How long has it been?

I will readily admit to being a horrible blogger.  I never seem to be able to keep up with it.  I have two blogs, this one and her sister, The Good Little Housewife, and I can't keep up with either.  It's not for lack of material, but more because I simply forget to update.  Then one day, out of the blue, someone messages you asking about your rabbit hutch and you remember that you have a blog to update.  lol

Since I last updated, we have tried our hand at rabbit breeding.  Most of them did not make it, so we gave our does away until we could figure out a better breeding cage set up.  It was really a blow to us since we had planned on doing this for meat.  We ended up keeping the two males for manure and the fact that one is the offspring of our first rabbit who passed away a couple of years ago.  Either way, maybe in the future we can try again.

We still have our chickens and they are wonderful.  I would recommend chickens to anyone.  The eggs are great and the birds are entertaining.  When we finally get a little land of our own, we want to raise more chickens, even some of the fancier breeds.  The eggs sell well at farmers markets, plus, it will keep us in a better supply of chicken meat.  It seems that store bought meat has no flavor, anymore.  

Our gardening is not going so well.  We are not sure what is going on, but nothing really grows.  Last year, during the drought that dried out the midwest, we were trying to water with the hose.  Our city municipalities put so much chlorine in our drinking water, that it was killing the plants.  So we lost all of it.
This year, we didn't get anything done in time for spring planting.  My husband was busy with finals and graduating and I was busy trying to get my soaping business off of the ground and homeschooling the kids. On top of all of that, we have been working on remodeling our home.   I also got started on a course study in herbalism so that I can make medicines and such for my family.

We do have some pumpkin plants in the ground and are preparing for a fall planting.  In the meanwhile, I have canned up a bushel of green beans, put some corn and berries in the freezer, and will be canning some jelly very soon.  Every little bit helps.

I seem to be full of empty promises when it comes to my blogging, but I will try to keep updated a little more.  Thanks for reading!

Canning this fall

I am making plans for a bit of food preservation this fall. Last year, I made applesauce and cinnamon apples. We're still eating off of those cans almost a year later. I am hoping that apples have done well this year. It's been so incredibly hot this summer and I don't know how that helps or hurts apple trees.

I have plans, today, to make either lavender jelly or rosemary jelly. I have been meaning to do this for a few weeks now, but haven't gotten around to it. There seems to be too much going on with the kids going back to school. I promised a couple of my friends that I would send jars to them. I guess I better get on the stick. lol

Do you do any canning? Have you ever made jellies? I have made pumpkin butter, apple butter and banana butter. I hope I can still find those recipes since I lost everything on my old computer. I had to set it back to factory settings. I think I have them printed off in my files, so as I work on these things I will let you know. I haven't fully decided on making the banana butter yet, but the pumpkin butter is a must have. You can make a batch and not can it if you prefer.

Anyway, I hope I can get one of my jellies done today. The weather is going to be comfortable today so I think this is the perfect time to heat up my kitchen.

Quick and Easy Food Preservation Project

As the title of my blog suggests, I am a stay at home wife. I use natural ingredients for cleaning as much as possible. One of the things I use is lemons. They are a great natural bleach to get stains off of your counter tops. You can use them to scrub a wooden cutting board for disinfection. You can simmer them on your stove for air freshening.

When I use them for cleaning I hate to throw the zest away. I searched around for instructions to preserve them and found out how to easily dry the zest.

Use a regular vegetable peeler to peel the zest from the lemon taking care not to peel the pith (white part of the peel). The pith is bitter and would not taste good in your food.

Lay the pieces on a paper towel and allow to air dry for a few days.

You can then use this dried zest in any dish that calls for fresh zest. I assume you could do this with any citrus fruit such as oranges, limes and grapefruit. It is a good addition to tea and I have dropped them into a bowl of water and warmed with my candle warmer.

I store my zest in a little canning jar in my cabinet.



This is how it looks all dried out.