A Chilly start to the Fall.

  Is it really here already?

This year has blown by so fast, but it seems like every year they come and go without you knowing it. This is my favorite time of year, with the colors, cooking, and smells. I just love it! Here on Cranberry Acre, we love Halloween and we decorate the front yard with many Halloween decorations.

This year Wayne and I brought down the stuff from the attic and let the kids design this years Halloween yard. I think they did a great job!

We even have Halloween in the house! 

This is our freaky little friend who sits and stares at you from the corner of the living room, while you watch TV. He is one of my favorite Halloween decorations to set up. Cute but freaky!

As I have said all year, I am so behind on everything in my garden. Last week I finally made it out to dig up carrots that I had left in the ground! I have some kale, some flowers, some potatoes and some gourds left in the garden. Other than that we are done with the garden. I also started on getting the potatoes out last week.

The gourds look kinds spooky hanging on the dead vines, but close up,

They are beautiful. They are so pretty for a freebie item to grow up out of the ground!

I have 4 more rows to dig up and I will begin canning my potatoes. I love canning potatoes, it makes it sooooo much easier to make mashed potatoes when you are late for cooking dinner. If you have never done it before I will be posting directions on how to can them in the next week or two. Pretty easy, just takes a lot longer to can them.

We had or first frost this weekend and my Maple Tree hasn't even gotten all of it's leaves turned yet. I can't believe we had to actually start a fire in the wood stove this weekend. By the looks of all the signs, many apples, nut trees producing well, we are in for it when Winter comes.

I am hoping we are ready! We got our first dump truck load of wood this Friday, just in time for the freeze. Now the hard work of getting it cut and piled in the shed. Right now the pile has been a good hunting location for Mr. Bayne the Cat. He sits on the wood pile and locates what he is going to kill or he just takes a nap.

For me, since I started back to sewing and doing craft show, is the busiest time of year. I am having to try and figure out how to juggle everything and still make everything to sell at the shows. You think I would have this down, but I don't. This year I have done some new things so it adds to the pile of sewing to do for the Season, but in the end it's worth it. Fabric Pumpkins are back and smell just as yummy as ever before. 

New this year for Cranberry Acre are Burlap Holiday Banners. I have done Fall ones, Halloween ones, and Thanksgiving banners. I start Christmas, yes I said Christmas, in a week. I absolutely love the Burlap Banners, so many possibilities for designs.

More bird feeders were made and then sold this weekend, which means I will be back in the garage again. So cold in there now.

While I was at one of my shows, my husband helped me put together a new towel rack. He did a great job with this one. I can't wait to let the public see our new Up cycled line of towel racks. I am trying to get one to stay in our home, I just love these things! 

Freezing cold mornings here on the farm have led to some funny ideas from the animals. One of these brilliant ideas is, when your feet are cold jump on anything and if one jumps they all jump. The wheel barrel became the place to be Sunday morning. The wooden handles were not as cold as the ground, so when chocolate jumped up and found out that it was kinda warm, they all proceeded to try and jump in the same spot. This went on for at least a half an our until the sun was over the hill and started to shine on the barn, then they all ran for the barn steps to fight there.

Oh the girls. Whinny all weekend, complaining about the cold mornings. All fluffed out and just ever so grumpy about the idea of the cold, acting as if I had something to do with it. 

Jojo and the babies, had the right idea by staying in the barn huddled up to stay warm. I think this year I may make some coats for them, they just don't seem to get Winter coats like the Pygmy mixes, so a nice Winter coat it is.

Mr. Luther looking ever so cute in all his fluffiness!

This weekend we made a trip out to the Blue Ridge Pumpkin LLC, in Fancy Gap. What a fun time we had with the hayride....

The corn maze.....

Oh we can't forget, the Corn Cannon!!!!!

I do believe we may have a corn cannon in the future here at Cranberry Acre.

There were also so many pumpkins to choose from, White one, Orange ones, big and small. Oh and the prettiest Blue pumpkins.

If you live close by go check it out. It was a fun afternoon.

Ms. Chocolate this morning was not amused with me at all. For the first time since we had her she wanted me to pick her up. I would pick her up and she would bury her head in my armpit. I would put her down when I would take a picture she would run after me and give me this look! Spoiled birds I tell you, spoiled birds.

As the sun started to come over the hill, the girls finally started to settle down and groom themselves for the day. Everyone in such a Tizzy about the cold.

