Ten Pounds of Pressure

The food co-op had boneless chicken breasts on sale this week, so it was time to get out the Creature and have another go at pressure canning.  This time I did it a little differently and did not cook the chicken, but raw packed it instead.  It took longer than expected to get it cut up and in the jars; I'm convinced it's time to spend a bit of money on a decent cutting board.  This whole cutting stuff up on a paper plate thing is getting old fast.  I filled each jar with bite-sized chunks of raw chicken, leaving 1" of head space, and got them in the canner.  I always add a splash of vinegar to keep the minerals in my well from leaving a white film on my jars, so got that in with the required amount of water, and turned up the gas.  It's not quite so scary now when the Creature hisses and spits and whistles as it comes up to temperature, thought it's still enough to drive the dawg into hiding.  I was feeling pretty good as it merrily rattled along, thinking this isn't so hard, after all, and the seventy-five minutes went by fairly quickly as I did some chores around the house.  After the timer went off, I let the canner cool for about 30 minutes, then took the lid off and waited another five minutes before pulling the jars out.  It was a bit of a shock to pull up on one of the jars, only to have the bottom of the jar and all the chicken stay in the pot.  Uff da!  New discovery for today:  if I have a bit of an issue getting the empty jars off the high closet shelf, and one of them bounces off my head, hits the stool I'm standing on, and rolls down the hallway, don't use it for canning anymore!  (And no, I'm not entertaining any speculation as to which impact actually damaged the jar!)  The jar stayed in place while the canner was heating; the bottom of the jar simply separated from the rest in one piece when I tried to lift it out.  Thankfully there's no glass shards, the chicken was salvageable and is now in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.  Of course the bottle of lemon juice fell on my foot when I opened the fridge, and all this after a jar of jelly jumped off the pantry shelf and hit my ankle bone while I was trying to get the Creature down from it's nest.  Wasn't the full moon last night?

Call it bravery or foolishness, but despite all the mishaps I loaded the canner with the second batch of jars and put it on the stove again.  It's chortling away as I type; what the outcome will be this time I hardly care to guess, but I'm really hoping for an uneventful end to the evening and eleven pints of canned chicken ready for the pantry.

Until next time, may the Good Lord bless you and keep you.

Ooops.

Balancing Act

It's a life-long process, I think, to learn to slow down and count your blessings, and yet not lose sight of your responsibilities.  Sometimes I'll successfully walk that tightrope for months or weeks at a time; sometimes it seems like I'm riding an op-yop.  Yes, I played with one as a kid!  For those who don't remember, here's a page:  http://www.op-yop.com/.  I was always fascinated by the oscillating pattern of the strings between the discs, and the long-buried memory suddenly surfaced when I was thinking of ways to describe the craziness.  Now I'm wondering what it means when a childhood toy is described as "vintage", "antique" or "extinct"?  Ok, I probably don't want an answer to that!

There's been some more experiments in the kitchen this week, a little work towards making the house a bit more energy efficient; and a reminder put on the calender to check the propane tank!

The best out of the kitchen this week was strawberry-beer bread.  Most people make a funny face at the thought, but it is actually reallyreally good!  The recipe called for cherry stout and dried cherries.  Having neither, I substituted a bottle of Winter Ale found hiding in the back of the fridge, (no idea how long it's been there, the back of the fridge is a dark and scary place!) and dried strawberries from my pantry stash.  It smelled amazing while baking, and made the best roast beef sandwich I've ever had.  Here's the recipe out of the "Biggest Book of Bread Machine Recipes"  with my adaptations:

                                                                Fruit and Beer Bread

(My machine does 1 1/2 lb loaves, and I used the basic white bread cycle instead of the whole grains cycle)

1 cup cherry stout  (I used 1 1/2 cups Winter Ale)
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp butter
2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp dried savory
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp yeast
1/2 cup dried tart cherries (I used 2/3 cup dried strawberries)

I added the ingredients in the order called for in the bread machine manual and plugged it in.  I'm not sure how to adapt the recipe for a hand-kneaded bread.  I always watch as the machine kneads the dough, and add liquid or flour as needed to get a good dough ball that holds together but doesn't stick to the sides of the pan.  For some reason this recipe needed a lot of extra liquid. 

