Around The Homestead - Prepping For The Hard Frost Tonight

Since Fall arrived, we've had aour share of colder than normal days. Today was 15° colder than normal. We're supposed to get our first real frost tonight. We've had some light frost which withered our grapes and what's left of our tomato and pepper plants.

Tonight the low is 29° for the town closest to us so it'll be 5-7 degrees colder here.

In order to prepare for the freeze, we dug our some old moving blankets that were given to us and wrapped our rain barrels with them, then secured them with bungee straps. The added insulation helped keep them from freezing last year (our first year with them). I originally thought that if they were full that they wouldn't freeze just do to the sheer amount of water, but have heard several stories of people whose water barrels froze partially, expanding and cracking them, so we didn't want to take any chances.

The second thing that we wanted to get done was to finish getting the remaining tomatoes and jalapeno peppers off of the plants.

Lastly, I stopped by the our chickens. Their feathers came in just in time and they were all fluffed and full. I removed their waterer for the night as it's an outside one and it's made of metal, so it'd definitely freeze.

Now all that's left to do is to make some fried green tomatoes or green tomato bread, which I have not tried, but it looks pretty good.

For those interested, here's how to make friend green tomatoes. Well, God made them, we just cook them.

1. Slice tomatoes
2. Dip in raw scrambled egg. 
3. Then dip in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. 
4. Some folks add a little heat like cayenne pepper.
5. Fry in olive oil for best health and flavor, until brown and soft. 

Although I've never tried it, here is the recipe for Green Tomato Bread, if you'd like to try it.

Enjoy the weather and stay warm!