You would think the smallest of out flock would be the ones with the worst complaint about the cold but they are not. They truly have nothing to say and have figured out the busier you are the warmer you all, so they are in constant motion until the sun hits the barn stairs. They then, lay in the sun and eat it up for as long as they can, until the goats take it over.

So yes the drama of laying eggs in front of the stairs is still going on, but I have a new member, Ms. Coal has decided to join the list of laying eggs in front of the stairs. Again Why in front of the stairs, Why?

The girls begging to come inside!

I moved the location a couple days ago of the protein bucket and now Sparkles has decided that she also has great ideas on where it should be. She keeps moving it to the back of the old Guinea house so no one else can get at it. Do not know how she gets it there, because I move it back to the salt block every morning but she does get it back there somehow. 

It looks like I am at a point of writing the Blog every other week. I may try to write more during the Winter, but for now this seems to be working for me. Hope you all understand the need to do this, just so much to do!

I will leave you with one of my favorite recipes. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and a picture of an oh so happy goat!

Tis the Season for Pumpkin.

First Happy Goat!

( Oh yes, bring on the Sunshine! )

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe usually makes around 3 dozen depending on how big you like your cookies. Also the Cookie are very soft and moist.

You will need

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour ( I use Organic). 

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup of butter

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 cup of fresh pumpkin ( you can use canned)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Add Semi Sweet Chocolate chips, as many as you want for taste. I use a whole bag!

Mix all you dry ingredients together in a bowl or mixer. You will then add all your wet ingredients to the dry. Mix it well. I then add my chocolate chips to the mixture last. Grease a cookie sheet and dump spoonfuls of cookie batter about 2 inches apart from each other on your cookie sheet,. These cookies will get big. Set your oven to 350F and bake from 15 to 20 min. If you love pumpkin you will love these cookies. I do not put these cookies on a cookie rack( it seems to dry the bottoms to much and I like the moist almost like Molasses cookie texture), so I let my cookies cool on my kitchen table. For what ever reason they stay very moist, so I kept doing it that way since I started making them. Hope you enjoy them.

Hello Fall!!!

This week is late, but better late than never!

Last week I had decided that I needed a break and I needed to try to get caught up on some things that were being neglected in the house. For the past few weeks I had been doing the Farmer's Market and a craft show the next day, it was wearing me out. I had canning to do and sewing for friends to get caught up on, things had piled up so fast that I lost track of the time. The grapes smelled so good on the vine that I knew that if I didn't get them canned soon, that they would be a lose to us, with no jam for the Winter season to come.

We made Grape Jam! I forgot how much I loved doing this. Last year we didn't get grapes due to a frost that came during the grapes flowering. This year we had the grapes, but I was running out of time to can them. I will share the recipe that we use for grape jam. It takes longer than making jelly but I like the texture of jam a lot better than jelly.

Grape Jam

You will need:

2 quarts of grapes

4 1/2 cups of sugar 

1 box of low sugar pectin or 3 tablespoons of low sugar pectin

That's it!

I start by soaking my grapes to let all the bugs float to the top. There are always bugs tangled up in the grapes after you pick them, so to not have that surprise when you reach into the bowl, I float the little guys out! 

You will then pop the grape out of the flesh into a bowl, put the skins in a pan that has about a 1/2 cup of water in it. You do this until you have done about 2 quarts of grapes. I usually have a quart jar in front of me that I fill as I work.

You will then put the grapes on a burner on low to med. temp. The temp depends on if you want to stay in the kitchen while the grapes cook a little. If you are there watching them then use med. heat, because you will need to stir with a wooden spoon so the grapes do not stick to your pan. Now the skins you will put on a burner the same temp and you watch them also being careful to not let the skins stick to the bottom of the pan. When the grapes are soft and you can mash easily with your spoon it is ready for you to put in a sieve or a food mill. You will then remove the seeds from the pulp of the grape by putting it in one of these.

Now this is where I differ from most who do jam, I will put my pulp in the same pan I used to make them soft. I then will take the skin mixture from the other pan and put it through the sieve. To separate the skins from the pretty purple juice it has made. My family hates the skins being in the jam, so I do this, I grew up with the skins being in the jam, so either way it is still very good.

Add the juice or skins pan to the pulp and then add your sugar with pectin. You will now cook the pulp and sugar, waiting for it to boil. You will then cook at a rapid boil stirring the mixture so it does not stick to the bottom of your pan, waiting for the mixture to reach it's gelling point. This can be from 10 to 15 min depending on the amount of sugar and pectin in the mixture. Once it is thick enough you will put the jam in your jars and then process in a boiling water canner for about 15 min. You now have jam! You will need to let the jars cool and leave them alone so it can gel properly. 