I used some of this bread for breakfast this morning, topped with a fried egg and a slice of cheese.  Wow!
Another experiment was home-made Wheat Thins.  They're my favorite crackers, but terribly expensive, and containing hydrogenated oils.  I poked around online and found some recipes, and here's what I started
with from the e-how site: 

Rolling out the dough

                    Home-made Wheat Thins
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350F.

Stir together whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl.  Pour the oil and water into mixture; mix until just blended. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough dough no thicker than 1/8 inch.  Place dough on an ungreased baking sheet. Mark squares of with a knife or pizza cutter. Don't cut all the way through. Prick each cracker with a fork a few times; brush with oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in preheated oven, or until crisp and light brown. Allow to cool just enough to handle then remove from baking sheet and separate into individual crackers.

I used the whole wheat flour to dust when rolling out, it gives a nice nutty flavor but I used a little too much.  Next time I'll use less and roll out in wax paper.  I wasn't able to get the dough down to 1/8 inch (so I have Wheat Fats) but the flavor and texture is very good.  I would also score the dough pretty much all the way through, it was difficult to break them apart cleanly.

I also put together the cheddar biscuit mix purchased when a friend had a "Tastefully Simple" party.  Not worth it.  I'm going to experiment with another set of online recipes for this one.

The weather continues unseasonably warm.  Everything is brown and muddy and dreary.  It's like living through mid-March over and over and over again.  My senses are confused.  The angle of the sun, the position of Orion, and the colors at sunset tell me it's Winter; yet the smell of the wet earth, the browns of the fields, and the feel of the air tell me it's Spring.  It's really disconcerting.  I long for the fresh cleanliness of snow, crisp, clear air, and a landscape lit in silvers and blues.  Though I've read there's a brutal winter hitting parts of Europe; I wouldn't wish that on us here, and I pray that the extreme cold they're dealing with is over soon.

In the meantime I've been reading about window quilts and gathering fabric to make some for my living room windows, and taking advantage of the weather to load up some more scrap metal.  Thankfully the truck continues to start!  I haven't allowed myself to start the next jigsaw puzzle yet; it will be my reward for cleaning up and stacking the firewood, but I did get the recently completed one ready to frame.  I've found the best way for preserving my puzzles is not to use the puzzle glue and cover them from the front.  Instead I very carefully use a large sheet of cardboard to flip the completed puzzle upside down, and then apply ordinary contact paper to the back.  This keeps all the pieces in place for framing, without the warping effects of the glue.

Until next time, may God bless each of you with warmth and peace.

Lessons

I didn't actually begin this blog as a way to allow others to learn from my mistakes, though it often seems to be how it works out.  Now I'm getting another lesson in working through tough times.

Yeah, it's cold.

Being laid off has been an exercise in learning mental toughness and focus.  I waver from thankfulness that I'm not going into that hostile, stressful workplace, to despair at finding a good job where I can simply give honest work for an honest wage without all the drama.  I've found myself wanting to just putz around the house, baking, sleeping, and spending many hours on my addiction of putting together jigsaw puzzles, instead of tackling the hard projects such as working out a budget and repairing broken things.   It's as though I simply wanted to be a child and play instead of taking care of business.  Well now I'm reaping the consequences of irresponsibly wanting to hide under a blanket for a while.  Yesterday the propane tank ran dry.

Yes, we're living in a house without a furnace, stove, or hot water right now, just because I neglected to keep tabs on the tank and call for a refill when needed.  We have a couple of little electric heaters going, and a fire in the fireplace, so it's tolerable for the short term.  But the lack of central heat with no real back up is depressing, and makes me wonder how we would handle it over the long term.  What if the supply of propane was disrupted, and no one could get a tank refill?  What could we use to keep our houses warm and our water hot?

So what's the lesson?  Well, there's no time off from being a grown-up.  There's still details to attend to even if I'd rather do a puzzle.  It's also clear that a disruption in "normalcy" requires mental preparation as well as physical.  Secondly, I need to look harder at changing my options.  Hard to do without a job, but I need to explore alternate heating methods, or at least ways of keeping more of the heat in the house.  As any of us work to make our homesteads more self-sufficient moving away from dependence on fossil fuels is going to be key.

It hasn't all been bleak; had to go out and run some errands the other day, and meet a friend in the town of Vassar.  I had along a package that had to get mailed that day, or I would have to start over with the work involved.  I arrived at the Vassar Post Office just as the clerk turned out the lights.  But she heard my cry of despair as I tugged on the locked door, and mercifully opened it and mailed my package for me.  Wow!  Kudos to a government worker that wasn't worried about the time clock and helped out a stranger.

