EMPTY!

What a beautiful sight an empty basket can be!

It took me two weeks to get the bushel of peaches processed but it’s done! Thank goodness for that!

I ended up with 25 pints of canned peaches and 14 2-cup baggies of frozen peaches. That is a nice supply for eating, cooking, and baking for the year.

The varieties I tried this year were Southland and Norman. Both varieties held up very well in the refrigerator. I liked working with the Southland a lot. The pit separated cleanly without leaving a woody residue, which is a downfall with the Contender I’ve used in previous years. They really shrunk up in the canning jars when processed though – even with cramming them in. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It was more difficult to remove the pit in the Norman and they were kind of stringy. I’m not sure I would choose to buy those again.

There has been a lot of rain the past couple of weeks, but the weekend was dry and relatively cool (mid-80s). We took the opportunity to clean out the chicken run and dose it and the coop with diatomaceous earth. Thank goodness, because with all the rain, it was stinking to high heaven! The chicken tractor also got DE and a new layer of bedding.

Exciting News! One of the chicks I got in March has started laying eggs! Scaper is one of the Buff Orpingtons. Her brown eggs are still pretty small (though I doubt she thinks so when she’s pushing them out!). The other chicks should start laying soon too.

In addition to the peaches, I’ve been working on another big project the past couple of weeks. I should be able to finish that one this next week as I’m not going into the office for the rest of the month. I’m really looking forward to finishing that project and seeing the final product.