Branding Day

We finished up Branding ( Got all the late calves ) this week end . The weather was just right couldn't believe the wind wasn't blowing a million miles an hour like it has done all week.  

My Brother came up to help with his  kids and my cousin came up also, she hasn't every seen this done she had lots of fun, we even let her try to brand a calf.

 The kids love being able to pet the calves.

 

Katie is pushing the calves up into the ally way some of the calves have a mind of their own and keep trying to go any way but the direction you want them to go.

 

One of my nieces who is scared of cows got in the alley and pushed the cows to the shoot was very proud that she got in with them and did a great job. Although the last three were the largest calves and she got out then and said she didn't want to do the larger calves lol.

 

 

My nephew trying to ride on of them. Thats one of the fun things on branding day the kids trying  to ride some of the  larger calves they don't usually last to long before they fall off.

 

My nieces just love the calves I think they petted almost every one that came through the shoot.

 

After we got done with branding  we had to move the horses to different pasture so we let the girls have a ride. Rosie ( the horse)was being a little stupid so they didn't get to ride very long but I told them to come up this summer after we have worked them a little and ride again.

 

As you could see when we brand we use a calf table, run the calves in give them their vaccinations and then brand them. My brother and sister in law do it the old fashion way, catch them on horse then tie them and brand them.

 

Joleen and Katie always try to go and help.

 

Here they are giving vaccinations.

 

 

Branding is a lot of fun and a lot of work. Its probably a good thing it only comes once a year.

Canning Frozen Orange Juice

 

I have been reading a lot about food going up with all the droughts ,viruses and all the things that are going on. One thing that is also going to go up is oranges. And I really like my orange juice. When I canned oranges last fall I didn’t do much juice, so I have been buying the frozen and canning it. My freezer space is pretty limited so I just can it. Very easy to do.



First get you OJ then let it thaw. I just use the cheap store brand.

 

 

Pour in to a large pan. Do not add any extra water, warm up and simmer for a couple minutes.

 

Pour into sterilized pint jars. And Water bath for 5 minutes ( Be sure to adjust for Altitude I have to do mine for 20 minutes).

 

It will darken a little with age but still taste good. I opened one the other day from 2 years ago and was great.

Week 17 Food Storage Challenge

50 pounds wheat/ 25 pounds Rice

50 pounds wheat or flour

25 pounds Rice

This month try together extra sewing stuff like needles, thread, patches, buttons, pins and scissors.

If you don’t already have your 72 hour kits try to get them put together.

The skill for this month is gardening if you haven’t had a garden now is the time to get that going and if you have a garden you may want to enlarge it this year. The way things look produce may be hard to come by this fall because of the droughts and all the viruses that a lot of plants are getting.

Put some more into you money stash.

Add some more water to you water supply.

To Blog or not to Blog

With all the things going on in the world the droughts and plagues and viruses on a lot of our fruits and vegetables the threats of war from so many different places, and our economy I have been feeling an extra sense of urgency to get where I need to be. I have been very busy canning some extra food.

I read that bananas have a very bad virus and the type that we eat may go away it is that bad so I have been freezing and canning bananas, Milk has been on sale for 2.59 a gallon so I have been canning a bunch of it to use for cooking, I got butter and margarine on sale so I have been canning some of it. Strawberry were also on sale so I froze a bunch of them. Cheese was also on sale I bought block cheese and shredded the shredded I will put in the freezer and the block I will can. Oranges also have a virus so between that and the freezing oranges are going to go up so I bought some frozen oj and canned it. Have dried a lot of sour cream.

A friend gave me a bunch of day old bread so I toasted and ground it up for bread crumbs I have never oven canned so I thought I would try it on the bread crumbs didn’t have very good luck with it but I am going to try one more time since I really like the whole idea of it for dried stuff.

And we can’t forget about taxes we were to last minute this year have never been this late in getting them done I am also helping my dad with his but he got an extension so I have a little more time to work on them.

Trying to also get some mending done Andy is so hard on his pants and shirts I have several shirts that I need to cut the long sleeves down to short sleeves and pants to patch. Katies prom dress also need to be taken in a little.

We got half the calves branded a couple weekends ago and will try to do the rest in a couple weeks when we are all calved out.

And since I have been doing so much I have fallen behind on this blog.

So to blog or not to blog. I have been doing a lot of thinking about my blog as to whether to keep it up or stop I figure that if I am going to do it I need to stay current especially on the food storage challenge and the herbs that I said I would post once a week. The whole reason I started this was to share some of my knowledge and some of the things that I do that a lot of people may not know how to do. I am going to try and organize my schedule and make more of an effort to keep up on this. I really do enjoy doing this and I think it is more important ten ever to get information on how to do things as I think more people are going to have to start doing some of these thins. I don’t want it to seem like a job so I am going to go about things a little differently and see if that helps me stay a little more caught up.

Week 16 Food Storage Challenge

Week 16 Food Storage Challenge

500 aspirin/ Toiletries

500 aspirin or what ever pain reliever you prefer.

Toiletries Razors, shave cream, deodorants, tooth paste, tooth brushes, ect.

Kep in mind that you can make your own deodorant, toothpaste, and shave cream.

Add to the water and to the money stash.