A Little Slow Down

They say there's two sides to every coin, and I believe that's true.  Both of my vehicles are paid off, and it is a blessing to not have a vehicle payment every month, especially now that I'm unemployed.  The flip side of the coin is that they are both quite elderly; creaky in the joints and high in the miles.  The little puddle jumper had bad tie rod ends and a rear brake siezed up; the ol' truck has been having electrical issues.  I have to say both vehicles have given good value, traveling far with just routine maintenance and few repairs.  Nonetheless, I began the week a bit distraught that neither vehicle was useful, and very concerned about repair bills.

I should learn to have more faith.  God knows what I need, and His way is always best, even when it doesn't coincide with what I think I need.  Somehow just when things seem bleak, something breaks through.  It can be as simple as a phone call from a friend, or as huge as a family member helping with the repair bills.  (Thank you!!)  Sometimes I think He might be sending me a reminder to slow down a bit and pay attention instead of rushing about so much.  Yesterday morning the truck was completely kaputzka and I feared major electrical problems, which to me are like algebra:  I know there must be a sort of logic to it, but the mixture of numbers and letters is a puzzle that makes my brain hurt.  I stewed about it yesterday while the freezing rain and high winds kept me from working outside but today I decided to start simple, and hooked up the battery charger.  I plugged it in and turned back to the truck just in time to see the headlights came on.  Oh boy.  So there I stood, snowflakes whirling and dancing about, gently drifting down on my head like laughter from heaven, feeling both foolish and relieved.  After turning the lights off, and letting the battery charge up for an hour or so, the truck started up just like my old faithful friend of the past 300,000 miles.  This one was my fault.

I decided it was a lesson learned and came inside for leisurely lunch and some quality time with my jigsaw puzzle before getting on with the chores.  There's nothing quite like the peace of a quiet house, just the clock ticking and the dog snoring, snowflakes floating past the window and the little 'snap' of a puzzle piece fitting into place.  The dishes to wash and letters to write will still be there...a pause to rest and be thankful is never wasted time.

Take care my friends, and remember to slow down and look for God's blessings.

Warning: Rant Ahead

I was doing some fussing about the house today and spent quite a while in the living room, attempting to get all of the Christmas tree needles out of the carpet.  So I put on a dvd, randomly choosing an old favorite, The Ten Commandments.  This version has the entirety of the original movie, including an introduction by the producer, Cecil B. DeMille.  As he introduces the story of Moses, he states that it is the story of the birth of freedom, and that one must ask "...whether men are to be ruled by God's law or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator?  Are men the property of the state or are they free souls under God?"  

Yesterday in church part of the readings were: "Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie."

Well it struck me how these thoughts came together just after I'd started a fire with the stack of political advertisements that came in the mail.  It's only January, with a long eleven months until the actual election, but I can't turn on the tv or pick up the mail without being inundated with political ads.  You'd have to be living under a rock if you aren't aware that this is the year we, as a nation, choose a new president. 

Yes, I said new.  In my opinion, the current pretender in the White House is an incompetent with no right to be there, and it is my fervent hope that enough Americans have to come to that realization to put him out of a job.  Too many people have a naively child-like view of the government as a parent.  They choose to see it as a benevolent caretaker that won't let anything bad happen to us and will provide us all we need and they blindly vote for whoever promises to keep the handouts coming, which played directly into his hands.  I remember being astonished and sickened by a televised interview with a woman back in 2008.  She was in tears, she was so happy, and said she was thrilled to have Obama elected, since now she wouldn't have to worry about making her house payment or paying for groceries anymore, since he was going to take care of her.  And she was serious! 

Now I might be getting old and cranky, but I think that sort of attitude is foolish. Leaving aside, for now, the question of who is going to pay her bills if she doesn't, choosing to have the government take care of you is placing yourself at the whims of a dictator and declaring yourself the property of the state.  Blind adherence to any man, let alone one who makes empty promises is to be willingly being led astray by the lie.  If we allow our nation to continue down this path, it will collapse in on itself, like each of the great civilizations in history.  We're obviously already to the "bread and circuses" stage of the late Roman Empire; drowning in debt and suffering the ills of immorality and irresponsibility.  Making the necessary changes is going to be painful, costly, and difficult.   Especially since so many in government are there for the power and money, and they won't easily give that up.  But if we don't make the changes now, the outlook for our children is bleak. 

