Canning!

Yes I'm back again.  I just started canning again.  Totals will be on the side bar for this year.

Little bit of dehydrating and jelly making

I dehydrated some cranberries I had in the freezer.  This is before they went into the dehydrator.  They are realllly realllly good on yogurt :)

And these are the wild violets I gathered from my front lawn for some violet jelly.  I would have shown you what the jelly looked like but it did not turn a pretty color.  I think I had too much lemon and not enough flowers.  It was kind of a honey color, not ugly just not a pretty purply-pink color.  It does however taste great.  Hubby loved it.  Now I need to hide it from him cause we have to use up the old stuff before we use this and I want to give some away for gifts too.  I'll have to try it again some time.  If you want to try it next year, just Google violet jelly.  There are a lot of recipes out there on the web.

I'm BACCCCCKKKK!

Surprise, surprise, surprise!  I've been one busy little person what with canning, the holidays, work and being sick for the past 2 1/2 weeks with this cold crap.  Yes I said crap and I'm still feeling a little bit like that LOL.

We got our yearly 1/2 beef and 1/2 a pig this year to go with it so I was trying to clean out our freezer as much as possible (read empty completely).  Surprisingly with all that meat I got it fit into our upright freezer and stashed the bacon in our little freezer.  Boy it was close!  Don't think we will do that again.  At least we could space it out so I don't have such a problem stowing it away.  So we have a lot of meat, a lot.  It should last us a little over a year.  The only problem is they cut the roasts a little too big for us so when I made a beef roast the other day we had to keep eating it and eating it and eating it.  It was huge!  I just put in some salt and pepper and some bay leaves and cooked in the slow cooker. Hubby made homemade noodles to go with it.  Yum.  Then I made some barbequed beef sandwiches today and still I had some left over so I guess I'll be using the rest in a soup of some sort.

So since I cleaned out my freezer I had all these tomatoes, peppers, berries and beef bones (which really take up room in the freezer).  I canned berry jelly since I had boysenberries, blueberries and raspberries; pepper relish; tomato soup and beef broth.  And I had gotten 10 pounds of pig fat to make lard.  I did all that in one week...boy was I tired and so we come to the fact that I got run down and got sick.  Was it worth it?  You betcha cause now we have a whole lot of food stored up.

I wasn't in the holiday mood this year so I didn't even put up our tree.  I did decorate our fireplace mantle and put up the wreath on the front door but that is as festive as I got this year.  But it did save me from having to put all that stuff away too.  It didn't lessen in any way our Christmas though.  We still had our presents to open on Christmas day and we got some Christmas cards too.  Not as many as I sent out but I think it's because it is getting so expensive to mail them.  Postage is going up again in a couple of weeks so I hear.  Hubby got me just what I wanted this year too!  I got an immersion blender (so much easier to do soups with) and a spice grinder which will be nice to grind all those spices and herbs I'm going to be growing this year (maybe LOL).  Hubby was shocked I got him so much but why not, he's worth it.  I got him an old fashioned straight razor shaving kit with everything included except for a sharpening stone which I'll get him later.  He tried it the first time and cut himself all to heck...Geez-Louise.  He said I need your help I cut myself.  I went running and had to put cotton balls and band-aids on each side of his face.  Since he's on blood thinners he bleeds a lot when he gets cut.  He did eventually stop bleeding.  I think a styptic pen is on order for him.  Now he says he scared of it...and hasn't tried to use it again yet.  I think he was holding it wrong and trying to go too fast.  I think he needs to practice.   Cause if I have to put cotton balls and band-aids on him again I'll bust out laughing, he looked really funny.  He even laughed about it.  Looked like a poor man's Santa or  maybe a really weird looking chipmunk :)  I also got him a weather thingy.  It's a tube that is supposed to tell you the weather a couple of days ahead of time.  Don't know if it works yet.  He left it in the package so we can take it to the cabin.  I got him a CD of info on solar power from Mother Earth News and a puzzle.  He said he owed me something else and has decided to get me another gun...not really what I was looking for really LOL.  It will be a revolver cause I really don't like the way the pistol handles that I already have.  I think it will give me more control but we'll see.

