While Paul was busting his hump, Rhiannon and I spent some time introducing and supervising the interactions of the new and current caprine crew. In other words, we played with the goats all afternoon.
It started raining Saturday night and all the way through until Sunday afternoon. Although I longed to be outside, the rain is much needed and greatly appreciated. Since we were stuck inside for half the day, Paul started organizing the chest freezers. I love the fact that we can store half a hog, dozens of chickens, ground beef, two deer and lots of veggies in the huge freezer, but it does occasionally pose a logistics problem. As in: "Didn't we have more chicken?", "I could swear we had a brisket in there!" or "I wonder how old these almonds are" and my new favorite, "So that's where those squirrels went!"
When we got the last deer, I had planned on canning everything immediately, but that didn't so much happen. The roasts and big hunks of meat were just bagged & chucked into the deep freeze. The meat has just thawed, been cut up into chunks and is ready to be pressure canned today. I also found about two gallons worth of frozen blueberries from last year. Some became a impromptu cobbler kind'a thing and the remaining were made into blueberry jam and jelly.
I also had to do the unthinkable and toss several bags of frozen veggies. One bag had a "Use By" date of 2009 and while I don't mind using "old" food, they were so freezer burned it looked as if they had been dehydrated. The chickens were pretty happy about my lack of rotating the frozen goods though. The dogs weren't left out of the freezer-food-festivities they each got frozen squirrel-sickles for lunch. What a treat!
If you're a dog.
Your hilarious!!!!
ReplyDeleteum...squirrels?
ReplyDelete...they taste like chicken?
ReplyDeleteIf you fry them like chicken....yup! Tay-steeee!
DeleteOoooo... I'm doing this during this week with canned goods that sat too long! For two people, I made up wayyyy tooo many pickles two years ago!
ReplyDeleteScrappy and Bernie have volunteered to help you out with your squirrel-sicles, if'n your dawgs would share....
ReplyDeleteI love that your chicks are like mine and very happy to have my forgotten rotated foods!!
ReplyDeleteJennifer
Defrosting the chest freezer is on my list of things to accomplish before this year's garden starts producing. I fear there's a LOT of pumpkin puree down there, so I'll be eating pumpkin soup and pumpkin bread every day for a while! No vitamin A shortages here!
ReplyDeleteBut I really, REALLY need to come up with a better system for keeping track of what's down there... one of my blogging buddies uses a system of putting similar foods into pillow cases so she can easily see how much of each thing she's got and do more effective rotating. I might have to give it a go since my current freezer diving technique leaves much to be desired!
I like the squirrel sickles! Do they get the bones, too? I am about to begin the chipmunk harvest. Do you just pull them clean and freeze them?
ReplyDeleteThe squirrels were just skinned, feet, tail, head taken off, gutted & thrown in the freezer for later use. Except it happened to become "much later use", so the dogs got them. We usually eat them as we get 'em, but if I recall, one year we were overrun with the buggers so had to freeze a few of them.
DeleteWow!! That is a big ol' tree Paul is working on!
ReplyDeleteThe chickens here always appreciate freezer clean-out day too. Our dog, Buddy, got some past-prime goat meat last fall, happy, happy dog!! :)
You can probably eliminate freezer burn if you get a vacuum sealer. I was doubtful until I finally got one.
ReplyDeleteSounds to me like you did a darn good job of not wasting anything! Even if something has to go into the compost, I say that's fine 'cause it eventually enriches the garden soil. I'm awfully jealous of the blueberries you found though. I've been hoarding my last few (like less than two cups) 'cause when those are gone, we are O-U-T!
ReplyDeleteSquirrel-cicles - my dogs would love a play date at your house! Freezers are a wonderful thing, aren't they?!!
ReplyDeleteWell, you are certainly made me miss my good old days. Sigh.
ReplyDelete