Preparation

Since this was our first feathering we had a lot to learn - most of which Jeff did reading on the internet. We held the roosters until they were calm and then thanked God for providing for our family and asked that the chicken would die peacefully. Jeff made the cuts and I plucked the feathers. It was fairly straight forward, and surprisingly not that emotional. The plucking took a while, so Jeff also cleaned out its insides. We sure can appreciate what it takes to have chicken dinner - it took nearly 2.5 hours for us to set up, feather, and clean up four roosters.

Our first Feathering

"Feathering" is the best term we found so far to describe butchering a chicken. Today we made four of our roosters ready for dinner. We needed a bunch of apparatus as you can see. Places to boil water, collect feathers, chicken parts, the plucked chicken, and the like. Below Jeff said "goodbye" to our turken.

New Suit

This picture by request from Kirstie. The suit pattern is definitely different, but I think it is cute, and it feels a lot more comfortable in public to be covered. Jeff found the material on ebay! It has leggings that go just past my knees and a bit of a twirly skirt.

Typing

Jeff brought home an electric typewriter for Jubilee to learn her letters. Jeff showed her how to use it before bed and in the morning she woke up early to play with it. We found her copying words from the back of a soup can when we woke up!

Learning

We are in our reading lesson for the day. Jubilee likes to work on a challenge. I came in with the idea that I didn't want to overwhelm her. I thought we would learn to read and write "I can run." Well, I guess she already knew that because she ended up with "I can run and jump for Jesus" on her writing tablet. Hosanna is practicing her letters and repeating "I can jump for Jesus" as she writes. She alternated between "letters" and tracing her hands and feet! :) Jubilee was so proud of herself.

Craggy Gardens

We finally made it to the Blue Ridge Parkway for Jeff's July Birthday outing. The week before we got all the way to the Craggy Gardens and it started to lightly rain. That didn't stop us though - initially. A group abandoned their hot charcoal at the first drops which we happily received. We got the hot dogs out and then the rain started to pour and then Jeff and I were standing by the charcoal completely soaked and sloshing back to the truck. So we check the weather report this Saturday and it was 0% chance of rain, so we tried again. This time we brought our charcoal and had to wait for it to "do its thing" for quite a while. After hamburgers we started hiking and to our delight there were the first ripenings of blueberries. We picked for a while and some of them got in our container. Hosanna was not convinced that the little bucket was the best place for all the blueberries she was finding. And below we have another couple photo! Jubilee is old enough to take a decent shot, so now it will look like both of us go on the family outings instead of one of us behind the camera all the time.

First Fruits

Hosanna and I are "putting away" the first of our tomato crop. I found I very simple recipe in More With Less where I wash, core, cut off any bad spots, and then put in the blender. It is good for soups, sauces, chili, casseroles, etc. I put 2 cups of tomato puree in each (zippered!) baggie and put them in the basement freezer. (Jeff just got from FreeCycle!) And yes, my two year old is using a knife - she is well trained :) The blue bucket in the picture if full of cucs, which I are to pickle soon.