Here are my ideas for real "hope and change":

1.  This is America, the only nation founded on individual freedoms. Be proud, happy and thankful for it. 
2.  The federal government is limited to the functions described by the Constitution. 
3.  Strict term limits for all politicians at all levels, and they must be subject to the same rules as the rest of our citizens.  No special health benefits, no special taxation rates, no life-long pensions, etc. 
4.  Stop spending money we don't have, and no, don't just print more.
5. No lobbyists.
6. If you're new here, great - now speak English and pledge allegiance to America, or go back home.
7. Develop our own resources for energy and manufacturing.
8. Able-bodied people who choose not to work shall pick up road kill and sort recycled materials to earn food and lodging.

So that's my rant for today.  I'm not going to apologize for offending anyone.  I say what I think, and while I try to phrase things in a polite manner, I have no patience for wishy-washy political correctness.  I do hope that the self-reliant movement that I see as I read and study and talk to people will continue to grow, and that at some point the pendulum will swing back and America will grow and thrive and continue to be the best place to live.

"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray , and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."                     2 Chron. 7:14

Winter is Back

A dismal, cold rain finally gave way to snow this afternoon.  I'd rather have the snow; that rain is just miserable the way the bone-chilling damp penetrates anything but a stout Carhartt jacket.  The weather guys are jumping up and down with warnings and advisories, but I think that's more for ratings than an actual huge weather event.  We are the Great Lake State, and it is January, nobody should be surprised by lake effect snow!  I have the truck hitched up to the trailer and plan a trip to the scrapyard tomorrow but I'll have to see what it's like in the morning.  No point in setting myself up for trouble with a creaky old truck in poor road conditions.  Funny how I figured that out for myself before I heard from the weather guys.

Made a stop at one of my favorite places today - the bulk food store.  Butter at 2.39/lb, cheese at 3.00/lb, cane sugar at 31.50/50 lbs...it's a great stock up sort of place.  It's amazing how much sugar I go through with baking and canning, so I like to keep 100 lbs. or so in the pantry.  It's easy to store in food grade buckets with tight fitting lids and it doesn't go bad.  I write the contents and date stored on the label, and keep the buckets rotated to use the oldest first.

The rain kept me inside today, and what could I do but fire up the mixer?  I've been playing around with an oatmeal muffin recipe that sort of morphed into a cookie recipe.  These aren't typical after dinner sweets, they're more of a take along for nourishment sort of thing.  Great for that mid-morning pick me up to get through to lunch, energy on a kayak trip, or to stay out in the deer blind without going hungry.  They even make a satisfying breakfast with a cold glass of milk.

Almost Everything Cookies

Cream together:
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp honey
1 1/2 cups applesauce
1 cup peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla


Stir in:
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup flaxseed meal
2 cups flour
2 cups quick oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sunflower kernels


Mix thoroughly and add 1 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup chopped dried fruit.  Drop by well rounded tablespoons full on cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.  Yields approximately 4 dozen.

Feel free to add/subtract as you wish; this recipe seems to be pretty adaptable.  I've used store-bought dried cranberries, home dried apples, peaches, and blueberries with equal success.  I use the cranberries right out of the package, but partially re-hydrate the home dried fruits before using.  I've used regular chocolate chips, mini chips, and leftover Christmas M&Ms too.  Enjoy!

Grab a handful on your way by!

January chores without a jacket....

I've come to the realization that I'm old.  Yes, it's happened,  I've crossed that invisible line where everything changes.  It's the only explanation of why I, as  life-long winter aficionado, lover of snow and cold, nick-named "Nanook of the North" by my family, must confess that I have been enjoying the freakishly warm weather and have been happy to not have snow on the ground.  It's given me a chance to catch up on the outside chores, all the picking up, putting away, clearing out and so on.

