Thanksgiving Dinner

Don't forget the Turkey!

If you have forgotten to thaw your turkey it is not too late!

Get that dude in the refrigerator ASAP!

It takes two days in the refrigerator for a ten pound turkey to thaw.

Now I will tell you and of course I can't recommend this, but I have cheated in a pinch to thaw.

It could be to put the bird in water or set it out while you are home.

Don't get intimidated think of it as a big chicken it just takes longer, that's all!

I think we all have been in a pinch with frozen food at one time or another so follow instructions. lol

One more thing about the big chicken don't forget to clean the innards out! Just reach in both ends and take everything out and make sure water runs through, there, he is ready to COOK!

The exact cooking time can be calculated on the package of the turkey, but approx. 325 degrees for 10lbs for 3 hours. But check your chicken wrapper!

OK

  Now for the rest of the stuff...

 Depending on what you are making. I just want to hit on a few things that I have forgotten and other chicken cookers I know have.

Don't forget a dessert of course. That's easy, you can buy that made if you don't have time or better yet have a guest bring it  WooHoo, One down!

OK mashed potatoes I do not like instant but what ever it takes, right? uugg

If you do giblet gravy try to put the giblets on simmer the day before in chicken stock, you know all of the innards. 

Green beans yummy easy.

Sweet potatoes, 29 oz can-1/4 cup butter,1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 1/2 cup mini marshmallows. Put in loaf pan, butter on top, then brown sugar then marshmallows,400in oven for 25 mins. Done!

Some kinda of bread....

 My favorite is "Texas Rolls" these are in the freezer department and they are a good size bag of frozen balls kinda the size of golf balls. You put them in a "pammed" (greased) cupcake/muffin pan and let them rise for three to four hours while the big chicken is cooking. Your company will ask for these every time they come back over!
In a pinch you can buy stuffing in a box, get two.

You are almost ready to eat.

OK...so rolls out first , chicken (turkey) in oven, everything else while the chicken cooks and the rolls rise. Melt butter and brush over rolls.

TaDa 

Congratulations!

You now have......

Chicken Dinner

I hope you have enjoyed my little story of :

Its never too late

Have a very

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Enjoy

Quail on The DIY Homestead

Quail

How I got started raising Quail and why.

Well I have had pigs and roosters for several years at this point. So I had ended up with two roosters this past spring of 2014. Beautiful they were but very competitive with each other. It was so bad that I started looking for someone to take them. So I reached out to someone online on face book. While we were in the same state we lived too far for her to take them but we became good friends. Her name is Ruth and so began my quail beginnings.  Now Ruth was online for seed bartering and I was online for quick tips in everyday life. 

As we started visiting on a regular basis we exchanged what we as individuals had knowledge of. Which is by the way a perfect idea for everyone to do. Ask questions and share information to gain knowledge of all you can from that person and to give your knowledge to that person. So that is what we did.

 We shared and then we bartered! 

It was fantastic and I gained a lot. Not just knowledge and not just stuff. I gained in both ways and we as a family gained a family of friends. It was a win, win for all of us. 

Ruth started telling me about her homestead and I was fascinated to actually be talking to someone that was directly raising food as well as a garden. 

Sometimes my husband and I feel out of place over our life style. So it was refreshing to meet someone that was very similar and close enough to visit.

Ruth began to send me seeds and I mean a lot of seeds. So I returned the favor and sent her a dehydrator.

 Before I knew it her family was in our home for the weekend and I had quail and rabbits and more chickens. Woo Hoo  

 And so we bartered again.

Ruth and her family had brought me and my family, baby quail, adult quail, baby chickens, three rabbits, and quail eggs and chicken eggs. I was in heaven! 

Now the hard part. 

Keeping everything alive and getting all of the eggs to hatch. LOL right this ain't  gonna happen. lol

Well it did happen. It worked out! 

Almost all of my eggs hatched! So I did it. I hatched my own food sources. 

