babysteps

^{I think it's the current issue of Mother Earth News that has an article about canning... and starts off by telling about some family who experienced a power outage and used their "All American Pressure **COOKER**" to can up the meat from their freezer...}

 

^Sigh...

 

 

^{ETA: and does anyone know why my font is so danged tiny all of a sudden? I've changed it to larger font three times and it won't stay!}

Our fair was last week. I spend all day at it, too, but for a different reason... my kids show livestock each year. So we're there several days before the fair opens.

 

They did well, and had a great time as usual. I had a harder time of it than I normally do... something about being 8 1/2 months pregnant makes it hard to pull 18 hour days on your feet for a week...

Next year I'll be juggling 3 kids showing, an 8 year old, and an 11 month old. Not *quite* sure how I'll do that, yet... but I'm sure I'll figure it out!

I read about this guy a couple days ago and just shuddered all the way through the article. It just floors me how many people there are that still think you just have to cook it long enough to get the JAR to seal. Or that if you boil it long enough it'll be fine, like the green beans for 3+ hours. A friend of mine did that a few years ago and to the best of my knowledge, didn't toss any of them either despite my horror and pleading with her to get rid of the whole batch. Her mother in law had always done it like that and so by golly it was a perfectly safe thing to do. Sigh.

Blueberries now. Juice, jam, etc. And blackberries are following hard on their heels... they should be ready this weekend. I do love summer, even though I can't do much this year!!

Raspberry jam and raspberry juice. I have three different jelly bags dripping in my kitchen at the moment... one of the little teeny store bought ones and two that I made a few years ago. My homemade ones hold a LOT of fruit, which is SOOOOO much nicer than the itty bitty ones you get at the store. But I had just a teeny bit more than they could hold this time.

 

I still have 5lbs of raspberries on my counter. Hmmm.

I dehydrated a batch of raspberries the other day and... wow. Those buggers are TART!! A couple of my kiddos liked them, but most of us were kinda "eh" about them. Any suggestions? or do they just turn out like this? My hubby thinks they'll be good on cereal, at least. lol.

Accckkk!!! So I wasn't expecting today to go *quite* like it did... sorry it's taken all day to update!

 

DS was scheduled to have "minor" surgery this morning. It ended up being more extensive than the doctor expected AND his recovery has been rough so far. Each time they've tried to get him up walking around a bit, he's passed out or thrown up... not a good thing when you've just had abdominal surgery! He was supposed to go home by 2 this afternoon, now he's staying at least overnight and they're iffy on him going home tomorrow, either.

 

So I spent the day at the hospital with him instead of being home with time to update!

 

At any rate, things have been going fairly well for the past couple of years. Just general busy life, nothing really of note. God keeps pouring out blessings on us even though we certainly don't deserve it!

 

Glad to see you all again, I've missed it here.

_{Mostly good stuff!}

 

_{We're still living out in the boonies in Oregon on our little farm... the animal population has grown quite a bit. Hubby is still in law enforcement, but now has seniority enough to not ALWAYS be stuck on the lousy shifts, lol! My DS is now almost 17 and starting his senior year of high school AND his freshman year of college in the fall (dual enrollment option at his high school, it's such a blessing!). DDs are now 13, 10, almost 9, and 7. And back in January of this year, we learned that even though *we* thought our family was complete, God had other ideas... and baby #6 is due in about two months.}

 

_{I'll have to give a longer update a little later, we have a busy morning ahead of us...}

I still see a whole bunch of names I recognize!!

 

It's been way too long, but I finally wandered my way back over here.

 

Thank you Cat for helping me get my password sorted out!!

 

 

Now.. time to go poking around and see what's changed...

Peaches. I've already done straight peaches in syrup and peach jam... I need to do a search on peach recipes, because hubby just brought me a few more boxes...

My understanding is that this works *mostly*... but not 100%. I'm pretty sure my daughter's aracaunas don't have green-blue ears. LOL. But my Buff O's and RIR's *do* have pinkish-brown ear tufts and lay pinkish brown eggs, and my one weird Silver Hamburg has white ear tufts and lays white eggs. (And lemmetellya, when you've gotten used to brown and green eggs, getting a white one just seems weird!)

Or a load of concrete blocks to make a new raised bed...

Or a grain mill...

Or a greenhouse...

Or a dehydrator...

Or some goats...

Or... ahem. Sorry.

Honey, I hope you're reading this!

*giggle* My mom HATED the Scholastic book catalogue that they would send home from school every couple of weeks... by the time I got home, MOST of the books were circled, even though I rarely got to actually order from it.

 

My favorite books as a child? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Let's just call it "Nearly every book in the children and youth sections in the Salem Public Library".

 

There are some that I *still* come back to and read, even as an adult. The Little House books, the Five Little Peppers books, any book by Francis Hodgson Burnett or LM Montgomery or Louisa May Alcott, the Pollyanna series, the Heidi series, the Doctor Dolittle series, the Narnia series. There are literally thousands more, but these I still have on MY shelves. Some of them I'm on my second or third copy... because I read them till they literally fell apart. Tho' I'm a little easier on books nowadays...

 

Those are the children's books that I still read. Shall I start in on the grown-up books that I read? It might crash the server again...

Uh oh... I went to look at the pictures... once in a while I like to remind myself *why* I prep... and at least one of the links doesn't work. The picture that's suppose to have drinks emptying out gives me a "Welcome to Mrs. S's new forum" message and bumps me back to the main forum page.

 

When you get a chance, Darlene, you might wanna take a look and see what you can do...

 

 

ETA: Looks like that's the *only* picture whose link is wonky. So no big hurry, just a heads up.

Ewww Ewww Ewww Ewww Ewww....

 

I *SO* didn't need that mental image...

 

 

Westie, you know we love ya!

I love that the picture came from a website named "What Not To Crochet" ... LOL!

How about...

 

if your son is in Boy Scouts, as he works on merit badges, you have your daughters complete the requirements too.

 

Because Girl Scouts aren't the same...

 

So far the oldest girl (8) would qualify as a 1st class Scout, the middle two (5 and 4) would be tenderfeet, and the youngest (2) can say the scout motto and slogan.

 

 

AAAAUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Leah, where do you FIND all those pictures???? I haven't laughed so hard in weeks!!!!!!!!!!

 

babysteps, trying to breathe again.........

I had one similar... when we moved from Idaho to Oregon, several of our friends were helping pack us up. One of the guys took one look at my canned food shelf, (dh built it, it's similar to this http://www.organize.com/soupcanrack.html but made of wood and MUCH bigger) raised his eyebrows, and said "I see you've been taking after the neighbors!" (We lived in a predominately Mormon neighborhood at the time. Good people.) My response, "Gotta blend in, y'know!"

Has anyone seen Nana? I've been really enjoying going through these budget plans of hers, but I notice she hasn't been on to update them for a few months. Did I just miss something, being new and all?

 

babysteps

Hey, I know what golden treacle is! *pats self on back*

 

I'm torn between showing this list to DH (See honey, I'm not the only one!) and hiding it from DH (There are more of us out there! Yikes!)

 

babysteps