The chickens have stopped laying...completely.  No eggs since November.  We have been getting eggs when we go up to the cabin but it's not the same and they don't taste as good as ours were.  I'm still hoping that they will start laying a few when it warms up.  We got a ton of seed catalogs last week.  I love looking through them although I don't think I need any more seeds right now.  Since the world didn't end, I guess I can spend more money on plants and seeds ;)

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Denise

Wow...

It's been a while huh?  Well here are some pics for your viewing pleasure and some updates as well.

I had planted walking onions this year and these are the top set onions I had left over after replanting them again this fall.  I thought I would use them in soups.   They kind of look like pearl onions don't they?  I just froze them.  Took me a while to peel these because they are so small.

Here are the sloppy joes that I canned.  Boy are they yummy.  I also canned some regular meat sauce too.

When you have a cat and a box...well you know what happens LOL.  Here is the pic without flash, can you see Tikki?

and here he is with the flash.  

Oooh isn't he spooky LOL.  By the time I took this pic he was ready to get out of the box realizing that he isn't invisible after all ;)

Canning...

I canned up some potatoes and beef broth a week ago.  Here are some pics.  OOOhhhh so exciting isn't it? LOL.

Assorted pics from June and July

Here are some of the girls, furred and feathered.  Yes Penny thinks she's a chicken now.  She cries to go out with the girls.  Maybe they have meetings? LOL.  That bush on the right is a cherry.  Had lots of blossoms and even had some cherries but they all fell off. :(  The building in the back is the chicken feeding center.  The girls use it in the winter to get out of the cold too but just the feathered girls, Penny stays inside if it's too cold ;)

Here is Roxy and Penny looking to get in.  

Here are some of the blueberries and potatoes fresh from the garden.  You know how I was complaining of too many blueberries, well I should have kept my mouth shut because then we went into a severe drought and all the unripe blueberries wilted and died on the bushes.  

I canned some pickled beets.

This was the sky one afternoon.  So pretty I had to take a picture of it.

We had lots of grapes.  These are concords.  Hubby had fresh grapes for a couple of days.  What he didn't eat we gave to the chickens.  No I'm not too crazy about grapes.  I did make three quarts of grape juice though and it turned out pretty good.

Little update

GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain.  I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really.  The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all.  DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house.  We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms.  And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well.  We also have to do all the closet floors.  Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden.  We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us.  With the drought, there was one nice thing.  Not very many bugs.  But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.

I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden.  I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce.  I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.

KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day.  DH saw them and decided to buy them.  We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock.  Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks.  After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again.  My fingers were sore until the next day.  But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves.  I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL.  I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours.  That softened them up.  I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam.  Has anyone done this before?  I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.

I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that.  When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years.  At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.

I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden.  I'm thinking of canning most of those up.  I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast.  I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too.  I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.

CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine.  We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave.  Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things.  We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up.  This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.

CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately.  Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called.  Crazy girl!  And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them.  I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :)  Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.

QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it.  I just have to bind it and it will be done.  I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding.  I knitted up a little pair of footies for me.  I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair.  I even had a little bit left over.  The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks.  I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.

READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.  It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War.  If you haven't read it, it's about slavery.  Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think.  I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one.  I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there.  Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read.  Like I don't have other things that have to get done...

NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well.  The two places we called it was going to be over $6000.  Crazy.  Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum.  We have a couple more places to call.  Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable.  We have decided to get a little cabin.  We looked at a few and really liked them.  DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it.  I could say I told him so but I won't ;)  He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO.  We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around.  And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture.  This cabin is just the shell.  If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows.  Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale.  Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented.  You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores.  Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed.  Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it.  Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money.  Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging.  So DH and I decided that we will try to douse.  We're not going to dig however.  That can be dangerous.  Wish us luck!  I'll let you know what we find if  anything.

