putting them in the fridge and they are wilted by the time you have enough saved up for a recipe's worth.

The solution: Use this recipe for one jar at a time pickle production. 

1. Make a brine- I'm using 2T of kosher salt for every cup water. Try it and if they come out too salty, adjust. Go ahead and make too much (like a 4 or 5X recipe), you'll use the rest on another day.

2. Wash your cucumbers, remove the prickles as you do.. 

3. I like to slice mine into 'spears' first. They will pickle faster, and I seem to have better luck fitting them in the jar. 

4. In a clean jar place the cucumber spears, a smashed garlic clove, a sprig of fresh dill, and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes (or fresh pepper if you like). Pour in the brine. 

5. Cover the jar with something that breathes and a rubber band- keep it at room temp but not direct sun for about 3 days. 

6. Put your lid on and put them in the fridge. If your pickles are too salty, you can dump some water and replace with fresh water. Excess salt will leach out into the water.

Feel free to add onion, green tomato, etc; whatever else the garden is putting out in excess. Here is a fresh prepared batch sitting out. Notice the color difference in the new brine. As it matures it will become 'milky' in appearance.

Peach Cobbler

We planted a tiny little 3 foot peach tree last year, and it is a champ! As spring started it was making so many little peaches that I worried all its limbs would break under the weight. We knocked about 2/3's of the little peaches off the branches, and we've still gotten about 25 beautiful ripe peaches from it.

So what to make with them? I'm a little hesitant to make anything, as I'm just crazy for ripe peaches. It almost seems a waste to eat them any other way. Finally yesterday (after eating them for about a three days) I had my fill and decided to start with a cobbler.

If you saw my olallieberry cobbler post, you are probably getting the theme, but I LOVE cobblers. So much easier than pie, and I prefer that sweet biscuity cake in the mix to pie dough. It's nice when your preference is also easy.

If you are local and want some good peaches, there is a little fruit stand on the 118 that has great peaches coming soon, if they aren't there already. Can't remember the name, but I go there every summer and will be again once these last 9 peaches are gone!

I used this recipe, and totally recommend it. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/southern-peach-cobbler-2/

I recommend staying clear of any cobbler recipe that doesn't have butter (cut in method) in the 'cake' portion of the recipe.

Here are the pictures. As always, nothing cooked with fruit looks as appetizing as the fruit itself, but believe me, this is GOOD!

Wheaten Marans are here!

Though they've been here for a few weeks actually. I'm putting up pictures now, because they've gotten to my favorite age- feathered enough to live outside where they have enough room to frolic and be adorable.

Wheaten Marans lay that dark brown egg I love, and they have such a pretty color pattern in my opinion. Not very flashy, but just sort of 'natural bird' looking to me. I don't know what it is about them but they've been my favorite since I discovered them.

These guys and gals are starting to distinguish themselves now that their feathers are coming in- the girls have the 'wheaten' look, tan and brown- and the boys are much darker at the moment and getting more and more dark feathers every day.

There are three other chicks in the bunch that hatched from some blue/ splash marans eggs I purchased. They are a little younger and smaller and still mostly fluffy as opposed to feathered at the moment.

Here they are!

Cobbler

Olallieberries are coming in. Besides the artichokes, there isn't anything in the garden that fits my "all thumbs" gardening style so well. Plant it, walk away, and return when it's time to harvest. This years bunch is going to be about five times what we picked last year. Our first pick went to a cobbler.

Nothing more to say here. Behold...

Early for Good Behavior

Well, our ducks never hatched. I thought they were going a little bit long, and then found a broken one outside her nest- not a thing had developed but the smell. Yuck. I decided to pitch the whole bunch into the compost. Aside from this, we needed the garden back. I had decided to go ahead and slaughter the ducks for the freezer, but had a last minute change of heart and put them up on Craigslist. They wound up going to a petting zoo, so that's pretty great. Happy for them. Over the time that we had them, they did a great job keeping the snails and grassy weeds from taking over the garden, but it's well past time to plant, and my tobacco starts are ready.

The great part is, no more baby ducks means I could release our nest raiding gopher snake a little earlier! I took some pictures before I said goodbye. He/she is all fattened up, having had no less than 6 mice and 2 chicks (hatched but didn't survive). I think it was more of a vacation than a sentence actually.

Here are the pics!

Definitely one of the prettier gopher snakes I've seen, got a few close ups of his/her scales as well.