This was it! I was hooked. 

So Ruth came to our house again and this time she gave me a hands on lesson of killing and dressing out a quail to eat! 

How cool was that? Well I will tell you that it was very cool!

I am hooked on food---food I raise.

Thank you Ruth and your family for everything you have gifted us with!

If you think you would like to get started hatching eggs or have any questions on my article please do not hesitate to ask. I write and reach out in this way to help everyone!

If you want to start with an incubator I recommend the one on the left of my front page. Also you can browse amazon on the right of this page.

Thank You for visiting. 

I love to share, Enjoy!

What I Learned in the Garden…

…..and it’s not what you might expect!

Yesterday knowing that winter was finally arriving, I set out to glean and clean up the garden. As I strolled through my little patch of land (and I do mean little). I began cutting down dead vines from the trellis my husband built and pulling up plants that I knew had seen better days.

I began feeling extremely sad. Seriously, just cleaning the garden I was almost in tears. I began to think about the day we planted everything and how happy and excited we were. As the seedlings grew and began reaching up to the sky, I dreamed of all the things I was going to do with my blessed little harvest.

But then it ended up that I didn’t find as much time to do a lot of those tasks… and I really did feel sad about that. I let work and a seemingly never-ending schedule of other “to-do’s”, keep me from fulfilling all the plans I had.

I thought about the blessings I had been given in that little garden and how older generations loved and more importantly, depended on growing their own food. I actually wondered what they might think of my neglectful behavior?

I pictured families digging and planting, then harvesting their own food together. Not to just have a little hobby garden, but because it was their means of survival. I imagined them all lugging in baskets of vegetables and preparing them to can, dry, or to put in their root cellar. I became a bit ashamed of myself.

This made me think…..

Have you ever stood in awe admiring something so beautiful and realized… ‘That. is. God’?  I Have.

One time many years ago at a pet store looking into a huge salt water aquarium, I stood there looking at the assortment of beautiful fish. I watched as a clown fish playfully swam in and out of an anemone. Then I noticed tiny little copepods busily scurrying around the bottom of the tank and found myself thinking ‘that is God’. How else could these little miracles of life come to be? He has made everything of every size perfectly and purposefully.

Then there was yesterday in my garden, and how amazing a garden truly is! An important part (to me) about gardening has to do with faith. I’m serious, whether you have faith in a higher power or not (don’t worry I won’t judge), it takes some amount of faith to even begin planting a garden.

You sow a seed, nurture and tend to it, in hopes that it will grow and provide for your family. Then as it is growing you continue nurturing until voila! one day, you have food.

I don’t know about you, but to me the circle of life is fascinating. So after all this rambling, you may be wondering…but what did you actually learn?

The first thing I learned was that being in the garden and getting your hands dirty, is very good for the soul! For me, it is relaxing and reduces my stress levels.

The second thing I ..not really learned but realized, is that I feel closer to God there. It’s just you and Him out there and that really makes me appreciate this gift of life I’ve been given.

The third thing I learned was that I matter. In this world that seems to spin sometimes out of control, I can make a difference to the health and well being of my family. That’s right, just by taking control and growing a portion of our food.

So that’s it friends: Faith, Family and Food, that’s what I learned about in my garden.

Have you learned anything in yours?

Guest Author: Sharon Pannell of The Trailer Park Homesteader

Public saftey

Stay Safe

I made these preventative bags up for both vehicles.

 I highly recommend this to everyone!

We can not be too careful these days!

I feel that the paranoia of Ebola has past for the most part.

That being said it opened my eyes of how unprepared for the "what if" I really was.

I had no defense for myself or my family except to stay home, and I knew immediately that at this time that was not an option. So I went to Walmart and started looking around pricing masks and gloves. There were some things within reach of my price range and some were not. So I called a friend, Sharon, owner of The Trailer Park Homestead. http://thetrailerparkhomesteader.blogspot.com/.