Well I think I caught you up on everything for now.  I hope to get some pics up soon.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Trying to keep you updated...

On Saturday I canned six pints of pickled beets from the beets I got in Ethridge.  I made extra pickling juice cause it just didn't seem like enough so I made double.  I used the extra leftover juice to make pickled eggs.  And I picked more blueberries...I see a theme here.  I haven't done anything with them yet but I will and will post what I make with them.

Sunday was not a very good day.  It was raining well actually misting and I had the window open cause it was warmer inside than out.  I had a puzzle that I had glued and apparently when it gets humid these things curl up, maybe I should have put it in a frame,  anyway I had it on my fireplace mantel.  It was pretty and it was in back of some breakable things.  Yep you guessed it.  Puzzle curled up and breakable things went down on the ceramic tiles that are in front of the fireplace.  I had glass everywhere.  And to make matters worse, one of the things that broke was a temperature thingy that I got for hubby for his birthday.  It was filled with liquid and had these little globes in it that had a temperature on each of them.  When I started to clean it up it smelled like kerosene.  Yuck.  Then I was worried about the floor.  We had laid a laminate floor not too long ago and all I could think was this liquid whatever it is will eat through the finish.  So here I am mopping it up with my cleaning  clothes.  I almost went through all my cleaning clothes.  I wasn't going to try to clean them what with the glass and the liquid all over them.  What was weird was the little globes did not break!  So I saved them.  Maybe we can use an old jar and put them in regular water...don't know if that will work or not but we'll try it and see.  Guess I'll have to get hubby something else to make up for the broken temperature thingy.

 I found a pic of the temperature thingy but the one we had was on a base but its the same otherwise.  Kinda cool thing and hubby liked it.  It did work too.  Doggone

More pics

More pics - I'm on a roll now...

The girls getting some early morning sun.

This is our new land.  That's my DH out there on the new riding lawn mower.  My official job when he's mowing is picking up sticks and branches and watching him.  It's a tough job but I think I'm highly qualified for it LOL. Really if he got hurt my job is to take him to the ER.  The land has about three acres cleared and the rest is woods.  On the left side of the pic is the woods and then there is a big gully.  It might have been a stream at one point back in the past but not now.  When we first looked at the land you could walk down to the gully and back up but not now.  Those trees and underbrush are thick!  

Finally here is a pic of the dried beans I canned.  Very easy to do and wonderful that when you want to make something with the beans they are already done   so no soaking!  Gotta love that.  These are black beans.  They lighten up when you can them.  I've done kidney beans, black eyed beans, Anasazi beans and northern beans now.  I'm all beaned out!

Canned goods done

I canned celery a couple of months ago.  I had never heard of doing this until I got Jackie Clay's canning book (you can get it at BackwoodsHome.com).  What do you do with canned celery?  Well you put in soups and stews and casseroles.  And I dont have to worry about celery going bad in my fridge before I can use it all either.  I have dehydrated celery too but I think the canned is much better cause you can throw in all that yummy celery liquid in the soup and add some flavor.  It will last longer than the dehydrated celery too.

Here are the carrots (regular and candied) that I did a few months ago.  Hubby hates candied carrots and canned regular carrots but I like them so there (raspberry) ;).  Besides the regular carrots will be used in soups and stews and he will eat them that way just not by themselves - go figure.

I would have...

posted a pic of the wonderful beef barley stew I made yesterday for supper last night but it seems like it's all gone...I only had two small bowls so some mice must have come along and ate the rest of it cause I know my hubby would not have eaten the rest of the crockpot full....

