the ninja versus the oranges = marmalade I hope

 Next project  courtesy of our generous new friends was large bucket full of oranges. We ate until we could not eat any more t ,gave away tons  to family and friends but still had a lot left. So   my Mum used to make marmalade and I vaguely remembered how to. I have an old , 1968 birthday gift from brother, cook book. Very simple but good recipes so I found it in the garage which still is not totally sorted out yet.
We had an old blender which finally died when my sister-in law was visiting when we tried to grate sweet potatoes for Jamaican sweet potato pone.She said now I know what you guys need for Christmas.At New Years  the blender  a large. heavy duty,aggressive blender came with Judy. It  was a Ninja and seeing how the blades whirl it could almost be called a whirling dervish Ninja.
 Anyhow back to the marmalade.We cut the oranges which were fortunately seedless into halves and put them into the blender with a little bit of water and 10 seconds later had a lightly chopped set of orange ready to cook. You boil it with some lemon juice for around 30 minutes then measure equal parts of sugar until it sets on a cold plate and is ready to put into sterilised jars. Tastes so much better then store bought marmalade. It would have taken at least an hour of tedious chopping before so that was a  lovely gift. we look forward to smoothies and all sorts of ninja projects

Benefits of owning horses

Apart from pleasure riding which we enjoy, then comes the behind the scene work.
    Horses do produce a tremendous amount of manure so we started composting it, using the finished product on all our plants , especially good for cabbage. All my plants are well fortified , found out from local farmer that it is especially good for Fig trees.
    I made friends with a family near by, which has turned out to be one of the best friends we ever had it's like we knew each other for many years, he loaded up a trailer of manure for his vegetable garden everything looks so good, pretty soon we can improve the production in the area.

    One good thing about living on a small farm you do not have to buy feed for your horses you just have to manage your pastures properly [good rotation]  we have saved hundreds of dollars . Now I am thinking how to capitalize on the manure , perhaps I could process it and sell it to the local farm store in the nearby city.

pounds of pears part 0ne

Living in a rural community miles from Miami where we lived for 30 years, it took a little while to get to know people.Our first experience of peoples generosity was the endless ,unlimited grapes which we made into wine, jelly and juice.Our next fruitful venture was an offer of  a tree full of pears. We had admired the tree several weeks before ,little knowing that we were to be a victim  oops i mean beneficiary of the trees owner.
 The phone rang and we answered,  it was a voice saying when do we want to pick the pears. We looked at each other and said maybe later. So we took a few plastic bags and went over. After about an hour and half we had a trunk full ,said a hasty thanks and left. fortunately we were going to visit relatives and took a lot of the pears to them    re gifting  I think is acceptable.
We still had about 20 pounds of pears and where not sure what to do with them. Let us sleep on that.

What do you do with unlimited free grapes

Our neighbour called us over and said the market fell out for their grapes. So unbelieveably we had unlimited access to 5 acres of grapes that were leftover from the harvest. So we went over with a few plastic bags, afraid that we were taking to much - timid to exceed our welcome only to learn that they really wanted us to take as many as was humanly possible. It was going to waste anyway.

So we are picking, and we are thinking what can we do with all these grapes. We don't want to waste them but we really wanted to take them.

1. Homemade grape wine. It came out pretty good.
2. Toy with the Schnapps. A little too potent for the first round (read: made your hair curl)
3. Juice... grape juice. Except the process was a bit tricky. Do not do it in the kitchen - it will stick and stain all over. Yet to devise a proper method.
4. Resorted to the Internet - which we never had the time to do see no.3
5. We can't get to number 5 as we were called to ask if we will collect the grapes after next year's harvest.

Coming next the pears. Pounds and pounds of pears. Hmmmmm beautiful Schnapps - the best Schnapps ever!