Today's effort was the most rewarding so far, not only did I accomplish some clearing up, but I got paid to do it!  My secret?  Scrap metal!  As the family does projects or finishes odd jobs, we toss all the old metal parts into a pile.  Being busy with work, I had pretty much ignored the pile as it slowly accumulated.  Now with the unemployment coinciding with the warm weather I had the perfect opportunity to start cleaning it up and hauling it up to the scrapyard.  It didn't take long to load up, and it was a beautiful day to saunter along the back roads, checking out the scenery as I rattled along.  I hadn't been up there in a year or two and was really surprised when the woman at the scales remembered my name.  The place was very busy and it was interesting maneuvering my truck and trailer through the traffic and around the massive piles of metal. But no hits or errors, thanks to the...ah, let's call it emphatic and intense training I had backing up gravity boxes when my Dad plopped me on the tractor seat at an early age. Many times the man with the giant sky magnet will delicately drop it over the trailer and unload everything, but today I had to unload it by hand.  I was really happy with the payout on this load, and now I'm thinking that with three or four more loads, I might earn enough to replace the old tires on my truck.

Yep, I backed it in there.

The weatherman, or "weather guesser" as a friend puts it, says we'll be getting back to normal in the next few days, so we put a second load on the trailer to get as much picked up as we could before it gets covered in snow.  Hopefully I'll have time to get it hauled tomorrow or Friday.

Until next time, God bless and take care, my friends.  (And pick up any stray pieces of metal you might find!)

Tillers and Tribulations

It's been an enjoyable holiday season; a little rest and relaxation and a fun shopping trip to the city to hit the best places like JoAnns and Menards.  It was great to spend time laughing with family while exploring parts of town we'd never seen before.  But today was a get something done sort of day.

I bought a used tiller this summer, a really nice one with rear tines and an electric start.     (I am convinced that whoever invented pull starts hates women!)  Got it for a good price because it had just sat in a shed for a decade or more.  Little did I know I was starting another learning adventure.  All I had to do was clean it up, replace the battery and fuel filter, and I'm good to go...not.  While installing the battery I realized that mice had colonized the interior workings of the machine, and in the process they had eaten through the wires.  Another trip to the store, a new magneto, spark plug, spark plug wire, and battery cable; and a long session with the air compressor blowing out all the mouse debris and I figure I'm good to go...not.  It went like that all summer with constant tinkering and only limited success until I surrendered and took the thing up to a repair shop in mid-November.  Got it back just a week or so ago, and today being a gift day, I got it out and fired it up.

Wow, was that an experience!  My previous tiller was a little old front tine almost as old as I am.  It was cranky and difficult to work with, and especially hard to get started. This tiller is smooth and efficient, and I was feeling rather smug as I struck the classic tv ad pose, walking next to the tiller and controlling it with only one hand as left a beautiful swatch of loose, airy soil behind.  Until it hit a harder patch of ground and literally Took Off.  Suddenly we're racing along, completely out of control and spinning sideways and I'm clutching at the controls with both hands, my boots making deep furrows as they drag along behind.  I finally realize that I should let go and when I do the lever drops and the tines quit spinning but the speed and torque of the thing spins it to port and stands it on it's nose, leaving me to frantically jump, twist, and grab the handle to keep it from doing a somersault.  When we both settled back to the ground, thankfully upright, I stood panting and glaring at the darn thing.  Then I proceeded to tell it just exactly what I thought about such shenanigans, and how I was going to go back to the old tiller.  It simply sat there looking innocent and unconcerned.

Once I got my breath and composure back, I fiddled with the controls a little and discovered that we got along much better if I throttled it down some and lifted the handle to pull up the tines a little when we got to harder ground.  The sun was shining, the temperature was in the fifties and I almost felt like it was early April as I kept going and got the whole garden plot tilled.  In a perfect world, I would have done this tilling in October, and seeded a cover crop of clover to stabilize the top soil against the winter winds, but perfection is usually unobtainable, especially at my homestead.

It was such a good feeling to get some yard work done today!  I love it when we can make some progress.  Not only is the garden finally cleaned up and tilled, we also got some firewood hauled and stacked and a fence put up around the apple tree to keep those voracious rabbits away from it this winter.  I even found time to test run the snow blower and the generator and make sure they had fresh gas and stabil.  It might feel like March or April right now, but I'm sure the reality of a Michigan winter will check back in soon.  Hopefully soon, so we can go skiing!

Take care, my friends.

Sleep well, my little garden

More Fun with the Mixer

Dried Apples

Melissa had a question about what recipes I had for using my dried apples.  Well here's the hands-down favorite.  This apple bread makes a good dessert, snack, or breakfast - at least I think it would, but it never lasts until the next day!  You can use fresh or dried apples, but in keeping with my goal of not buying produce at the grocery store, I use my dried apples when local, fresh off the tree apples are not available.  To use dried apples, I fill my large measuring cup with the amount the recipe calls for, add water until it comes up just under the top layer of apple chips, and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  (If you cover the apples with too much water, they'll be a little too soggy to chop.)  The next day I let them drain in a colander while I'm getting out the rest of the ingredients, and then use my handy-dandy Pampered Chef chopper-thingy to finely dice them.  The measurements do translate across:  2 cups dried apples slice will equal 2 cups rehydrated diced apples.