Here is the recipe so you can experience it for yourself:

2 carrots diced
2 celery spears diced (are they called spears? I dont remember I'm having a menopause moment)
1 small onion diced
Stew meat (add as much or as little as you would like, I used 1/2 lb)
Stock beef or chicken (I used chicken) enough to cover
1/2 cup pearled barley

Put all in crockpot and cook for 8 hours on low.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now I must admit I screwed up my chicken noodle soup when I canned it.  I didnt know you werent supposed to put the noodles in too so needless to say the noodles turned to mush (another menopause moment ;)  So I just drained off the broth and used it in the beef barley stew and threw the noodles away.  It worked great!  See I didnt waste too much...Ok you can stop laughing now.  Now if you put the barley in first thing it will be big and soft so if you like your barley a little bit more al dente (oooh big Italian word) add it during the last hour of cooking and it should be fine. 

By the way the stewing meat we got from Trinity Farms not far from where we are.  It was pasture raised and the meat tastes great so to give them a plug...check out their website http://www.trinityfarmsofalabama.com/  They also raise pigs for slaughter as well.  I got some pig fat to make some lard from them.  Half a side of beef filled our freezer so we are set for meat for the winter, and spring, and fall and winter...two people just dont eat that much in a setting well unless it's beef barley stew LOL.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Wow it's been a while...

To catch you up - Last Thursday I went out to lunch with my friend Kathy, her daughter and granddaughter.  We went to Indian Cafe.  The food was great.  They use fresh ingredients.  The service wasnt so great but we didnt mind.  We talked and laughed and I played peek-a-boo with with a sweet little two year old.  What more could you ask for?  After lunch was finished, we exchanged promises to meet more often maybe even every month for lunch and I headed over to Hobby Lobby.  I told myself that I was NOT going to spend over $20 and I didnt!  I found some cute things in their clearance section.

It's been so hot here.  I know other parts of the country are experiencing this heat wave as well.  It has just seemed to linger so long though.  I pitted and canned some cherries I got on sale at Publix.  We went out several times to the grocery store.  Yesterday we went to Falls Mills for some pancake mix.  They grind it there and hubby loves his pancakes plus we get a 25 lb bag, store in the freezer and it lasts for a year.  Hubby rototilled finally and I planted sweet potatoes and regular potatoes.  I might have planted the sweets too late but we will see.  I had started them from an organic sweet potatoe I got from the grocery store.  To do this, you just cut the potato in half and put it in a small bowl of water.  It took a while for the sprouts to start to emerge.  You let them grow until they have about two sets of leaves on them and then I just popped them off and put the sprouts in water.  They get roots on them pretty quickly.  In fact the original sweet potato is still making sprouts!  Nature is amazing.

My clothesline finally broke with the clothes on it...:(  Luckily it happened while I was hanging clothes up so I just tied a few more knots so the clothes would stay up and then when they were dry, started taking down the rotted lines.  I cant complain cause the line lasted over two years.  We got another clothesline at Tractor Supply and we started to put it up but it was so blamed hot out that we quit after a few holes were completed.  It is so hard to get that clothesline through those holes.  Since it is cooler today I might go out with a lighter and singe the end so I can put up the rest of the line. 

On the way home from Falls Mills yesterday we stopped at Main Street Diner.  It's in a Piggly Wiggly grocery store.  Just a little hole in the wall but boy can they make the food.  I had a cheeseburger basket and hubby had a BLT with fries.   The burger was sooo big!  And you got a big side of fries.  Good thing we were hungry!  Their sweet tea was good too.  If the place doesnt have good sweet tea then usually the food isnt very good.  I wonder why that is?  We stopped at Tractor Supply as well and picked up some oyster shell for the chicks.  They didnt have any small bags at Fayetteville but did at the Winchester one.  We also picked up a hat for each of us.  Hubby's has a flap of material to cover his neck and my straw one had a big brim to do the same.  Hubby also picked up an oil pan on sale and a funnel.  We really enjoyed getting out from the house for a while and it rained while we were gone!  We got 2 1/2 inches.  Hubby said if he watered the garden before we left it would rain and it did...maybe we should wash the car someday soon so it will rain again LOL. 

I will be taking some pics and posting them later!

Hope you have a wonderful day where ever you are in the world!

