Darlene

Yep same here just not as extreme…

Turn the ceiling fans on in the house - it’s warm outside. Next day, start a fire in the wood stove. 
 

We’re getting to the end of the fluctuations though so hopefully sooner than later the warmth will be sustained. 

34 minutes ago, Dee said:

Lovely Darlene.  I'm glad you and Ambergris have ambition.  I've lost mine but am hoping to find it again soon......big sigh!

Ambergris is right. It ebbs and flows and is dependent upon 1000 things, at least for me. 
 

I’ve been looking forward to the strawberries from the Amish market all winter so that got me stoked. Same with the carrots. Had bought the roaster hens to do last December for Christmas gifts but didn’t have time so threw the chicks in the freezer till Amish carrot season started lol. 

The granola is a mom thang. My oldest son hasn’t been eating enough in the mornings because he likes a quick fix and I haven’t made the granola for a couple of weeks. Guilt is a great motivator so I promised him I’d make it for him this weekend. My fresh flaked oatmeal from the whole grain, honey from my hives, vanilla bean paste I made, organic coconut oil, Ceylon cinnamon quills I roasted and ground myself, etc etc etc. 

One of the blessings of being a prepper is that we learn how to store (what to most people) are unusual things. The reward is we are better prepared, but also we can make things like I have done and we all do here, that is superior to anything you could purchase commercially. 
 

I have my sites set on your chocolate zuke cake Dee. Just ran out of time this weekend but we have a cold snap coming (blackberry ‘winter’ here) and will make it in the next few days. 

Ok. Granola. Done. 
 

Wood fire pizzas for dinner, but we do those every week so piece of cake. 

Chicken soup?

Check. 
 

Strawberry jam?

Check. 
 

Granola?

Half a check - it’s in the oven baking.

I quit for now. 

Yeah I use it for the peppers and onions in my salsa and the Squeezo for the tomatoes but it never dawned on me for the strawberries till now. First batch is in WB canner right now. 3-4 more batches and then I’m done. For now. 
 

I’m also using the low sugar sure gel because I hate the overly sweet jams and it tastes much better. I ordered a lb of Pamona pectin so I can be in complete charge of the sweetness. 
 

With everything in the world going on right now it’ll be another massive canning summer I think. 

I’ve made strawberry jam for decades. Hours cleaning and slicing each strawberry. 
 

I bought a bunch of strawberries at the Amish market Friday to make a fresh batch of strawberry jam. 
 

After spending all day yesterday preparing and processing a ton of chicken soup, I’m still tired. But, I need to get these strawberries don’t so I don’t lose them. I was not looking forward to hours spent cleaning and slicing them all when I had what for me, was a brilliant idea!

I washed and cleaned the strawberries and threw them whole into my food processor. I pulsed it a few times and it did all the hard work for me and then some. 
 

Im really excited about this. It took less than an hour to clean 4 quarts and 4 pints of strawberries and they’re ready to be cooked and jar’d. 
 

YAYYYYYY me….or actually, yayyyyy God for the inspiration. 
 

Are any of you smarter than I am and have already discovered this shortcut?

I picked up some zukes at the Amish market Friday just so I can make this chocolate zuke cake lol. Might try today if I can get all the strawberries processed and get the granola made. 

Ta da!

22pts and 7 quarts. 
 

It’s always amazing how rich the broth gets after canning. When I first make the stock I add the chicken and veggies and this batch I simmer for about 18 hours on low. 
 

When I went to put everything together, I deboned the chicken and cut up fresh raw veggies (carrots, onion and celery) and weighed them into the jars. I also took the garlic pod this time and removed all the cooked garlic and put into my vitamix, added some of the broth and puréed and poured it back into the rest of the big pot of stock. The broth didn’t taste garlicky but I know its nutrients are also in the mix. 
 

I was surprised when I pulled out the jars this morning and saw how deep and rich the broth had become. Probably from the fresh veggies that cooked while in the canner  

Today is strawberries and then I’m done for now. 

26 minutes ago, Littlesister said:

Got fresh eggs today straight from the chickens. They were selling them at the farm market this morning. 

Eggs. 
 

Oy vey. 
 

A month or so ago I wrote about how there are very few chicks to be found anywhere, much less the breed I prefer. 
 

I scoured the internet and finally found some out of Michigan and ordered a dozen that won’t be here till end of May which is fine. 
 

Shortly after that I went into the coop and found one of my hens lazily laying on who know how many eggs. 
 

Today I went in there again and she’s still

there lazily laying on her eggs and in the box right next to her is ANOTHER hen incubating Lord knows how many eggs. 
 

I don’t even want to think how many chicks I’ll have shortly 

7 quarts and 20 pint load (I think - it might be one or two more) in the monster canner.

It’s been a long day and I’m tired lol but hopefully this will last a year or two. 
 

I put a pinch of the carrot tops in each jar too!