Smells awfully good, too!

Mom's Vanishing Apple Bread

Bread:                                                  Toppping: 
1/4 cup butter                                  crumble together 
1 cup sugar                                     2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs                                             2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla                            2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt                             1 teaspoon cinnamon.
2 tablespoons sour milk
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups finely chopped apples


Cream together butter, sugar and eggs.  Add vanilla, salt, sour milk, flour, and baking soda.  Mix thoroughly. Stir in apples and place batter in bread pan.  Sprinkle topping on top of bread batter.
Bake in 325 oven for 15 minutes, then reduce oven to 300 degrees and bake about 40 minutes.

As I type this, the house is quiet but for the gentle snores coming from the dog bed in the corner, (how does she curl up so tightly?) and the apple-cinnamon smell from the kitchen is wonderful.  We're having a warm stretch of weather, so the dawg and I set out for a walk down the muddy road once the bread was out of the oven.  The skies are gray and dismal, the fields are sienna and burnt umber, even the wheat has surrendered and lapsed into a sere yellow.  But the air is fresh and cool, and who can be melancholy with such a happy big ol' dawg for company?  We stopped to check out the creek, and walked up to where the old barns used to be; still so sad that they're gone, but that's a topic for another day.  What with all the running up and down the ditch bank, and stopping to sniff every hoof and paw print in the road, I think the dawg travels twice as far as I do on the same route, and she wore herself out.  Did a few yard chores when we got back; wanted to move the trailer only to discover that the truck won't run.  Uff da!  Hopefully it's nothing major and the family handyman (otherwise known as my brother) will convince it to behave when he stops by.  Maybe it's just because it sat for a couple of weeks?

I suppose that's the downside of being able to Stay Home.  Aside from that, it's been very gratifying to realize some of my stepping-stone goals.  I have reached a level of preparation where I have fruits, veggies, meat, and bread all to hand or easily put together just from my pantry, without needing to go to the store.  Even my recent bout with cold germs was easily handled.  I had home-made chicken soup (my Christmas present from a family member who brews it up on a woodstove), home-made applesauce, and a special treat, the peach juice I canned up last summer.  This wouldn't have been possible just two years ago.  Little steps do add up!

Checking out the creek

Not much going on

Christmas Blessings

Wow!

Christmas time is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love the music, the lights, the get-togethers with family and friends, the extra special church services, the cookies and Uncle Johnny's ham, I love all of it.  Usually my family doesn't do a whole lot of 'big' gifts; we tend to practical things, or make a gift of a 'day', where we all get together to help with a big project.  But this year my family surprised me with the gift of a stand mixer!  I had been wanting to get one for the longest time, but the finances just weren't there, so I looked and dreamed and planned, hoping to get one some day in the future when I found a new job.

I have to say that I was rather overwhelmed when I opened the package; there are some embarrassing pictures of me with my mouth open and my eyes all teary, don't look for them to be posted here!  It was an unexpected bonus on a day already wonderful with family about and little nephews to cuddle.  By noon the next day the mixer had pride of place on my counter, and a fresh batch of cookies were cooling on the table.  (Not like we needed anymore cookies, but I couldn't help myself.)  I'm just so amazed at my wonderful family! 

Sometimes it seems the smallest annoyances can be the most, well, annoying.  The more I have been working in the kitchen, with all the slicing, chopping, stirring, and so on, the more my hand and wrist have been bothering me.  Nothing earth-shattering, just an achey numbness and weakness that makes simple jobs Not Fun.  The new mixer has already made such a difference for me!  Now beating the butter and eggs until creamy is effortless, and mixing a heavy cookie dough has gone from fifteen minutes to two, with no aches!  I'm looking forward to getting the vegetable processing attachment and just flying through the salsa making next summer.  Fun!