Talk to ya later,

Denise

I took a break...

for a couple of days but now I'm baaaaaak!  I didnt go on the computer for a whole 2 1/2 days!  I went on Friday and got some peaches and cream corn and canned that (see totals on side bar)...we even had a couple of ears for supper that night.  It was really good.  It was grown just down the road from me.  Nothing like local.  None of my popcorn came up this year :(  Oh well, there's always next year.  Sunflowers didnt come up either...but my squash and cukes are all over the place (have a couple of squash peeking out from under the leaves) and we have tomatoes!  They're still green but some of them are turning.  Still picking blueberries.  I ordered some more potatoes (fingerlings this time) and am waiting for DH to rototill up some rows for me.  Kinda hard for him to because of the rain we've been getting on and off.  Told him I had to plant them this weekend or they'll rot...got sweet potatoes growing on the windowsill and would like to plant them as well.  Dont know if we'll get too many, it is kinda late but worth a shot. 

It's been so hot and humid.  The air is thick....really thick.  Chickens have slowed down on the eggs which is a good thing really.  We had so many eggs and I have pickled all we will ever need that I had to throw a couple dozen in the compost.  At least it isnt wasting them but it still is upsetting.  I think for a couple of people 3-4 hens is all you need.  We have 8.  We ordered 15 but gave some of them away.  Cant imagine having all 15 laying can you? 

I go out in the morning to pick berries for a half an hour and come back in and that's when the sweat is just dripping off my face.  Never used to have that problem.  When I was young I didnt sweat too much, my face would get really red but not much sweat.  After I had my hysterectomy though something must have broke loose cause now I sweat A LOT.  It's good for my pores I guess LOL. 

After I canned the corn, I started sewing.  I almost have two quilt tops done.  Might get to work on them before the weekend and if I get the quilt tops put together I'll post some pics.  I'm on the last book (I think) of the Wheel of Time by R. Jordan.  He had died but made notes and another author worked on the last two books.  If you have never read his books, give it a try.  I really like the characters and it's getting really good in the last book.  Final battle coming up...

I'm really bored with food this week.  Do any of you have any good recipes?  Maybe I'm just tired of my cooking.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

A few days off...

and I'm tired...:)  Had to go back to work just to rest up LOL.  Anyway, I went ahead and canned some more, started weaving on my new loom and read.  Well of course I did pick blueberries and took care of the cats, chickens and hubby (not necessarily in that order) but I really enjoyed not being at the computer for a few days.

I canned some chicken soup which is a first for me.  Took me all day to do it too and that was just for 8 quarts.  My pressure canner only holds 4 quarts so had to do half and then do the other half while letting the canner cool down a bit between times.  The day before I did that I canned in the water bath some peach salsa and then while those pints were cooling and popping I started canning the corn which was also a first for me.  7 ears of corn made 4 pints, not bad.  I'll have to get some more and maybe add some red peppers and green peppers to it just for something a little bit different.

Quite a few neighbors had fireworks this year and they actually quit putting them off before 11 p.m. which was good.  Not that I dont like fireworks but when your hubby has to get up the next day to go to work and is kept awake by booming fireworks he's not a happy person :(  The neighbors with the most fireworks seemed to be the ones on the dole if you know what I mean...I know we couldnt afford buying that many fireworks on our pay.  These arent just sparklers and little smoke bombs but actual big fireworks with different colors and sonic booms.  In PA they arent allowed to sell them but down here it is the big thing.  Sellers set up tents, little trailers, etc just to sell them.  They must make quite a bit on them since they only sell them for about 4-5 months.  From what I understand they arent allowed to sell them after Labor Day but they start in June so that's what a little over three months?  I dont think you should be allowed to set them off in a subdivision.  We are in a drought but officials actually lifted the burn ban...like the fireworks werent going to burn anything down...  Anyway the fireworks are loud and really scare the dogs and cats.  My cats insisted on going out before dark and when the neighbors started firing them off last night before dark the cats were outside.  I called for them but they didnt come.  Then I remembered a couple of nights previously they hid behind the waterhose boxes and yep that's where they were.  Had to coax them in poor things.  Well enough about that.

