Sunday, October 31, 2010

A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

We love butterflies in our family. If there is a chance to go to a butterfly house at a zoo or museum, we will go in a heartbeat. Last year we found a fantastic looking caterpillar on a vine we had in a pot on the front porch. We watched as it got bigger and turned into a chrysalis, then finally, a butterfly. We looked up the caterpillar online and found that it was a gulf fritillary and that they feed exclusively on passion flower vines such as the one we had. Here is a picture of the butterfly that emerged last year:

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When we decided to put up lattice with vines on it as a privacy barrier this year, we looked for passion flower vines to give the butterflies a habitat in the backyard. Now that the vines have started to take off, we have had butterflies around all summer long. They have been very active. Today, we went searching in the vines and found dozens of caterpillars in all different sizes, several chrysalises, and several butterflies. It is amazing to see all the butterfly activity in our backyard. The next thing we are going to try and identify are eggs. I know what they should look like, but we didn't see any today. I took some pictures of the different sizes of caterpillars, some of the chrysalises, and one of the butterflies.


A teeny, tiny caterpillar. I can't believe how small they start out!

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This one was about half an inch long.

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About one inch.

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One of the biggest ones at about 1.5 inches when it is all stretched out.

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A few of the different chrysalises.

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Finally, the one decent picture I managed to get of a butterfly.

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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Caramelized Onion Jam

I decided to try a recipe a while ago that I got off the blog of someone on my list and she got it from Taste of Home. I wasn't quite sure what I would think about it, but I wanted to branch out a bit from fruit jams. It took a long time to make but it was worth it! It works very well as a marinade or glaze. I just scoop some out of the jar, melt it in the microwave and pour it over whatever meat I am using. The meat has fantastic flavor and the resulting sauce is excellent.

Caramelized Onion Jam

4 whole garlic bulbs
1 teaspoon canola oil
5 cups chopped sweet onions (1-1/2 pounds)
1/4 cup butter, cubed
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup bottled lemon juice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground mustard
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 cups sugar
1 pouch (3 ounces) liquid fruit pectin

Remove papery outer skin from garlic (do not peel or separate cloves). Cut top off garlic bulbs; brush with oil. Wrap each bulb in heavy-duty foil. Bake at 425° for 30-35 minutes or until softened. Cool for 10-15 minutes.

In a Dutch oven, saute onions in butter for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned. Squeeze softened garlic into pan. Stir in the cider vinegar, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt, pepper, ginger and cloves. Bring to a rolling boil. Gradually add sugar, stirring constantly. Return to a boil for 3 minutes.

Add pectin; bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; let stand for 3 minutes. Skim off foam. Pour hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-in. headspace. Adjust caps. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.





I don't have a dutch oven that I can use on the stovetop so I just used my regular stock pot. It did have a pretty firm set. I think I will use slightly less pectin the next time I make it as it is a little hard to scoop out of the jar once I have opened it the first time and put it in the fridge.


The house smelled amazing while this was cooking. Especially the four bulbs of roasted garlic. I love garlic!

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I have a very hard time chopping onions by hand. My eyes are super sensitive to onion to the point that for years, I would only use frozen chopped onion. Now that I am trying to eat more local food, buying frozen onion at the store isn't an option. Using my food processor really helps though.

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The onions cooked down and starting to caramelize.

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I was worried this would be too sweet, but it really isn't once you cook with it. When I tasted it alone during the cooking, it was very sweet but it does mellow out when you use it.

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The finished jars. I will definitely be making this again next year!

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Monday, October 25, 2010

Chicken Losses

A couple weeks ago, my family went to a family reunion of sorts in Texas. We stayed for five days and really had a very good time... except for the call we got on Friday from the person who was feeding the dogs and collecting eggs from the chicken coop. Apparently some of the chickens got out (I won't get into how it happened), and the dogs killed them. At first it was only two. Then when she came back the next day, she found another. It must have been hiding when she was there and tried to get back in the run later. This has left me with only four chickens. Not only were almost half my chickens dead, but my dogs caused some minor injuries to each other; most likely while fighting over the dead chickens.

We have doctored the dogs and they will be fine, but nothing can bring back the chickens. It took me two years to get chickens to laying age that laid green eggs and now they are both gone (the first Easter Eggers I had laid cream colored eggs). All of the chickens were at prime laying age. I can't even start over with chicks right now because it will soon be too cold to brood them outside and I don't like having chicks in the house. We just got rid of our brooder box anyway so I will end up having to make another one in the spring. I probably won't be able to give eggs to friends and neighbors throughout the winter as two of the girls who are left are starting to molt and aren't breeds that lay well over the winter anyway. All around, it just stinks.

Goodbye girls, sorry you had such rotten end.

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Sunday, October 24, 2010

Apple Picking and Cider Pressing

I have been incredibly busy with work lately. I don't usually have to work very much, not more than ten hours a week, but twice a year for about two months each time, I am really busy. That time is going on right now. I hope to be able to post more starting in December when I am back to my normal schedule. I haven't been finding much time to squeeze in projects but there are definitely things I need to catch up on. I have more jam and jelly making to do, a couple gardens that need to be tilled under and restarted for the fall season, and some crafts to complete before the holidays. It's a good thing work will slow down again in about a month.

I did manage to take the boys apple picking today. I have been wanting to go since apple season started and decided that if I didn't do it today, the season would be over before I got another chance to go. We went to Oak Glen ; specifically to the Willowbrook Apple Farm. I was a little disappointed that they aren't an organic farm, but we had a good time anyway. The farmer did mention another farm not too far away that doesn't use pesticides so we will probably try that farm next year.

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The boys and I each picked a bag of apples. We are very efficient. I think we had our bags full within five minutes (granted, they weren't very big bags...).

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The boys shared Dave's jacket that happened to be in the truck as I am a bad mother and didn't even think to bring jackets or even long sleeve shirts for them. At one point while waiting to press apples into cider, they zipped both of them into the jacket and insisted they were one person just with two heads and four legs.

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I think the highlight of the day was pressing the apples into cider. We waited for a very long time, having gotten in line just behind a group of people from a Russian school in Orange County. They had lots of kids, were getting lots of cider, and the kids didn't want any help from any adults. In case you have never tried one of the machines they use to crush the apples and then press them, it takes a fair amount of strength. It took four 8-10 year old girls about twenty minutes to make one gallon of cider; and that was with the guy who worked there finally taking over near the end of the crushing part. Multiply that by the twenty kids the group had with them and we really waited a long time for that cider. I told the boys they had better really enjoy it!


Each gallon of cider takes about twenty pounds of apples. They crusher is turned while apples are loaded into the top. The crushed apple falls into a barrel-like thing underneath that is lined with some kind of filtering fabric to keep the biggest bits in. We all took a turn cranking the crusher.

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Once all the apples were crushed, they moved the container to the end of the platform, laid the fabric over the top of the apple pulp, put a round board on top on the fabric, then had the boys turn a huge screw to press the board down onto the pulp, thereby squeezing out the juice. It was collected in a large bowl, then poured through a funnel with a screen on it to make sure no large chunks or bugs got through. It was collected in a gallon jug, capped, then given to us to take home. Yum!

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I hope to make some apple cider jelly... I have no idea when I will get the time to do it though. I just need to keep the kids from drinking it all before I get around to making the jelly. I also plan on turning some of the apples into apple butter and possibly caramel apple jam. Here's hoping.