Here's one of the recipes that are so fun to do with the mixer:

Never Fail Banana Cake

Pre-heat oven to 350.  Either two layer pans or one square pan may be used; pans must be well-greased.
Cream together 1/2 cup butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and two eggs.
Add 1 cup mashed banana and 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.  Sift together 2 cups pastry flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda and 1/4 tsp salt, and add to the butter mixture alternately with 1/2 milk.
Bake for about 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  I have found that using rotten bananas yields a moist and flavorful cake.  This cake is the traditional birthday cake in my family and I do it as a layer cake, with frosting and fresh banana slices between the layers, and strawberries stuck in to the frosting on top.  For non-birthday occasions, I make it as a simple square cake with cream cheese frosting.

Well, this post is a little late due to a close encounter with some cold germs (I swear Daughter actually likes it when I lose my voice!) but let me take a moment here to wish everyone a Happy New Year.  May the good Lord bless you and keep you this year, and give you strength and faith to overcome any difficulties with grace.

Busy, busy, busy!

Making vanilla extract

It's been a busy time here on the homestead.  Baking, cleaning and what-not takes an amazing amount of time.  But it's fun, too, with Christmas music going and the Daughter home from school. 

I've been working on packaging some of my home-made items as gifts, with the thought of getting feedback from folks and developing the best items to possibly sell at the farmer's market next year.  (And of course I'm hoping the recipients will enjoy and make use of the gifts!)  Aside from the jams, peaches and applesauce I put up over the summer, I am bottling some of my home-made vanilla extract for my friends who like to bake.  I started it last May and it has matured into a wonderfully aromatic, golden brew.  Digging through my stash of stuff I discovered a few more of the big brown glass bottles so I started another batch yesterday.  It's easy to do; I order madagascar vanilla beans online, cut the beans length-wise 3/4 of the way, put them in the bottle, fill the bottle with vodka or rum, and cap it tightly.  It

takes  about six weeks to get a useable extract, depending on number and quality of beans, but I like to let it perk along in the back of the pantry for several months.  I prefer the vodka results to the rum.

I found the hardest part about making the extract is buying the alcohol.  I'd never bought liquor before, so I was at the party store counter asking the clerk the prices on the different brands of vodka and finally purchased two large jugs of the stuff, only to turn around and find several local fellows lined up behind me.  I got more propositions in the time it took to walk from the counter to the door than I have in the last twenty years!  My ears were burning and my cheeks were red by the time I made it back to my truck.

I'm working on several other projects, including creating a hand scrub, and recipe jars. My favorite so far is the potato soup.

Potato Soup in a Jar

Potato Soup Mix in a Jar
1 3/4 cups instant mashed potatoes
1 1/2 cups dried milk
2 tablespoons instant chicken bouillon
2 teaspoons dried minced onion
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon turmeric
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoning salt
Combine all ingredients in a bowl; mix well. Put ingredients in a 1-quart jar. On gift tag write: Place 1/2 cup mix in soup bowl; add 1 cup of boiling water; stir until smooth.




So the gifts are all wrapped; the tree is up and decorated.  The house....well, I can always do more cleaning tomorrow morning, right? 

From our homestead to yours, Merry Christmas!  And Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paws of Joy

A few days ago we were out of town visiting a family member when I suddenly realized that I couldn't remember putting the dawg back in the house before we left.  Talk about panic!  I was worried sick until we were able to contact a neighbor who was kind enough to run over and check. Thankfully, Mattie was safe and sound inside.  Just how do certain animals get such a hold on our hearts?

Some years ago Daughter wanted to get a puppy.  We already had a couple of cats, and the cats were fun, but she wanted a dog.  She even took the initiative to learn how to use the computer to do an internet search and found a website for a local animal shelter.  One particular picture caught her eye, and before I knew it I had agreed to bring home a big, hairy animal with an enormous fluffy tail.  Half black lab, half husky, and all lovey, it didn't take long for her to become a member of the family.  This dawg, and yes, she is a think-of-Goofy's-voice-aw-shucks-down-home-dawg, wants nothing more than to be hugged and petted and loved.  A full seventy pounds, she firmly believes she is a lap dog and that movie night means everyone sits on the sofa and eats popcorn.

