Catching up

These are just some random shots of the homestead taken by my oldest daughter this spring. I know that it's springtime because everything is green and since we spent all summer with no rain and everything is shades of brown, this must be before that!
My barn... tragic really. You shall see what I mean at a later post.

Purty, ain't it?

Our goats had babies this summer.

Ethyl had a boy and a girl and Lucy two boys.

Bub and Sister will be raising and showing goats this year instead of steers.

Cheaper in the long run and we can breed them ourselves.

Jack

This is Babe. He likes hanging with the chickens.

We also goat-sat for a friend for a while this summer.

Each of the whipper-snappers got to try their hand at milking a goat.

Everyone enjoyed it and the milk was out of this world delicious. The only downside is you have to milk twice a day, every day, all year long. Goat sitting is the way to go.

Long time gone!

Wow, I can't beleive it has been so long since my last post! Clan Daniel has been so very busy this summer that I just haven't had a chance to get back on the blog but that is soon to change! I will attempt to catch everyone up on the last few months here in the pearl as best I can. We have been going 100 mph. From church camps to hiking trips to beachside vacations to barns blowing across the pasture, it has been a crazy few months. If I don't shorten it and get back to the daily grind I may never catch up! I will be back on soon with many stories so please stay tuned!

canning chili

So this weekend clan Daniel picked up our fully processed steer. With the knowledge of the fact that we would soon have 500 lbs of beef the Mrs. set out to clean out the freezers. After a thorough clean-out she discovered some hamburger and some deer meat that needed to be used so we decided to make a big pot of chili and can it.
Now we have never canned chili before but we have bought a lot of canned chili so we felt sure we could do it. The Mrs. started the process by grinding some deer meat.

I cooked it down and spiced it up. Chili is an all day process around the homestead.

Nannie came over to help the Mrs. with the pressure cooking.

Each batch had to cook at 10lbs pressure for one and a half hours.

We ended up with the equivalent of 23 cans of store-bought chili at 1/3 the cost...not bad.

Easter in the Pearl

Sunday we celebrated the Resurrection of our Savior!

Thank you God for all of Your Provision, Mercy and Love

Sisters softball career (well maybe?)

My oldest daughter is playing softball again this year. This is her 2nd year to play. Because we live in a small town we sometimes have a hard time getting enough girls in the same age range to make a team. Last year was her 1st year to play and because they needed more girls for the team she was forced to play up (can't play down) with older girls. Needless to say they did not have a good year and I was afraid she may not have wanted to play this year. Fortunately she did and is having a good time. She is playing catcher.
I don't know if this will be the sport she loves or not but she is definately having fun right now.

I do doubt that she will ever find a sport she will love more than raising and showing animals but maybe she will enjoy enough to want to do both.