Becca_Anne

Thank you good to know to use only pre-cooked hot pack with ground meat. I had planned to can in chunks and also ground so that is helpful. 

Oh ouch so sorry for your GS. My DH has had kidney stones twice and they are very miserable.

I have a water bath canner as well. So I plan to use that for all things that can be water bath canned and the pressure canner just for those items that really need it. I plan to do it over the weekends and do all the prep first so it's just processing on the days I am using it.

Grandparents welcome too  Just trying to determine audience, needs and interests so I can focus my posts better

Just purchased an electric pressure canner and excited to learn how to use it. I've only ever water bath canned so this will be an adventure. What would you recommend as good first items to learn how to pressure can? Any favorite recipes?

Permitting is different depending on where you live. In some places you only have to pull permits on work done outside or that adds on space, others you have to do it for existing spaces. Here we only have to do outside work or adding square footage thankfully. 

Miki glad you were able to help your friend

Jeepers I hope they can do the project within budget with materials that help you sell your house for the best price. 

Littlesister hope you have a nice visit with your GD.

Today I went to quilt guild we had a great time. Played Christmas in July Bingo with bingo blocks we made and brought to the meeting. And my new electric pressure canner arrived so I'm excited to learn how to use it. I've never pressure canned before so this will be a great addition to my prepping

Hi All,  it's been very quiet in here for the last few years and I'm not sure how many of our members are using this forum or what your needs are. If you are homeschooling can you share the ages of the kids and their "grade" and I will try to target content to the levels that are needed. Also if you could post topics you are interested in learning about with your kids that would be helpful too.

Thank you!

I'm homeschooling Ben who is 12 and will be starting the 6th grade this year.

Thank you Jeepers I'll check out that recipe I love that soup!

Hope you had an awesome birthday!! 

Harvested and froze 4 gallon bags of Kale today! First time I have grown it.  I am really pleased. will put it in soups and casseroles this winter.

Well when you're done it will be almost a fully renovated house! I hope you get back top dollar for all that work and that the contractor can get it done quickly for you Jeepers!

I'm trying wherever possible to use my local library and also to use free books on Kindle but sometimes I can't find a book I want to read for free. What are your favorite resources for free or cheap books?

I use   https://openlibrary.org/ Open Library, and also BookBub.

We just got back from our summer road trip and along the way went to Yellowstone. Did you know every national park has a Junior Ranger Program and the website has great activity books https://www.nps.gov/kids/junior-rangers.htm

You can get checked off and get badges and it's a fun way to interact with the rangers in the park. We didn't take advantage of it this time but did this at another park in Oregon a few years ago and Ben really enjoyed the activities and getting his Junior Ranger badge.

Mother your garden looks amazing!

Mt Rider glad you figured out what caused your back pain so you can try not to do that again. 

Miki Happy Birthday!!  Enjoy your shrimp that sounds yummy

Annarchy that sounds scorching stay in the A/C! I think squash and zucchini really need humidity to do really well but maybe try shade cloth could just be too much sun?  Mine either do really well or die and I don't think I do much differently so luck of the draw

Littlesister hope your GD and her husband can find a place they like to live soon. That's not much time and not fun to look when you're in a hotel.

Jeepers so sorry for your loss 

I had a lot of work at work today. It was a very Monday Monday....2 issues that have to be addressed by the 10th that are really important... I'll just get to it easier than whining about it. Hopeful I understand the issue on one of them it's a bit complicated.

On the home front I have caught up with all the laundry and almost done unpacking. Just one more suitcase of clean clothing to unpack. And all the random bits except one basket put away. I'm off tomorrow for the holiday so just going to relax and enjoy myself for once. Making burgers and corn on the cob and have watermelon, will watch the parade and the fireworks. Happy Independence Day everyone!

Miki hope you had a marvelous birthday you deserve to be celebrated!

MI gardener on You Tube recommending people plant 30-40% More in their garden to offset the reduction in production due to the smoke. Very sensible mainstream guy who gets it and is sounding the alarm about the food supply based on what he's hearing from all the farmers who buy his seed. I have found him a great gardening resource/expert. So I will be expanding my plans for my fall garden even more. Also bought an electric pressure canner to help me put up all the stuff I'm growing. I have a water bath canner but wanted one I can learn to can meat in too.

8 minutes ago, Ambergris said:

I picked a tomato off the plant that got its top half broken off.  I'm ridiculously proud of it.

and you should be! So glad it survived for you!.

