Day of the Corn

Look at all that corn!

It probably doesn't seem like it, but there's about 4 bushels there.

We spent only an hour shucking the corn, and I say only because we pretty much spent the time playing with the goats and sheep. We had let them into the front yard with us so we could monitor them and throw them the shucks.



Betty steals from the chicken scraps.



After a while (a very, very small while) the critters came to us for the shucks, and demanded to eat the shucks by our feet and not those thrown aside for them.

Then, they discovered the chicken scrap bowl where we had dropped green tops.



Dodge slobbering corn all over the place.



It went down hill from there. We fed scrap corn directly to the critters, they were in our laps, and were helping themselves by eating shucks as we shucked them. But it was all good fun any way, and we began to "dress" any nearby victims in corn shucks and silk. 



Caspian wearing a shuck. What a cutie!



Angus in a silky 'do.

Caspian wearing silk.

 It wasn't too long before all the corn was shucked, and we brought it in.

Then, the real work began.

Corn was washed, trimmed, and- no clue what it's called- removed of kernels.

We pressure canned a final total of 5 half-pints, 36 pints, and five quarts. That's just under 9 gallons of corn kernels. We only had one canner going and finished at five am the next morning. Mind you, I then slept till noon.

It doesn't sound like a lot of work. I know it doesn't. But it took all day, and we have at minimum a years supply of corn on our shelves. I'm just thankful for this corn, for knowing where it came from, for knowing what it took, and for being able to do it ourselves.



Freshly shucked corn.