It was my Birthday last week and my Step- Mother gave me a new chicken for my ever growing collection of chickens. She is a bun warmer!!! Love it, and I think I may be trying to duplicate a similar one soon in the sewing room. They are just so cute.

I also received beautiful flowers from my family and friends. I just love cut flowers.

My Dahlia has bloomed finally. She picked Fall to bloom it is such a crazy electric pink color, just so pretty, I have never seen anything like it before.

My garden is on it's way out and I still have so much to do before the first frost, which at this rate if it keeps it up will be very soon.

I still have Kale coming up. I have beets that need to get out of the ground, along with my potatoes. Oh yes and the carrots!

I have also a lot of clean up to get the garden ready for Winter, just seems to be snowballing, but I will get it.

One morning walk, I found this Bumble asleep on the flowers in the garden. It was so sweet, I had to take a picture. 

Well we have officially run out of time this year so, the new addition to the barn will have to wait. At least we have the wood to start in the Spring! The goats will have to wait for their new pen and milking stall until next year.

We had a beautiful weekend last week. The sun was out and the temperature was so nice. I love when Fall blows in and it did this weekend! The animals also enjoyed the beautiful weekend by putting a hole in my fence!

Ms. Bella had decided that it would be a great day to put a hole in the fence so they could all reach the weeds on the other side. I then had to move EVERYONE, to the Winter field. Birds and goats had to be on the other side. The goats loved it but the birds, that was another story.

Every bird stayed at the gate waiting for me to put them back. Ms. Coal my broody hen, would growl and pace back in forth, but despite her discontent, they stayed on the Winter pasture, until I had help fixing the fence.

Oh Ms. Griffin and her brother Luther,

Absolutely loved the new field. I never saw their heads off the ground the whole night.

It took awhile for the birds to agree that this was a good thing.

The grass had grown so high in the Winter pasture that poor Short Stuff looked really small. She actually was weaving herself in and out of the weeds like it was tunnels made just for her.

Ms. Silver loved the new grass after her own fit about the pasture being closed off.

She would peck at the seeds on the grass. She almost looked cross eyed from trying but she kept going.

Oh yes the Stooges, stayed close to me. They followed me all around the new pasture, they were so sure it was evil and something would happen very soon to them. They didn't say a word during the move, just quietly followed behind me ducking and weaving through the weeds. I swear they are the funniest birds I have ever owned.

After the hole was fixed in the Spring pasture, everyone was allowed back in! The birds were ever so happy and laid out in the sun all day. 

Ms. Pico wasn't as happy.

During these couple of days, she was ruler of the Spring pasture and didn't have to worry about chickens chasing her out, but that soon came to an end. She was not pleased at all.

Halloween has moved on to Cranberry Acre!!!!

Anyone who knows us well, knows we love Halloween. Yesterday we started to decorate the inside and outside of our home. I will get pictures of everything soon, when it is all done. Spooky house and I think this year the goats and chickens will fall victim to Halloween. I see photo ops of animals dressed up!

This weekend I was able to get one of my favorite kitchen aprons done for the shows coming up. This apron is the "Nana Lou" apron. named after my Step Grand Mother, I have her old aprons that she had made, so it inspired me to make one in memory of her. 

I've decided to make them Holiday ones or ones for special occasions. They will be for sale on my Etsy shop, Farmer's Market and the craft shows in the next few weeks. I'm so excited to bring these back after all these years.

Ms. Puffy Cheeks and Ms. Coal. If it wasn't for Ms. Puffy Cheeks putting Coal in her place I think the chicken yard would be in a constant fight. Ms. Coal has been pretty Broody so she has been quit mean to the younger birds, so Ms. Puffy goes over and breaks it up, I love that little girl. 

Another girl who has been grumpy, but for a different reason is Ms. Silver

She is molting and hates every min. of it. Bless her heart, she can't shake without loosing a fist full of feathers. Her new feathers are starting to come in, but it doesn't change the fact that she is irritable.

Well here on Cranberry Acre we will be pretty busy. I have apples to get off the trees and turn into apple butter and all the garden work to finish up for the Season. Seems over whelming really, but that is farming. I also have to get some more things sewn for the Craft shows that are coming up, so busy, busy, busy.

Everyone have a great week!