Uses for eggshells

 

Do you just toss your eggshells in the trash or do you use them to benefit your homestead? We save our eggshells in a bucket for a week or so and then dry them out in the oven. Sometimes, we just toss them in the compost whole or we grind them up very small and add them to our chicken feed to add extra calcium for the hens. These particular eggshells will be ground up to be mixed with other ingredients for our tomato fertilizer.  We grind them and put them into a glass jar until we need to make the tomato fertilizer.

 

If you have any more ideas, please feel free to share.

 And, the canning begins.......

 

Yesterday officially began canning season around the Henson place.

I canned 10 quarts of Blue Lake bush beans from our garden. I love preserving

these delicious green beans for my family to have throughout the winter. Canning 

itself is not hard to do, but the process is of it all is long and tiring. In my opinion,

it is worth every tiring minute. 

Green Beans

 

 

I picked our first picking of green beans this morning. It is enough for a meal or  maybe two for our family. Green beans are our main crop each year, as we (minus the picky 12 year old who is forced to eat them) love green beans...homegrown green beans that is. The girls always question where they came from. We bought some from Azure standand that were pretty good, but they prefer ours. They love to help snap them as well.  A couple years ago, I canned 85 qts. My ultimate goal is to can enough for us two have them a couple times a week. Not going to happen this year, as everything is on a much smaller scale.

Sweet Potatoes

Last year, we grew sweet potatoes for the first time. We bought sweet potatoe slips from a company and had them shipped. We planted them mid June and dug them early October. Our harvest was a bushel. We were pleased.We didn't order slips this year due to hubby being down and not having a lot of time in the garden.

Last week, I found a sweet potatoe plant growing in our compost. Yesterday, I cut slips from it and planted them in hopes for a sweet potatoe harvest this year.

Plant growing in the compost

This is the slip I cut and planted in between
green bean plants that didn't come up.

Hoping for a bountiful harvest........

 PEACE

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.   Philippians 4:7

 

Life is simply crazy around the Henson place lately. We are always on the go. We had two trips to Houston this week (2 hour drive) for Dr. visits for my hubby. Today, the girls had check-ups, so that took up several hours. Busy, busy, busy. That is why I am so thankful for my outside time. I went out this evening as the sun was going down and watered the garden, fruit trees, and berry vines. I love this time to myself. I get to focus on the beauty of nature and how God has blessed me. I am in my own little world....well, me and the chickens...lol. They tend to follow me around when I am out working. I feel so at peace and close to God when I am outside doing the things I love.

 

This is a small fig tree that the girls and I planted a couple

months ago. It is growing well. It has a couple figs on it already.

 

This is a honeybee on one of our onion blooms.

 

One of our ladies taking a dust bath. She was truly enjoying herself.

 

Thank you, God, for the moments of peace. You know just what I need when I need it.