Darlene

Happy belated birthday ((((mother))))

Thanks MM for your ideas. It helps to know that our concerns are not limited to just the Mods and Admin.

P.S. If you start to see forums disappearing, just sign into your account or join MrsSurvial (We'd love to have you!!!!) All of it will show again for you.

We're still in the planning and organizing stages, and at some point I will send out a site wide email, but I wanted to give the membership a heads up, and any lurkers that have not joined MrsSurvival yet... In an effort to (in a weird way it feels) keep up with the times, we're going to be adding some security levels to our site. What this will mean is that we will be taking a large portion of the site (or at least I'm seriously considering taking a large portion of the site) and requiring that the person sign into their MrsS's account in order to gain entrance to these portion of our website. Right now, regardless of whether you are a member or not, and regardless of whether you are signed into your MrsSurvival account, everyone and anyone can view the entire site. I'm not comfortable with that anymore, so Annarchy and I, as well as the Moderators, are in discussions as to how much of the site will be taken down to a more secure level that will require either joining MrsS, or will require you to sign into your account in order to view all of the forums. I'm giving everyone a heads up as we work on this and we will keep you posted as to the progress. I've been thinking about this for a while and think it's time to make this change. It won't be difficult, it won't be a massive change, and it won't require anything more than either joining MrsSurvival if you're not a member, or, signing into your existing account. If you have any questions or if what I've written above has confused you, please please feel free to ask any questions. My hope is that y'all will understand the reasons why and will feel even more comfortable, because that is very important to all of us. Thanks!

Hahahahahaha This brings back a lot of memories lol. I moved to the farm AND did it all!!! Livestock, milking, body care products, breads, on and on I could go. So, my best advice to you would be… Go for it. Do it all and then some

I’ve been stuck in the balmy breezes in Miami for 6 weeks helping my parents and have sorely missed firing up my wood stove. I don’t have the cooking stove, but I have the one to heat the house. I do have other equipment for cooking like my big green egg and wood fire pizza oven that will make and bake just about anything from wood heat so like you, I love the aroma and taste of wood cooked foods and can’t wait to get home and fire up my stove to heat the house and the other equipment to cook some foods. This constant warm weather is really making me miss the farm.

Update: I've begun breaking into my stash of frozen American cheese and have discovered that it freezes amazing. Someone had shared that they found that the cheese would stick to the wrapper, and I think it depends on the brand that is used. I know that Velveeta does that, but the Kraft singles I bought froze and defrosted amazing. There was no change at all in the melting consistency after thaw either. Something to make a mental note of

Where we lived, the structures were built to withstand hurricanes. We went through a Cat 5 hurricane in the early 90's. I wouldn't have been too concerned about the storm surge either for various reasons. But, I am grateful that my family there did not have to endure it because the work involved afterwards is endless.

11 quarts is more than adequate :). That translates into almost 3 gallons.

Understood. But I don’t think I understand how the steam gets the juices to extract. Might be a question I’ll have to research.

I wonder if you put a roof on the side by side if that would help protect also from sun and weather.

That's fascinating. I was not even aware there were steam juicers. Out of all the equipment I have, I've never even heard of that till now. It seems that it is an aid to making jelly or juices like you shared. I made some crab apple jelly recently and I'm curious how that would translate into a greater ease of use and time saver...and how steam extracts the juices inside...and I'd be curious what the left over produce is like after the extraction has occurred. I've only had traditional juicers so it's curious how the steam vs traditional has more potential.

Uh oh. I finished the last batch of ketchup yesterday and processed it. Wouldn’t you know that it was the best batch I have made yet. Am thinking about getting 50lbs more of tomatoes now. Seriously, 25lbs of tomatoes only made 14-16 half pints of ketchup. The good news is that it is so flavorful that you don’t need much. Sheesh. Fall is almost here. Fall is almost here. Fall is almost here.

Right now I’m asking myself “why”? Why am I doing all this canning? 65 pints of salsa. 20 pints and 10 quarts of summer sauce. 20 pints and 6 quarts of green beans. 14 pints peaches. 15 half pints and 4 pints ketchup. Crab apple jelly that I need to prepare and process tomorrow. Right now I’m waiting for the canner to get up to pressure to process the last of the summer sauce and I’m exhausted. So I sit here and ask myself “why”. I COULD just can 16 pints of salsa but nooooooooo. I COULD just process a dozen jars of summer sauce, half dozen jars of crab apple jelly and peaches and green beans. Oh and corn. Balanced that and vacuum sealed that in the freezer. The above isn’t counting what I did in July or in June or May. I have no idea where I’m going to put all this stuff but I quit. Well, I’ll quit after I finished the next batch of ketchup and crab apple jelly. I hope.