Sharon happened to be doing the same thing at home on her computer. It was really quite funny, yet reassuring at the same time. It was a very good cost comparison experience. What I found out was very interesting and enlightening. 

On the simple clear throw away nursing gloves found by the pharmacy per box they were almost $2.00 more than what I found in the painting department, same gloves different box. The simple masks that nurses wear(so to speak) were comparable. However, the M95 masks, which have a thin filter built in for more protection and a longer life, had an extremely higher cost than online. So I came home and ordered online. I felt empowered and gratified. I hope this has been helpful and I do recommend you get some of this protection for "what if" whether it is Ebola or a break out of flu. We just may need these things in our inventory. If nothing else it is a peace of mind for very little investment. 

Do not think I won't walk around with these items on in the public, because If something happens and I do have to go out into the public I will be sporting them with pride. In fact the bags I show above are two kits I made up out of these items and put one in each car. 

You can search Google from this page on the right for these products. 

Hopefully we will never need these products but if we do we are prepared. 

 And all I want is to be prepared not scared.

Electric

Electric in five minutes!

In any kind of power outage be assured you can have a light and antenna TV in five minutes.

What you need:

A power inverter

A car battery

A lamp

A TV with an antenna

The hatching of a baby quail

Hatching of a Quail

I wanted to show a quail hatching because I feel that it is so amazing to watch a bird hatch.
As a natural process of nature this is an amazing act of nature.
This is my second batch of hatching eggs and I am so excited that I got this on video!
I am just beginning to raise quail for food for the homestead. But wither it is for food or educational purposes this is a must see! I truly hope you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed making it and watching it myself.

The Kitchen Sink

Tips in the kitchen

I want to mention a few tips for the clean up crew! HAHA You know who I'm talking about!

Yep, you and me

So like my Lysol tip (keep the old bottle and half the new one and fill both with water) just in case you did not see it, you get two for one and yes it still cleans well

Here are a few more:

Put a 1/4 cup of 20 mule team powder in bottom of dishwasher in addition to dishwasher soap

Run the hot water faucet til hot, so the dishwasher starts on hot right away

Put your sink sponges in the top rack of dishwasher for extra life

Between kitchen trash can cleaning, spray a little smell good in the bottom before the new trash bag is put in

Save a small soap pump dispenser and put dawn or your favorite hand cleaner in it for beside the sink

Dollar store has sink wire drain catchers, very nice to use,when needed put them in lower rack of dishwasher

Spray Pam on your pizza pan, easy clean up

Cast iron skillets, this is my method, cold rub with a paper towel Crisco on all of inside of skillet

put in oven at 350 for 1/2 hour to an hour, turn oven off til cool, wipe excess off with paper towel and you are ready to cook without food sticking

NOTE: you can do this on top of stove just of course watch the kiddos

Remember to clean vent cover at the bottom of  refrigerator, but do not stop there, while the cover is off get your vacuum out and use the long tube attachment to suck up dust past the cover, there is more under there than you would think, I think twice a year is good

Remember baby locks for cabinets

I feel pretty smart about this one, lol. I bought a set of miscellaneous baby locks from Walmart. So I was putting them everywhere and it came with a toilet lid lock. This was flat and fat and self sticking and clasped like a seat belt.  I bake a lot and was so worried about my youngest to the point I didn't want to cook.

Yep that's right I put one side on the side of my brand new stove and the other side on the oven door!

And yes I would do it again! It didn't hurt a thing!

Oh what a relief it was!!!

I also used one of these locks on a single door refrigerator (for the little ones) that we use by the back door for drinks in the summer

So if you upgrade your refrigerator try and find a convenient place by the (in and out door) for the summer traffic. This really is worth the extra electric. Less wear and tear on your home plus your main refrigerator food does not take a toll on the heat of open and close. The kids and hubbys also appreciate the luxury of not upsetting us! 

I hope some of these tips make it to your kitchen

See you soon

Enjoy