Proud Accomplishments

We smoked a Christmas ham.  First time I've ever been to a real butcher.  Didn't smoke it long enough (or probably hot enough) but it did have a real nice smoke flavor even though I had to bake it another 2-3 hours.  Then I basted it with a honey/dijon/butter mix.  Funny thing is--it basically turned into a pork roast.  It didn't have that ham texture even though it is a "ham"--I wonder how they make them into "hams" in the store.  I don't think I'll be looking into it (although I would love to know by comments if you do!) probably next year we'll just have fish :)

 At Thanksgiving we killed our first turkey!  This was QUITE an accomplishment!  We raised the turkey from a when it was a day old and then watched some very informative You tube videos and Derek learned a very effective way to slaughter the turkey.  Then we brought the lap top outside and watched some more videos on how to gut the turkey!

 We had a wonderful corn harvest.  We grew an heirloom variety of sweet corn called "Country Gentleman's corn" and it produced alot.  It was tricky to harvest it on the exactly right time (too early or too late was not so yummy) but  we did it and found some very tasty ears. 

We also had a good harvest of okra.  Tasty little things!  I sure do love gumbo!  I really appreciate the seasons of things.  I enjoy that gumbo is for a season and then we do without it during the winter and spring months.
Right now we are planting some bare root again (can't believe it's January again!)  More on that later...