26 minutes ago, Dee said:

I've used carrot tops for broth, but I would suggest you don't use a whole lot.  They're pretty powerful.

 

 

That’s good to know. I only put 4 whole carrot tops in to the stage 1 and will perhaps do a small pinch once I go to pressure can it. 
 

Plus there’s 2 whole roaster chickens in the huge pot so hopefully that’ll not be too much. 

I added the whole carrot and top to step one of the chicken soup. 

I went up to the Amish market today for the first time this spring. Their produce is just starting to come in so I got a bunch of strawberries, green onions, lettuces, cakes, zucchini, cabbage and fresh whole carrots. 
 

The carrots have the greens still on them so I wanted to see if or what everyone uses them for. I’m making up a huge batch of chicken soup to can and figured I’d throw a handful of the greens in for the vitamin content. I did some quick searches and saw where people make pesto with them, Chimichurri and several other things. 
 

Do y’all ever repurpose your carrot top greens?

You’re amazing Dee. Thank you so much!

I’ll have to wait till zucchini’s come in but I will definitely let you know how it comes out. 

That’s very beautiful Jeeps

Zucchini chocolate cake Dee? Could you share the recipe?

I’ll have to read this whole thread to learn more about what this project is all about but I breed a rare and primitive breed of dogs myself on the farm and just had a litter 10 days ago

And THIS is what is all about and as MR said, is where our hope in His promise to us, lays. 

Awwwwww yes!!! Happy birthday BA!  We love and appreciate all you do here!

That must be a boy thang because my boys have done the same thing in my big pasture lol

Yeah I was so stressed when it happened, I contacted A and the moderators and we went into immediate pow wow. Our understanding was that it would have been done in short order (last Friday). 
 

When the days flew by and they didn’t reset it, we all discussed leaving it be. I had emailed Invision and asked them NOT to reset the site back but that we needed some

questions answered and in the middle of the night they reset the site back to last Friday. 
 

So yes, I coulda shoulda. Gotta love that hindsight is 20/20. 

We have been doing alot of work at MrsS over the past few months behind the scenes....working on a new logo, a new color scheme for the site...organizing our different forums, condensing where appropriate, removing, etc etc etc.

I'll assume that y'all have noticed some of these changes...some of the changes aren't "live" yet, but will hopefully be so soon.

Last Friday, I was in the Admin control panel, cleaning things up and changing things. I had noticed that Annarchy was listed twice in the Administration area. I didn't know why, so I decided to delete ONE of the id's to clean things up, and when I did, this message board program took it upon itself to completely remove BOTH of her id's, essentially deleting all the posts and history that she had had here at MrsS.

I called A in a panic as soon as I realized what had happened. We contacted Invision where we host our message board and asked for help. Long story short, the only thing we could do, was to restore the site to a period of time right before I had made that deletion in the control panel. I asked Invision to restore the site to 12noon on last Friday, and received an email from their customer support that our request had been moved up to a Manager, and that they would contact me shortly.

We waited all weekend and halfway through this week, but never heard back from them. Yesterday morning, I wrote them an email asking what had happened with our request. I noted that at this point, almost a week later, it was becoming increasingly difficult to restore back to last Friday, and asked numerous questions, and stated that we did NOT want to restore back to last Friday without answers to some of the questions I posed.

At 2:53am this morning I received an email, apologizing for them dropping the ball, and to inform me that they went ahead and restored the site back to last Friday at noon. The good news is that it restored all of Annarchy's history and posts at MrsS, but I am very unhappy at the total disregard to my request that we discuss a few questions I had, and NOT to backdate the site before we had more answers.

All of that is said to give y'all an understanding as to WHY, many of the posts that have been active over the past week, are missing. I am so very sorry for any problems or disappointments this has caused. The initial intent was to restore Annarchy's history, which was very important to me, but the longer Invision delayed, and after repeated requests from A to just let this go, I had contacted Invision yesterday morning to re-evaluate our initial request to restore the site last Friday afternoon.

Anyway, I just wanted to give y'all a heads up, and to let you know what has happened and why. If you have any questions, please let me know, and I am sincerely and genuinely very sorry for the issues this original, unintended error has caused all of you.

Hopefully, the dust can settle now and we can get back to normal, and move forward with updating this website and reveal all of the exciting and awesome changes we have planned.

30 minutes ago, Mt_Rider said:

 

Hope everyone can read the DETOUR SIGNS .....cuz Darlene's been rearranging the rooms and furniture again!

Yep. I’m on a roll. Little by little

28 minutes ago, Mt_Rider said:

 

OWWW!...today my arm, shoulder is "frozen/HURTS" again and I'm tired of dealing with it!!!  OK...whine

 

SMACK!

Does it surprise you that I’ve been in excruciating pain for about 4 days unable to move my right arm. 
 

sheesh 

After a year, it was time to start a new thread

Let's start recording our Daily Diarys here!