Revisiting old goals ...

This post as the title suggest is about revisiting old goals, bloghopping I found a post wondering why we have gone all quite about our attempts at prepping. And that got me thinking again about my goals and the progress we have made in the last few months. Maybe not enough progress at the farm, but being a 6 hour drive it does make it hard. Here in Sydney we are faring much better.

Preserves by Mayhew, Maggie ATKINSON, CATHERINE Preserves is a comprehensive guide to the art of preserving - from jam and jelly making to preserving with salt, sugar, vinegar and alcohol. 150 recipes with fabulous Photos 256 pages (bound to be a few good ones in there) Having set smaller goals for myself, i have found I am able to get things done. Preserving has been on top of my list of skills, as you might have noticed in the last few posts. Getting the right equipment, tongs, bottles and armed with a new preserving book which is still to reach my mailbox. The process of making pection yourself from fresh apples and lemons found in old cookbooks and some old favorites recipes have been copied and saved for future reference.

The old woodstove we bought last year, will be dragged out and refurbished to a working order within the next few weeks. And she is not light to cart around either. Decisions need to be made where the new outdoor kitchen will go and a concrete floor will have to be poured. A framework and roof will need to go up, before we could even think of taking this old beauty up to the farm.6 months and we should have it ready, with a little luck. Wood to run her is plentifull around the property. Watch out I am on a mission with that stove. Dear Husband has killed his first sheep and chopped off so many chicken heads this last year, that I feel he has come along way. A few years ago he was squimish about cutting up meat for making beef jerky. We invested in a electric meat saw and a few good meat knives. Strange how it works out too, cause just the following weekend we decided to process a young mixed breed lamb that was not really growing to well. I cooked her up for the dogs and they had a feast. My freezer was still full from the previous kill.

This years first meat chooks are going real well, the first batch of 25 birds are due to be processed within the next week or so. Once again I will have them done. A few have been sold so that pays for part of the feed they gobbled up. Got them on the 21at of March I like to drag them out to 12 weeks and get huge birds weighing about 4kg dressed. I have no problem processing them myself but it works great when you got a whole process line going with a few helpers. Folders have been set up with copies made of useful informations, ideas, patterns and recipes. just incase there woun't be an internet with all this wonderful information to reference too. and in the meantime I am stockpiling. There is more but that could be left for another post Have a wonderful and productive day Rina