As everyone knows, it’s canning season. I just jared up a bunch of half pints and a few pints of ketchup I made from a 25lb box of tomatoes. I was able to can a 25lb box of pole beans and still have about 30lbs more to process. I think I’m going to take a large part of that and blanch, vacuum seal and freeze just to make things go faster. I’m VERY impressed with the ketchup though. I looked at about 4-5 recipes and then did my own thing and it’s absolutely amazing. I’ll probably do another 25lb box of that because I’m sure the ketchup won’t last long once the kids try it. in a couple of weeks I’ll get about 300lbs of tomatoes and make salsa and a summer sauce with that which will last me till next year. Oh and I have a 50lb box of corn on the cob I need to blanch, vacuum seal and freeze too. I am also contemplating getting 50lbs of peaches because, well, they’d come in handy in the days ahead I’m thinking. I haven’t canned like this in years and I’m intentionally not thinking about it too much. Just trying to keep my eye on the prize of “I have a healthy stash of blahblahblah” because otherwise I’d probably think I’m crazy. That is not open for discussion though.

That’s really interesting Dee. I’ve frozen 1lb pigs of yeast for over 10 years and mine was still good. Makes me wonder what the difference is/was.

That reminds me of when I first got sheep and one of the pregnant ewes became septic. Had to call the vet who came and asked me to assist. He explained he was going to have to do a c section and would hand me the babies who would live less than 60 seconds. We sat on the barn floor while he operated and what he had cautioned me was true. Raising anything live has its ups and downs and you are so right Dee. The stories we could tell that would shock most people, but we did it because… Well, it’s just what you have to do if you want to live this type of life.

I’ve been on a rhubarb binge the past few weeks. I’ve made rhubarb butter, strawberry rhubarb, blueberry rhubarb and blackberry rhubarb jams. That can be used on toast, sandwiches, biscuits etc. Anything you’d use a jam for.

I made a 1kg batch (2.2lbs) which made 4 pints as a test. To that I added 1c brown sugar, zest and juice from 1 lemon and 1T vanilla bean paste. I put it through blender just to mix it and cooked it down to butter thickness. It really IS delicious lol

Dee, I made the rhubarb butter today with the ingredients i mentioned above. It’s awesome and full of flavor and tart but not too tart with the added brown sugar. I think my dad will go crazy over it.

Dee, I’ve never heard of rhubarb butter but now I want to try it. I’m going up to the Amish market this morning to pick up some rhubarb so I think I’ll try a batch and see. From the recipes I looked at, it’s just rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice. I think I’ll substitute with brown sugar and add some vanilla bean paste and will see how it comes out. I’ll let you know!

Love the canning pics Dee! I'm a huge canner and have many different side canners all the way up to one (I actually have 2 of this size but only use one) that will can 19 quarts and 32 pints. It really makes it nice to be 'one and done'. And yes, it does take hours and days to preserve the foods through canning. I made some strawberry rhubarb jam a few weeks ago. I had alot of fruit, but it made very little and I only ended up with about 8 half pints. The flavor is so through the roof that I really want to make a bunch more. I'm not looking forward to the summer canning because I never do anything on a small scale, but it's one of those things that you'll be glad you did down the road. I'm looking to process 300lbs of tomatoes in various ways - sauces, salsa, ketchup, plus alot of other things. I wish produce harvest would space itself further apart lol. It seems to all come in around the same time. And then this fall, I'll go on an apple binge when it's apple season and can up a variety of things with those. Last year I made some apple butter that was to die for. I use brown sugar instead of white, added vanilla bean paste, some grated lemon rind and fresh lemon juice to the batch. I was unbelievably good!

You go girl! I still have many plants that need to get into the ground, but I did get the existing potato plants hilled yesterday and will plant the rest of the potatoes and plants by this weekend. I've already made a batch up of my manure tea and have that in a sprayer for instant nutrition. I got hit over the weekend with the Omicron variant so I have been down for several days but I've been taking the prophylactics and am slowly feeling a little better and am hopeful I can get it all finally done. I've gone from having a variety of things I wanted to plant, down to just tomatoes, potatoes, beans, cucumbers, herbs and a couple of other things. I'm also going to get back into the bees after a several year hiatus, just to have those in place. I can take 1 hive eventually into many if I want but will probably just sell the offspring because I'm not interested in the 50+ hives I used to do. Hang in there though SusanAnn. Sometimes we're hardest on ourselves and a little bit done well is far better than a lot done not so well.

I need to refresh my stash of that too. just in case.

I can’t believe you said that lol because that has been laying heavy in my heart too… I need I need I need to plant more beans and potatoes. I caught the omicron variant, probably from the stupid dentists office, and have been worthless for a week. Very frustrating but thank the Lord we are MrsS and I have all I need to fight it. I’m feeling a little better every day and am hopeful I can finalize the garden this weekend. Beans and potatoes. I don’t know why the Lord has laid those 2 things so heavy on my heart but I even went out to the garden on Saturday to plant a few more beans. Not a lot but at least some.