Extreme Makeover - PB&J Edition

I know what ya'll are thinking...how in the world can you possibly have an extreme makeover of something as ubiquitous as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Why, make all the components from scratch, of course! :)
I started with a lovely piece of lightly toasted 100% Whole Wheat bread, then I added a layer of homemade Peanut Butter, crunchy for me please, finally, I topped it all off with some of our favorite Carrot Cake jam/conserve (thanks, Michelle, for the recipe). To complete this lovely breakfast, just add a glass of icy cold, fresh, raw goat milk! YUM!!

Toasting the bread is optional but doing so makes the peanut butter all melty good. :) Talk about comfort food!
Linking up with Rural Thursday, Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday.

Toned Down Windmill

I took this picture on one of our morning walks recently. The buildings off in the distance are part of the Old Mescal movie set.
Linking up with Tones On Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday.

Canning Really Small Batches of Produce

My garden isn't very large but I want to make the most of it by preserving everything that I can. I have two pepperoncini plants and they are producing nicely. I had a small batch that I wanted to pickle before they went bad but I didn't want to drag out the big water bath canner for one or two half-pints. I read on the internet recently about how to turn any pot into a water bath canner by using the rings from regular mouth canning jars. The wide mouth rings won't work as the jars could slip through.

My little blue enamelware bean pot is 6 1/2 inches tall and 7 1/2 inches wide and was just what I needed to water bath can a few half-pints. I attached the rings together with twist ties. One site recommended zip ties but I didn't have any. Three rings will fit in the bottom of my pot.

Using this pot, I can water bath can three half-pint jars. I tried a fit check with pint jars but they are too tall for my pot. You need to have one to two inches of water above the top of the jars for water bath canning. The jars sit on top of the rings very nicely and don't seem to want to tip over at all.

I am so glad I found out about this! There were a couple of times last year when produce went bad before I could gather enough together to justify getting out the big water bath canner. Now, I can process really small batches! I only ended up with one half-pint jar of pickled pepperoncinis but I'm glad that they are now sitting on the shelf ready to be put on sandwiches! :-)
Linking up with the Homestead Barn Hop, The Country Homemaker Hop and Wildcrafting Wednesday.

Garden Update - August 06, 2012

The garden is starting to produce nicely! :) I have been harvesting bush beans, jalapeno, pepperoncini and bell peppers, scalloped squash and Ronde de Nice French heirloom zucchini, cherry and yellow pear tomatoes, and strawberries. The cantaloupe are growing nicely and one of the Kakai pumpkins has started to turn. The only fruit I am going to get from the trees this year is Kieffer pears and they are doing well too. The big tomatoes are all still green but I noticed one starting to blush today! YAY!! I'm still hoping for enough tomatoes to can and make into tomato sauce this year. So far, it looks as though that will happen.
Linking up with The Country Garden Showcase and Mosaic Monday.

Sunday Photo - Pretty Kitty

We took a quick trip up to Flagstaff over the weekend to visit Jerry's son. This mountain lion sculpture is part of the Coconino Coalition for Children and Youth PAWS project and represents Family Support. He is in one of the little shopping malls and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures! :)

There is a little paint chipped off here and there but I still think he is a very pretty kitty!

Linking up with Weekly Top Shot, Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Your Sunday Best.

The Ravens

I have been having better luck getting pictures of the Ravens lately. I caught these guys as we were coming back from our morning walk recently. We have an adult pair that live here year round and we have had four juveniles hanging out this summer. I'm pretty sure these four are the juveniles as the older birds are quite a bit larger.

I have been wondering if all four of the young ones belong to the same parents. According to Whatbird and All About Birds, these are Chihuahuan Ravens and they lay between one and eight eggs per clutch so I guess they probably are.

It gets pretty loud around here when they are all sitting on the stock panel "talking" at the same time in their raucous voices! ;-)

Linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday and Friday's Fences.

First Of The Month - August

I'm joining Jan at Murrieta 365 for her First of the Month meme all this year. Here are the ground rules per her site: "The goal is to capture one thing repeatedly on the first of each month. It can be a landscape, a person, an animal, a project; whatever your focus is, is fine. It can even be a record of where you are each First of the Month."

Not really too much new to report on Miss Daphne this month. She is five months old now, growing like a weed, and her favorite pastime is eating! I'm going to have to add a couple more links to her collar before too long.

She still wants to be right by my side whenever I'm down in the pasture, which makes picture taking somewhat of a challenge. No matter how nicely I asked, she just would not jump up on the steps behind her for a photo session. ;-)

Here, she is trying to figure out how to get the chain off the gate so she can get out! LOL!!

I really love seeing the goats out in the pasture during the day.

I'm still working with Daphne every day - making her lead, getting her used to having her udder touched and just lovin' on her lots and lots, which is very easy to do because she is such a sweetie! I really love my goats and feel very fortunate to have such nice girls. :-)

Linking up with Rural Thursday too.