Boy were we busy this weekend! Weather was beautiful and we definitely used it to our advantage. In addition to clipping hooves and wings and cleaning stalls, I also made time to clean out the green house. Brandon repaired the goat stanchion. It broke a month or so ago when Sudsy didn't want to take her wormer. She opted instead to fall on top of me breaking the stanchion. Brandon also made another nest box for the rabbits since we bred two does on the same day. They should have their kits some time at the end of this week.

The garden is still putting out little bits from summer and there are some new crops of arugula and radishes that we harvest regularly. Earlier last week I was pleasantly surprised to find some Shitake mushrooms growing on my Shitake mushroom logs.

All of the fresh sunshine and crisp air filled me with the energy to do some 'indoor' homesteading as well. I put up some Satsuma jam and some home made chicken broth.

Jam directions: cut Satsumas in half and remove the seeds. Run the Satsumas through a juicer, rind included. I used 5 cups of juice, 1.5 packs of Sure-Jell Pectin (no sugar needed), 3.5 cups of sugar.
1. boil the juice
2.mix1/2 of the sugar with the 1.5 packets of pectin
3. pour the above mixture into the juice and stir till dissolved
4.pour the rest of the sugar in and bring to a boil again.
5. follow basic instructions for canning with a hot water canner
6.process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.
This is such a yummy jam. It tastes like marmalade, but the annoying rind chunks are pleasurably absent.

Broth recipe
*whole chicken, preferably freshly butchered layer over 1 year old. NOT JOKING - these are the hens traditionally used to make a healing broth for whatever ales you.
*French trilogy: onion, carrot, celery - use whatever proportions of this you like for your particular tastes. I used 1 large onion chopped, 6 large carrots peeled and cut into 2"lengths, and 2 bunches of celery cut into 2" lengths.
*salt and pepper ( i used 3tbs salt and 2tbs pepper)

Put the chicken in a large stockpot and cover with water. Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 4 hours or longer. Drain the broth, straining out any solids including veggies. Follow the basic instructions for canning using a pressure canner. I canned my broth at 11 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes.

The last and least labor intensive thing I did was to brake into the wheel of goat cheddar that I made earlier this year. It is delicious, but very different from cow's cheddar.