Celery Day, Batch 76 Finished, Batch 77 Prepped, Trailer

Yesterday morning was a bit off as R woke up with a wicked cough which prompted us to keep him home from school. He tried to go back to sleep through the coughing while I took J to school. It was a bit later when I went out for a short soak.

I spent my morning writing while he was napping, working on Spanish and Python lessons, and trying to keep the herd off the nice and sunny warm deck. They all piled into what sun they could find during the day.

Hive account@stryeyz came home for lunch to get a turkey to ship off and then I had to pick up J from school. I finally got started on the celery which I had a bit less left than I had thought. I got Battlebots on random on the tv and then spent my afternoon at the center island breaking it all down to stalks and tops.

The stalks went to the big bowl half filled with water as a number of the stalks were limp and floppy. I put the bowl in the fridge which did help some of the stalks regain a little.

Before it got dark I had to hook the trailer up for my super early grain run that I have already been to town for this morning.

This was the little remains of the 40 pounds of celery that I had in the cooler after getting through the last of them.

I went at the tops and cut all of them up and got them loaded on the trays. I ended up only needing 4 trays to fit all the tops and on the last one I cut up the stalks to fill. They all got covered and set outside to freeze overnight in the single digit temps.

This is the last of the celery which is not enough for a full run so likely will be snacks for us during the days.

I was out early since the freeze dryer was nearly done with the cycle and when I got inside it was not far into the extended dry which I am able to bypass.

I was able to get the trays out and into big bags for the night and the unit went to defrost.

It is quite amazing how light the tops are after being run but the stalks still have a bit of weight to them.

This morning I have been to town for grain already, batch 77 is loaded and running, I will be emptying the barrels soon, getting fluids into R and hopefully some food and nutrition, I have to setup the butcher area for tomorrow, and I still need to swap the back tire out on the mini bike.