Harvesting at my parents place

 Last week we had scheduled a day to help my parents butcher chickens but when frost was predicted for that night my parents asked if we wanted to help harvest the produce instead. They have several large gardens and lots and lots of produce. We had fun going out and helping and they shared a bunch with us too. Here are some photos of that day.

The boys and I went to work picking green beans and got close to 5 gallons.

They planted the climbing bean named "Blue Lake". It is a very nice producer and very yummy.

Aaron is a good bean snapper. We canned around 7 quarts and then had quite a bit left to eat fresh. (Mom and Dad sent home that whole picking with us, they had already frozen a bunch and already given us and others a bunch as well.)

 This is one of the many, many tomatoes that Dad picked.

 Mara had fun picking grapes.

The grapes are a northern variety so it is smaller and tarter than normal grapes but it makes a yummy juice!

 Mara took all the stems off and also got rid of all the moldy grapes that were in there. My parents have had troubles with the grapes molding lately. They think maybe they need to have a better support system for the grapes so they aren't so bunched together.

I canned a gallon (I found these fun 1/2 gallon canning jars at Mom and Dad's too) of grape juice. I sweetened it with honey. It was pretty yummy so we drank a bunch too. We also have some juice set aside for making jelly with.

 While we were there Dad picked 5, 5 gallon buckets full of corn which we then husked, cooked and cut off the cob to put in the freezer. That wasn't all their corn, they were really blessed with a good crop this year. They blessed us with a bunch of meals worth to put in our freezer.

Harvest time is working time but it is a time when we feel overwhelmed with God's blessings.

I just thought I would share some of the projects I am working on too:

 My ski hat is close to completion. I think it will be fun to wear this winter.

While we were camping this weekend a bunch of people were having fun carving things (You should see my younger brother carve- he is good at it!) and I remembered that I was wanting more wooden spoons. I decided to give it a try. I am not very good at it and I am not done yet either but I have made progress. I don't think it will look very professional but I think it will be fun to stir up bread with something that I made from an old tree limb.

What sort of homesteading things have you been doing?