Yeah, two items this week. First
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6-8 inches of snow during New Years Eve and Day.Now that’s my idea of a Winter Wonderland!
And inside the dome, we have Sprouts! At least Momma says she can see them. My vision is still not that great.
Articles
TIMELY?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Well, so much for posting on time. I did finish setting up the Aero Garden on Sunday.
Adding puchased pure drinking water. It turns out you can’t use well water or softened water, too much unknown minerals in them.
Plugging in the seed pods and installing dome covers.
All set. Lights (CFL) and water pump are working, and the timer is set to turn every thing off at 11PM. I also added the first organic based fertilizer tablets are in.
Watch this space. We should be harvesting in 28 days, or is that cramps and headaches?
You can never have too many tools-Take 2
Mary gave me an Aerogarden for Christmas. Step #1, assemble the parts.
I had a slight dizzy spell, so I took a siesta. Step #2 comes tomorrow.
Finally!!
Sure thing. You betcha. Uh huh.
Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could we? Just had to try that new food mill, didn’t we? So Momma decided we should do the two recipes I had printed out,meaning to make NEXT year. We now have 8 4oz jars of Cranberry-Maple Chutney and 16 jars of .Marinara sauce ‘COURSE WE ONLY HAD TO BUY THE TOMATOES,CRANBERRIES,CARROTS, CELERY, MAPLE SYRUP , ONIONS AND 1 LAST CASE OF JARS.
You can never have too many tools
so we went to Bed, Bath, and beyond with a pocket full of discount coupons that never expire and got more than we wanted. The best item was a food mill. I threw away my old one after the tinning corroded and pitted the bowl and plate. This is stainless steel and has 3 different grate sizes.
We decided we needed a new one by OXO after finding about 10 per cent of the recipes I look up need this tool to mash , crush, or strain something.. Here are some pics of what we canned this year. Only about 10 jars were from last year.You can see how many where we had to crush by hand or use the Sqeezo. Sure am glad I bought it 35 years ago when it was $42.00 !!
And the great experiment will continue with the planter barrels next year. They were a little neglected because all the dialysis access surgeries have kept me too tired to do much but sit here and read others blogs. I’ll start by commenting now.
I feel better but still run out of energy quickly. One more surgery to go that will tie off all the old fistulas and grafts tht failed. I am told the will reduce the load on my heart. Fingers crossed!!
What’s this?
Pickles? I’m a jam maker. Somehow I got pickles on my mind. So I bought more jars, sugar, and dug the celery seed, mustard seed and turmeric out of storage. Ran all over finding pickles, dill and jars. Then Phyllis brings over more tomatoes,green beans and grapes. Will it never end?
The last time I tried pickling anything all I got was limp and bad tasting. So far these are tasting pretty good. We’ll see after they age a bit.
Momma made some more tomato chutney and started prepping the grapes. Maybe then we can call this episode closed, it’s starting to become a lot of work!
TOMATO JAM
Today we finished making tomato jam. Six jars and we still had more Romas left. So tomorrows is tomato sandwiches. Momma tried to get me to go with her to buy more pectin, but we decided enough was enough
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Here’s the last batch in the canner kettle"volcano”.
Now we rest until grape time in mid September They know us so well at McDanials Farm Stand they will call us when the grapes arrive.
PLUM CRAZY
That’s what MOMMA said when she found the berries were ripe enough to pick after we bought the plums on Thursday. She got up early Friday and started in. By the time I got back from dialysis the table was covered in 20 jars of topping, 9 jars of jam, 6 jars Chinese plum sauce, and 4 jars of Tangy plum sauce.
These were purchased at Ashton’s Orchards in Ortonville,MI.(No website)
Then we staggered out early Saturday to go to Pennel’s Farm in Vassar,MI,Stopping on the way at Rosati’s Marketplace to clear their shelves of jelly jars. We managed to pick 4 pints of blackberries(me 1/10) before deciding to buy ready picked reds.
