Darlene

On 11/13/2022 at 9:32 PM, Joyfilled said:

There's so much to learn!! And....a lot can be done without living in the country. Soap making, bread making, knitting, sewing....lots of things that don't require farm stuff. I want to do it ALL. Not sure it's a good idea, though....haha! But I'd at least like to give it at try! And...you've had a rough couple of years (well....to some extent we all have!)....take it easy on yourself.

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.

On 9/26/2022 at 2:48 PM, Jeepers said:

My juicer is only 11 quarts

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.

On 7/12/2022 at 11:09 AM, Dee said:

  Yeast, I freeze, and it'll work up to 2 years past the date.  Maybe longer but I tried a 3 year past date once and it didn't work.  Doesn't mean all won't work but I haven't tried again.  

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. 

34 minutes ago, euphrasyne said:

So I've never actually had rhubarb.  Everyone talking about it made me decide to order a pie from a local place.   Not a fan.  It tasted like a lemony-olive pie.   Is that what it is supposed to taste like?   If I got some fresh/frozen what could I do with it to make it taste better?

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. 

9 hours ago, Dee said:

Cool Darlene.  I picked rhubarb today and only got 5 cups.  I decided to freeze it instead of making the butter.  Of course, I can take it and more out of the freezer to make a batch.  Did you make just a dab, or did you make enough to jar up?

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!

On 5/31/2022 at 8:05 AM, SusanAnn said:

However, I have  18 cucumber plants ( grown from seed ~ go me!) ten tomato plants gifted from an elderly neighbour who I help, a blueberry bush, three rows of mange tout, and a row of lettuces, all in pots and two veg troughs.  Yes I could be more productive,  and goodness me we need better weather here in the UK as this cold Spring is not making for happy tomatoes.....mainly I am trying to think of this as my learning year, maybe I just need to learn to go with the flow more, life is changing so much right now and I feel it's going to change even more..........

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.

12 hours ago, snapshotmiki said:

I have the New England  cheese making book. I haven't made cheese in quite a while,  but I just bought  some cheddar  cultures and  rennet.

I need to refresh my stash of that too. 
 

just in case. 

On 5/26/2022 at 1:25 PM, Dee said:

That's how I feel this year about canning green beans Darlene.  I'm planting them, just in case, but I've also bought a bunch of cans in case the world doesn't come to an end.  It's so much easier.

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. 

3 hours ago, Wychwood said:

 I am going to keep a copy of my online food shopping receipt to try and track price rises.

 

Yeah it would be very interesting and a real

eye opener to see the details of individual price increases.  All I know is that when I pick up some things it’s never under $50 and is close or over $100 and that is for very little. There are some things I’ve habitually purchased and can gauge the $2-$3 increase for each piece which blows my mind. 
 

The fact that these individual items are frequently sold out say to me that people are still buying them even at those inflated prices. 
 

The pain of the cash register is certainly hitting everyone and makes me sometimes wonder what their thoughts are and game plan is for the days ahead. And I sometimes wonder if the little bubble we live in here at MrsS will expand (probably more so face to face vs the online written word). I fear though that the panic and available resources will diminish greatly by that point and am unsure what counsel will be available to be offered outside of gardening and who knows what. 

This put a huge smile on my face. I LOVE your reminiscings

On 4/14/2022 at 11:49 AM, Ambergris said:

In the US, food is still very cheap as a total percentage of the average household expenditures.  You can bet this won't last.  Remember: a day's pay for a measure of wheat (a loaf of bread) or three measures of barley.

I know this post was written 6 weeks ago but I’ve not seen where food here is still cheap for a while. If this is just the beginning of across the board inflation, I can’t imagine how painful it will be over the next year and beyond. 

3 hours ago, Ambergris said:

Another reason to make cheese.

Been there done that lol. It’s a lot of work but I’m sure if cheese would not be available, I’d reorganize my priorities and that would raise to the top.