Creatively storing our harvest

One bunch of our Indian corn doing it's final drying.

 I do truly enjoy this time of year when it feels like the seams of our house are rather bursting with all the good food that we have stored up. Sometimes I get that feeling of "What am I going to do with it all??!!" but mostly I just feel very blessed.

  Some of our newer ventures into raising food have been growing Indian corn to dry (this is our second year and we planted more than last year), raising dry beans and raising popcorn (our first year for those last two). We did have them siting around in baskets that we had gathered them in for a while but then realized that there was moisture and a bit of mold was developing in some places. That needed to be gotten rid of right away!

  We needed to be able to get everything dry! They all make pretty fall decorations but just how much could our house really handle -where would we put everything?

  We are still working on finding spots for everything as a few things are still just laying on the counter but I thought I would show you some of what we have done....

 Dad had made this wire bottomed wood box for me for purposes of cleaning beans that we had bought in bulk (that still had some foreign matter in them) but I decided it would also be a good way to get our beans plenty of air.

 Here is some of our popcorn working on drying while also decorating my little shelf. We are not sure if our popcorn actually got completely mature or not. We are looking forward to trying it to see if it will really pop. I hope so! This is a smaller variety that was supposed to be able to grow in our short season.

 Mara strung a bunch of the hot peppers together for drying.

 Another bunch of corn. We have these scattered throughout the house.

 When we really started realizing that we didn't have enough spaces to hang individual bunches of corn we decided we would have to be a little more creative and so Mara attached them all over the wreath above and I filled the swag below with them.

It is fun to see the little harvest displays all over the house.

   We are feeling pretty nearly ready for snowstorms or whatever else may come our way this winter. A couple of weeks ago my parents and I went on an afternoon drive and came back with over 1,000 lbs. of food. We were picking up our 1/2 beef, wheat for my parents, my sisters and our family as well as some food for our chickens. It was fun to take a fall drive and visit 3 little towns west of us in order to pick up those things. Originally the kids and I were going to go on that drive but that was when I was having trouble with my hands (Thanks to God - they are better now!) and my parents decided to go with me. I am blessed!

 Are you all stocked up for winter? Do you ever deal with the need to be creative in storing your food? Do you have any good ideas to share? I always love to hear from you!