Cooler Weather, Rising Food Prices and Homemade Honey Graham Crackers

I love this cooler weather.  We officially started our fall wood splitting last night.  Even though I had a very long day of work and a bazillion "to-do" items on my "to-do" list, I still went out to help.  We are going to need to wood too.


Today I went to the store to get a few items we needed, and looked at the price of wood pellets - a whopping $5.00/bag (40 lb.).  Last year we paid $3.58/bag.  I was absolutely shocked.  Corn was over $6.00/bag and was not affordable last year either (to burn). 

I am already baking almost daily, so I will have to figure out more ways to cut down our costs.  Maybe next year we can increase our meat chicken supply, our layers, and possible raise beef.  I am already searching for recipes on making butter with our goat's milk.   

Today, I baked homemade graham crackers.  I will need 3 cups of them saved for homemade graham crust pumpkin pies tomorrow.  It's already hard to keep the kids from eating what I need.  I guess I could always make more tomorrow.  These are made from whole wheat flour and raw honey.  Yum. 

Pumpkins, Carrots and A Horse

While I was out taking laundry down, I thought I better double check the garden.  It's been raining here and everything is a soggy mess.

I pulled on my mucking boots, and slushed out to the back squash garden.  I found a few more pumpkins, and believe it or not, 3 carrots.  I thought for sure I pulled all of them.

I washed off those tasty carrots and blessed Peanut (our goat in milk) a treat.  She gobbled them down.  The younger goats are not interested in that type of food just yet, but our goat in milk, and our billy goat, love veggies.

I roasted several of the pie pumpkins, pureed them and they have blessed the freezer "pantry" now.  I can take out what I need for future baking.

Tiger, came right out to the kitchen when I sliced the first pumpkin.  I think he can smell squash a mile away.  We gave him the nickname "squash boy."  He looooves veggies, especially squash.  He's nibbling on some pumpkin in the photo.

The freezer was blessed with 12 1/2 cups of pureed pumpkin.  I appreciate my pumpkin a lot more now.  It's now easy cutting all of them, cutting out the seeds, roasting, skinning and then making puree.  It took all morning, and in between the roasting time, I was able to do a bit of bathroom cleaning.  Phew!  Now if I can just get my writing done.

The pantry was also blessed with a 1/2 pint jar full of dried rosemary, and about 1/4 cup of dried oregano.  With all this rain, I was able to cut several more stalks of rosemary to dry.  I may even cut some more thyme and oregano today.

Now for the horse part of the post.  Last night my daughter went to the stable.  She arrived right when her horse was having a "small episode of colic" and I had no clue what it was.  Later I found out, and it's a very bad thing to happen to a horse, considering they can not throw up.  Ugh. We found out the stable has sand, and sand can't be digested.  

Luckily, with my daughter's timing, and some medication, the horse is okay.  Phew!  There are so many things I have yet to learn.