We went out this morning for breakfast at Jack's.  Yum.  While we were out we took our glass recyclables to Star Market.  They have several barrels there for glass and they also have bins for donating clothing, books and shoes for the paralyzed vets.  Have to remember that so I can donate some of my clothes and books. 

Well all for now,

Denise

Canning pics

Here is a pic of the wheat that grew from our wheat grass.  DH went out and cut it and we are now drying it and maybe just maybe we might have enough to grind...maybe.

Here is a photo of the potatoes from our garden that I canned.  I just did pints...maybe I should have done quarts.

Here is a pic of the blueberries, boysenberries and raspberries that I picked.  The boysenberries are done but I wonder if they refruit in the fall.  The yellow raspberries keep fruiting throughout the summer and sure are yummy.  This year I might get enough to make some jam.  I did do some blueberry jam last night and some peach butter so that leaves me with one basket of peaches yet to do and 8 quarts and counting of blueberries.

This pic is of my lavender drying.  I just let it dry for a couple of weeks and then pull off all the buds and store in a jar.  I will be making some more lavender jelly and I did find a recipe for peach and lavender jam as well...mmmmm.

And finally pics of my hair, yes that's right I cut it off for the cancer patients.  The ponytails were almost 13 inches long.  I will be sending the hair out this week so they can make a wig out of it.  It was really bothering me, too hot for all the hot summer weather and hot flashes that I've been having.

I did even up the cut after I took this pic.

and it's really hard to take a decent picture of yourself by yourself...

Well gotta go back to work, hope your day is going well.

Denise

Everyday things

I know I dont post much but I think I do just very mundane things and dont want to bore you to death. But here goes:

On Tuesday we went and got two big baskets of locally grown peaches from Scott's Orchard. We got some lumber to build a grape harbor. Our grapes are so loaded this year that they are laying on the ground. We do have two small metal trellaces but they are now too small to hold all the branches. I harvested the rest of my small batch of beets. Now that I know that they will do well here I'll be planting more this fall. My popcorn didnt come up...darn. My sunflowers looked like they wouldnt come up either but with the rain everyday one finally poked its head up, well at least that's what I think it is. I will be very disappointed if it turns out that it's a weed instead...LOL. The rain has greened everything up and the garden is doing pretty good. I even got one small paste tomato today. It is from a volunteer that came up near the raspberries. I've been picking about 1/2 to 1 quart of blueberries every day. I'll be making some syrup, butter and jam out of it and I'll still have enough left over to make some blueberry pancakes.

The chickens are laying well, sometimes too well I must say. I will be making some more pickled eggs only this time with beet juice. The fence around the chicken coop needs shored up or something. We need to take a day and fix it but my DH has been so sick since Tuesday. Some intestinal bug. He even called off work two days. Poor thing.

Last night I canned some peach preserves and am planning on doing some more tonight. We went to get some oil and oil filters for the car and truck yesterday, ate at Mildred's Restaurant (buffet was really yummy) and after DH visited the bathroom stopped at the fruit market on the way home. Gotta keep those chicks in watermelon ;) In case you think this was my idea, think again, DH needed to get the oil before the sale ran out so even though he wasnt feeling well we went and got it. He had a coupon. We went to the wrong store. He noticed this when we were at the cash register and mentioned that we had come to the wrong store and he had a coupon for the other store. The manager honored the coupon! So we got $10 off our purchase. DH was happy about being able to use the coupon and we didnt have to stop anywhere else which was good considering.

I finished one pair of socks for him and started another for him. Havent been doing much crafting, been reading instead.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Not keeping you up to date...

