Peaches, poultry, and pizza!

We tackled a few projects today…or at least got a good start on them.
With three Redhaven peach trees ripe now, what we did today barely dented the harvest.

My mother in law, daughter and I, canned over 50 lb of peaches, and peach juice today, while the guys picked the peaches.
Then we processed 34 fine big chickens, some of them weighing more then 6 pounds dressed.
Finally we cooked up three pizzas for dinner.

This old stove worked like a champ…and the kids did too! Even the youngest carried plucked birds into the house for us, and her 7 yr old brother helped catch and carry the live birds. There was plenty of wood hauled in too, as keeping the stove hot means keeping the fire box loaded.
7 half gallons of peaches, and 6 quarts, and two half gallons of pure peach juice. No sugar needed as these were pretty much ripe on the tree.

Here are a few pictures.
The old Majestic.

A full table!


One of the pizzas, and it tasted as good as it looked.

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I’m impressed with what you and your family accomplished.

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Fantastic! Better than watching TV! Great job!:full_moon_with_face::full_moon_with_face::full_moon_with_face::sun_with_face::sun_with_face::sun_with_face::rainbow::rainbow::rainbow:

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That’s always my thought when I see awsomeness like this. “Its better than watching TV!”

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VERY impressive! And getting the wee ones involved is key. Kids learning how to work and help out - I hope it’s not as rare a commodity as I fear it is these days…

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Wow! Any one of those projects would take me all day!

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With eight children, and one on the way, I think it’s pretty obvious I prefer family to T.V.! Lol

Living a real life beats vicariously living junk programming any day!

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If you wait until the children are ‘old enough’ you usually waited too long. They have so much enthusiasm when young, it would be a shame to waste it.
Dad did have to tell our 7 yr old he isn’t old enough to kill the birds yet, but in a few years he will be able to do any part of making a chicken a freezer pet.

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I wouldn’t want to even THINK about trying to do those jobs alone, not even one of 'em.
Project days are where you can really see the upside of a big family, that can work together. When we get everyone on the job, especially with Dad as crew boss, stuff gets done! And that is encouraging for everyone.

We spent about 9 hours yesterday, from when we started, to when we were done, and eating pizza.

Our boys that have been feeding that huge mess of chickens are happy to see the numbers dwindling, and they are looking forward to singing the rotisserie song for the next year, around that wood coal fire! Lol

(To the tune of 'Oh Christmas tree)

Rotisserie, rotisserie, the taste is so delicious,
Rotisserie, rotisserie, the taste is so delicious,

Not only good for chicken you, make lamb and roast beef taste good too!

Rotisserie, rotisserie, the taste is so delicious,
Rotisserie, rotisserie, the taste is so delicious!

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So today we canned peaches again. 7 half gallons, four quarts, and another gallon of nectar, blended smooth before going into the jars.
We had a good system going, and peeling and slicing the fruit only took about two hours.

After weighing the jars empty and full, and doing the math, not counting evaporation (or the little bowl left over) we have 44.25 lb of peaches and peach juice in the jars.

The boys finished picking the Redhaven trees today, and there are 11 big flats of peaches ready to can tomorrow.

This is seriously awesome, to be finally putting away fruit from our orchard.

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Is this the first year having a full crop of peaches? If you don’t mind my asking, how old are the trees? Did you spray of follow any pest management plan?

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I’m old enough to have lived through some of your undertakings so they are special to me. As soon as the muscadines are ready the grands and I are going to attempt to make jelly and jam.

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The trees were planted Jan 2012, so this is their sixth growing season. We got a light crop on a few trees two years ago, but last year everything froze. This year we got all the stone fruit, but a lighter crop on some of the apples, maybe because it was a warm short winter.

We only sprayed a little for aphids when the trees were first planted. Where we are it is quite dry, so little disease trouble, and the biggest pest issue are some chickens that can fly that we locked up yesterday. Lol

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Well all of us are extremely impressed with all of this delicious homegrown food you and your family have been able to raise, harvest and process. I agree that if you wait too long then it’s much tougher to get kids interested, involved and willing to help. Mine have been “helping” with my hobbies since age 2 or 3 when I ask them to hold a hose in place while Daddy does a water change on my fish tanks. They are proud to be useful and enjoy learning new ideas and skills so starting them young is a great way to raise useful, productive children.

Btw our dream is to eventually raise our own chickens like you do and have lots of fresh fruit too.

Anthony

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It’s a good dream!

This is the life we dreamed of 20 years ago, when we decided we were heading the same direction, and would make a good team. It is nice to feel like we are getting there, one thing at a time.

The harvest off those three Redhaven peach trees totaled up to 22 gallons, equalling 156 pounds of actual canned peaches and peach juice.

We also had fun for a while eating all we wanted, and I made three peach upside down cakes too.

The rest of the peach harvest should be more like one tree at a time…at least once the two Strawberry Free ripen, and some are later season like Summerset and Indian Free.

Yesterday was the best day yet. We had a sweet young gal come and help, and so all my boys were right there working too! Lol
We canned 18 half gallons, and six quarts of peaches and juice, roasted a couple chickens, and then baked up 8 loaves of bread.

Today I’m going to can cucumber pickles.

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I’ve never even heard of this, man does that sound good! My wife makes a GREAT pineapple upside down cake (and it’s been far too long between them :yum:)

Now I’ll bend her ear about trying her hand at this.

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Our 13 year old boy has had many kinds of cake, including German Chocolate, strawberry shortcake, cheesecake, pineapple upside down cake, carrot cake, zucchini bars with cream cheese frosting…he said the peach upside down cake beat them all!
I used this recipe, but cut the sugar in the cake by a few tablespoons, and I used almond extract instead of vanilla.

Happy baking!

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Do you have a spare room?

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Heard rumours she’s starting an AirBNB next summer. Guess where I booked for our summer holidays​:wink::wink::wink:

Ok, I started this juicy rumour.

Anthony

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Well she waited patiently until I finished another batch of jam, then she got busy and got it done and it was delightful, went exactly by the recipe in the link. :yum:

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