I shredded the zucchini in the photo plus one more that I found this morning I missed and got 30 cups! Sliced and blanched half the yellow squash and got 4 gallon bags for the freezer too (only filled with what I'd use in a meal) and then have 6 more sliced in half for squash boats for tomorrow. The smaller ones we ate for dinner last night. Super tasty! I will use the squash in casseroles and stir fry later

Jeepers so glad the junk guys came through for you! I bet it feels amazing to have it all gone

Littlesister glad your garden is coming along and that's great your GS is liking more vegetables. We have some watermelon I think coming along and pumpkin for sure. I shredded 30 cups of zucchini today and 4 gallon bags of sliced and blanched summer squash. I did 2 sliced and 2 diced and had 6 fresh ones I cut in half will used for zucchini boats tomorrow for dinner. Super happy with having a harvest right after getting back. Some cherry tomatoes are ripening too so won't be long until I have yummy goodness for my salads. We got the new air conditioners in today and it's much more comfortable downstairs now.

Littlesister glad your freezer is still working! That is a big job

Miki good idea to file an incident report. Sad people do things like that!

Mt Rider hope the audiologist can help!

I made chicken and squash/zucchini for dinner tonight. First meal from the garden which was great. Will shred the rest of the zucchini and squash tomorrow since they are too big to do much else with. I got all the laundry done and put away and the suitcases unpacked except one which I will take care of tomorrow. I need to get myself adjusted back to the right time zone too.

Thankfully we got back after the smoke had cleared but even at it's worst it wasn't much compared to the usual OR fire smoke (in the 100's here not 300+) Yellow at worst and all cleared up by the time we got back. 

We actually moved to IL to get away from the fires in the west because my asthma can't handle it anymore. It was years of 4 months of smoke every year and Ben hadn't had a normal childhood because we couldn't go out to play often in the summer! I couldn't handle that anymore. Pretty much late June-Oct =Smoke in Oregon. We tried moving up to the northern area thinking that would be better but it wasn't so we made the hard choice to go to the midwest. There are several  good fire maps (see below) I used a lot when we were in danger of needing to evacuate (there were several fires close by while we lived there and we did evac out twice).  The thing I learned from that is fires are fast especially if it's windy. You have NO time, just go. Grab kids, pets and your purse and leave. So have anything you need in your car you will not have time to get out if you try to pack.

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/

https://nifc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=485292c7a3cd4b5ab3d4539162420d4b&extent=-15293678.3364%2C4586960.9504%2C-10597387.3186%2C6859280.9273%2C102100&fbclid=IwAR22gksrmCJalORM-Jnt-2lEPI7NX5JbAnvQeSCTWWBQrBPLHj0MpJE8MfY

http://www.wildcad.net/WildCADWeb.asp?fbclid=IwAR1GSjTRiW-02UrlaH0vPuwo48napeeOAMG37Bn_tA9muM5FDPD8YrBS2W4

https://firesmoke.ca/forecas?fbclid=IwAR0lqwoWqTau58OJ6ZvtuZvNciBCyVOOf978vLLBXHCMVHL9mjmnRDLxsZ0 (for Canada)

For those in WA or OR

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16U8Ckl9PxFUUZnV9PujeywMYqk0cA6ZTE6i6Igf8pCY/edit?fbclid=IwAR1JE_Oam0Mcpd8Ex6WWCyKnGg3-PcFPWMy-qYALAoVq09s72pxCpmfdWVY#heading=h.ituy8hj9mmro

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Glad everyone's electrical issues are getting sorted out! And super happy to hear Mr MtRider got a clean bill of health. Miki so sorry to hear about your mailbox some people are just mean

We are finally home  I will post more pictures once I get them uploaded off my good camera. Ruby was overjoyed to see us and the garden is doing fabulously. It is hot and humid and we need to go buy 2 more A/C units this weekend to replace the units that were moldy we noticed before we left. So just the bedroom A/C's are in. We will be doing laundry and groceries tomorrow. Chickens survived fine while we were away too and are now full sized birds. My son did such a great job taking care of everything while we were away. 

Super excited to report not only did my garden survive my 5 week absence but it's growing like gangbusters! My son watered it for me and the straw mulch did exactly what I hoped. I have monster squash, and was able to harvest 4 giant zucchini too. I know from past experience I can shred it and put it in soups or quick bread. I hope I got the cukes in time to keep them producing but I had a few of those as well. Lots of green tomatoes and some pumpkins starting to grow. Maybe a watermelon as well? Hard to tell since it was raining and I just got a quick peek and brought in what I could spot that looked ready.

Dee you might look into getting an electric canner. I'm considering one just for the convenience of not having to watch it and time things so closely. It is about the size of an instapot so doesn't take up a ton of space to store when you're not canning.