And I am very sorry about that.  Let's see...We transplanted our little pepper, tomato and parsley seedlings into our garden on Saturday after DH rototilled it again.  I planted some more little flowers last week and they came up and are outside hardening off.  I also planted some more veggie seeds inside on Sunday and they are coming up now too.  DH got two grafted tomato plants in the mail on Friday and boy did they look straggly but after planting them in some bigger pots and watering they look pretty good now.  Turned the air conditioner on yesterday for the first time this year.  We are having a mini heat wave right now.  Yesterday it was in the high 80's and today it is in the 90's with a lot of humidity.  Then we are supposed to have a front come through and get some rain and then it will be cooler (in the 70's). 

We pulled a couple of onions and a garlic to see how they were doing.  DH chopped them up and used them in speghetti.  They tasted really good - not too hot or strong.  They arent ready to all harvest yet though.  The garlic didnt have any bulbs just one big one.  Looked like an onion.  I harvested some of the collard greens Monday and cooked them up.  Since I'm the only one who likes them I canned the remainder yesterday.  They really taste good.  Not mushy like the canned versions in the stores.  I only got three pints but that's enough for me.  DH doesnt know what he's missing. :)

I'll post some pics later.  And I'm going to try to post some tips for surviving without electricity.  I think that might be interesting to some of you.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Hubby brings me a present

Hubby had off today and after fixing the truck (that's a whole other post) he decided to go take our recyclers to the recycle center.  When he came back he told me there was a present in the back of the truck for me.  Now I'm thinking what in the world cause he isnt a junker and doesnt usually pick up things.  Well I went out and looked in the back of the truck and there was a case of 12 wide mouth quart jars.  He said that they were sitting beside the recycling bins.  The thing was that they were still in the original packing and were brand new.  He did open the plastic to make sure that none of them were broke before bringing them home.  The only thing I saw wrong with them is that some of the bands were starting to rust.  So I got 12 new canning jars for free!  How great is that?  I figured someone was cleaning out their mom's house and decided to recycle them.  Although why they didnt even take the lids off and such is beyond me and also our recycling place doesnt take glass so maybe they thought someone could use them...The things people throw out are amazing sometimes...

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Rained again today!

Another couple of storms went through again today.  Yesterday we had a total of 4 inches.  There was flooding in the northeastern part of the state so bad the state police blocked off roads and several families were evacuated from their homes.  We did some adjusting to the chicken coop yesterday between the raindrops.  DH cleaned the coop while I was making supper and I helped him (ran and got tools for him as he was in the coop).  We moved the fan from in front of the door to back by the window and moved the feeder from there to in front of the door.  It seems to be working pretty good so far.  This way when it rains and we close the door the food wont get wet.

For supper we had klushki (sorry not sure how to spell that).  I changed it up a bit.  Usually you just cook wide egg noodles, cook up some sausages or hotdogs, slice them up and then cook down some shredded cabbage in butter.  I cooked the cabbage in some bacon grease and added some frozen peas that I had leftover from the night before.  Threw it in the oven in my cast iron enameled pot with the lid on at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.  I really liked it with the peas in it.  They added some color.  Cant have enough green stuff you know. 

I have been trying to cook down my quartered pie pumpkins.  Who knew that it would take so long...but it smells good in the kitchen lol.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Canning

I canned a lot over the weekend.   I canned some peach preserves, peach pie filling, and some apple butter.  I still have some peaches which I plan on turning into spiced peach jam and some more apples left as well which I plan on making applesauce out of. 

Apple butter and peach preserves.  I'm using my new labeler to make labels for each jar.  It is great, wish I would have gotten it a long time ago.

Sideways pic of my new pressure canner.  Couldnt figure out how to turn it sorry!

The mess of pickles I made a while ago.

My lavender jelly made with MY lavender, I'm so proud of myself using my lavender and actually making jelly not sauce...Yeah Me!

Salsa - homemade - yum!

Dont know whether you can see him or not but this is a little itty bitty frog that was on our screen door one night.

There he is!

and there he is again!  He was only about an inch long.  Hope he made it through the hot weather cause I havent seen him since these pics.

And I think I'm all caught up now on my pics!  I will have to make some more of the things I have completed knitting.

Talk to ya later!

Denise