Mules, Pigs, Apples, and Stars

Here is to hoping that Rich and Mica stay out of semi retirement from mule riding. Mica is about 21 years old and has always been a 'hard' keeper. However she had a hard job in her younger years. She was a 'heeler' and a trail mule. After we acquired her she was used for trail riding and team penning.

The view from Mica is different than any other mule I have ridden.

I could really like this view...a lot!
Mica gets a little grain in the morning and a little bit at night. None of our other mules really need grain. They can stare at a piece of grass or some hay and gain weight.

I plan on riding Mica much more this fall. She is tall enough to get me through those thick weeds in the valley. After she and I break open a trail, I'll rotate with Sunshine and Siera. Fred gets a break after all of his hard work training youngsters this summer. Although he will put up a huge fuss if he is left behind.

Apples.
After juicing the wild apples the old fashioned way.

I took the left over pulp and ran it through a food mill.

And viola! I had the makings of apple sauce or apple butter.
I put the apple sauce in the crock pot with some cinnamon and sugar to slow cook while I canned 4 quarts of apple juice.
Now common sense would say that it is less work and easier just to buy apple products, but there is some sort of satisfaction in making it yourself.


Pigs.
Swine.
Vernon County Fair.

Regarding Pigs. Hmm. Well we purchase our hay from a local farmer and have for 9 years now. I met this farmer through work. Rich and Ed hit things off right away and have been friends ever since.
Ed's daughters started to show swine at the Fair along with other projects.

This year Rich and I actually went to the Fair specifically to watch the Swine judging. Rich has not been to a Fair in a very long time.

I'd forgotten how intense showing an animal at the fair can be. Months of work are then judged in an arena with a lot of people watching. The judge looks over the animals and places them.

Learning how to walk a pig and show off your pig is really quite the task. Just say I was very impressed. I'd seen the farmer's girls raise these pigs and train them.

Stars.
Last summer Lily asked me if we could see the Milky Way. So I've done a bit of studying including using a program that would show me the location of the Milky Way on any given day.
I studied and practiced in taking photos of it too.

I wanted Lily to know that indeed the Milky Way does shine right above "Grandma and Grandpa's" house.

I obviously need more practice for 'shooting' stars, but as always, ... I love a challenge.

Tomatoes.

I used to hate to cook and try to prepare anything in the tiniest Kitchen in the world.
Since I no longer have THE world's smallest kitchen any longer....

....I managed to buckle down and make some spaghetti sauce.

I went out to the garden to find more tomatoes. The bird nest I had found a few days ago now had eggs in it!
I picked the tomatoes as well as I could without disturbing the nest.

I peeled the tomatoes and prepped them in an olive oil mix of spices that I pre-sauteed. I was following a recipe I'd found on the internet and thought it sounded interesting.

Since I used olive oil in the base, the sauce would not be a candidate for canning.

The recipe said to squeeze the tomatoes after peeling them. 
I thought that was odd, but decided to try it.

I did this with two small batches of tomatoes. 

As I cooked the sauce, I poured the tomato juice into containers. I asked my husband if he liked tomato juice. I surely didn't want to dump it out. 
I don't like waste.

He said yes, but this tasted bland. Back to my Kindle to look up how to spice up plain old tomato juice.
I found a lot of recipes, but in the end used a touch of Worcestershire Sauce and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Viola! It was tasty!

The recipe for the spaghetti sauce called for simmering it for an hour and a half.

It smelled divine and tasted even better. I'd followed the directions on the cooking site, but didn't have the spices and cloves of garlic, so I made up my own concoction.

I plan on adding some Italian Sausage to it and we'll probably have it for supper one of these next days. Well, when I am off my noon to midnight shifts, that is.

I will probably can plain tomatoes as the season gets ramped up. I always seem to find a way to use them in soups and sauces in the winter.

And now I have a nice basement once we get some shelving put up to line up beautiful canned goods!

I'll be getting crab apples next in preparation for making pink beautiful crab apple jelly.

And now that it has cooled off, I'm thinking that Siera would really like to saddle up and go for some evening rides.

Oh, she really had nothing to do with this post about tomatoes, but heck I threw a photo in here just...because.