We drove to a nearby roadside park and had a leisurely lunch before heading home. Then on to home and canning. By 10:25 we had 9 jars of blackberry and 29 jars of red raspberry jam cooling on the counter.
So despite what MOMMA said, it all got done!
Peaches
OMG! didn’t know peaches could be so hard! Momma had to peel them with a potato peeler. The first bathes we did Thursday night were OK for the Peach Melba, but Friday they got small and hard. I had to leave for dialysis and leave Momma to all that work. While I was gone she did 5 batches of jam,1 of pie filling,and 2 of canned peaches.
Which totaled; 18 8oz Peach Melba, 4 pints pie filling, 11 pints canned peaches,17 8oz & 15 12oz jam, from 1 bushel of peaches, and 2 pints of red raspberries!
MORE PICKLED BEETS
17 jars in the first batch was not enough!! The food room called out for more pickled beets. We ordered another 1/2 bushel from McDaniel’s Farm Stand. They called yesterday to say the beets were pulled. Knowing the rest of the week is filled with medical appointments, we set off about 3PM to pick them up. Eight hours later, 29 more pints were ready for the storeroom.
+
Pie filling
We finished 6 batches of blueberry products the other day, when I remembered, Clear-Jel! I had bought it for making pie fillings for the mini cheesecake. Oh, no, we have to pick more berries! So off to Blueberry Lane for another 3.5 pounds of berries.45 minutes of picking & back home for lunch.
Then to work. Blanch the berries,drain & keep warm. Mix Clear-Jel and sugar. Boil water with food coloring , add Clear-Jel sugar to water, bring to boil & simmer 1 minute. Did i do that? Nooooooo,I dumped it all together and when it came to a boil it started to thicken.
So we quickly canned it before we were unable to pour it.I’ll know better next time, but it still tastes pretty good. Of course you know when I say we , that means Momma doing most of the picking and getting jars ready.
Only 4 pints! Good thing.
BLUEBERRIES ON BOARD!
Today went well, considering that we ran out of berries. So Momma went down and picked 4 more pounds.
tOTALS
9 Blueberry Chutney
8 Blueberry Sauce
8 Blueberry Jam
1 8 Bluebarb Jam
Yesterday was perfect for picking, hazy and cool, in the low 70’s. It would have been nice for canning also, but our old bone don’t take well standing in 1 place and bending over so much, So we got home & napped a little, then went out shopping for chutney & sauce ingredients. Then Momma treated me to walleye at McPherson’s in Millington.
So we canned today in 82 degree heat & high humidity.
Next up, raspberries and peaches. We can make Momma’s favorite"PEACH MELBA”
A Post about posts
It was going to be a wonderful weekend, then Momma came in with the mailbox & post in the back of the truck. So, off o the lumberyard With new post aboard we set out to replace the broken one.
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There then ensued a comedy of errors you would not believe two adults could commit. I cut the new post 8 inches too short. Then filled the hole 6 inches too full with gravel that Momma scraped from the driveway. So then we got out the Genie shop-vac and 150 feet of cord to remove excess gravel because I couldn’t reach to the bottom without knocking more dirt into the hole. Finally, on the fourth try, it measured 43 inches to the bottom of the box. A call to the post office had found we needed 41-45 inches. Eureka!!
After a good nights sleep, we pitted the cherries. Having two pitters and the hands to run them meant the job was done in less than an hour. I even watched my car shows on TV at the same time.
So far we have canned 16 jars of cherry jam. Next up two batches of Danish Cherry Sauce for topping future mini cheesecakes.
Here you have—an additional 11 pints of Danish Cherry Sauce to add to our jam.
Another Michigan Fruit canned this weekend!
Tart Cherries here already!
16.18 lbs picked this morning at Spicer’s Orchard . The weather was perfect, clear with a light breeze. About 75 degrees.
The trees we chose had cherries so low I could sit on the ground and pick while Momma stood and picked them in bunches. All the time she was saying “I can taste that Danish Cherry Sauce already!“
Not too shabby for two oldsters with no help from kids, grandkids. or anyone else under the age of 66.