Mattie is the most gentle soul I've ever known.  She never says a word unless asked if she'd like to go for a walk, and then there's jumping and whining and singing and impatience until we're finally out the door.  She's the perfect fit for us.  No recreational barking, no drooling all over, and no pestering when she's told to lay down, but let a stranger approach the door and she acts and sounds like the most fearsome of watch dogs.  Brings just that little extra feeling of security to know she can scare bad guys, or at any rate the propane guy that delivers such frightfully expensive gas, and it's great to see the reactions of census takers, salesmen or other front porch pests when she goes into guard dog mode. Watching her run always brings a smile to my face - ears flopping, tongue hanging out, a huge grin on her face, she stretches each paw out as far as possible, reaching, pulling, flexing; flinging herself across the yard, bits of grass flying behind as she thunders along.  "Joy" in the dictionary should be defined by a picture of my dawg running. 

We started with an outdoor kennel for her to stay in while we're away.  She has a good six inches of hair above an undercoat so thick her skin has never been wet, but I built a doghouse anyways, lined it with styrofoam and installed a heat lamp.  She proceeded to eat the styrofoam so I covered it with scrap paneling.  We all thought an insulated, heated, paneled doghouse was pretty awesome, until the fateful day she encountered a skunk in the back yard.  Somehow she thought it was a good idea to chase the skunk.  The skunk thought that house looked like a great place to hide until the dawg came flying through the door.  Needless to say Mattie got a bath and the house was torn down.  Then came a winter of bitter cold and frozen water dishes and, well, we now have an inside dawg.

We've had so much fun with this animal over the years.  It was quite a sight to see our tiny, three pound calico cat completely terrorize her.  If the cat sat in front of the food bowls, the dawg would go hungry.  If the cat laid in the hallway Mattie stayed in the kitchen.  The worst one was when the cat would sit at the top of the kitchen stairs. We would all come rushing in from outside, only to pile up one on another - bangbangbang - because Mattie would see the cat and stop dead, halfway up the steps.  That silly cat would sit there with her tail wrapped neatly around her paws and smirk at the chaos while we tried to get back on our feet.  Mattie would keep looking sideways or down, refusing to make eye contact like a toddler who figures if he covers his eyes, you can't see him.  Our kitty is gone now, but I think Mattie remembers the humiliation she endured.  A couple of adorable plucky kittens showed up in the yard this fall, but every effort to adopt them failed as Mattie showed an uncharacteristic aggression toward the little tykes.

This old dawg has been a lot of company for me these past weeks, as I'm home so much more and find myself adjusting to a different schedule, and working through the times of anger and depression that come with the loss of a job.  She doesn't say much, but as I sit here at the computer she'll come up and plant a big ol' paw on my knee, shoving a wet nose under my hand and I can feel the stress ease off as we settle in for an ear scratching session.  They do say that people with dogs live longer. I think God gave us dogs to help us through the bad times, and I'm thankful every day.

A Little Philosophy

Christmas-time activities and some wet, rainy weather have put most of the "homesteading" style projects on a temporary hold, so I've been doing a little more thinking and reading.  A couple of folks have wondered how my little bit of land can be considered a homestead, or asked why I put time and energy in growing food and canning it, when it is so readily available and convenient at the store.

Truth is, sometimes I wonder myself.  I buy seeds, plant them, spend the summer watering, weeding, and caring for the plants, then do all the work of harvesting and processing, just to put some jars of vegetables in the pantry.  Think how easy it would be to walk into the store on a "10 for $10" day and walk out with dozens of cans of veggies twenty minutes later.  I suppose a quick answer would be that I come of very stubborn German/Dutch people not known for doing things the easy way.  But the real answer is much more complex.

My "homesteading" mentality has long been a part of me; growing up on a farm taught me a lot about the value of hard work and resourcefulness and my love of American history filled my head with stories of the brave pioneers who were willing to face tremendous odds to be independent, self-sufficient, and establish a home where they could provide for themselves and their families.  So the basis was there, though mostly dormant during my young adulthood years of college and living in more urban settings.  Then it seems a lot of factors, such as parenthood, home-ownership, and experience gradually came together to bring me to where I am today. 

Or perhaps I've simply gotten cranky as I've gotten older, who knows.  But I look around and see a corrupt, liberal government driving us deeper into debt and further into socialism.  I see people woefully unprepared for even a minor setback, such as an ice storm disrupting the grocery supply chain for a while.  I see churches losing their identity and succumbing to popular culture. I see illegal aliens living off government programs while demanding that American culture become subservient to theirs.  I see crops in the fields that have been genetically modified to the extent that growing them is ruining the soil.  I see people being mindlessly sucked in to tv shows where faith and morals are ridiculed. I see meat in the store that has had colorants and salt water added so it looks good....I could go on, but no one wants to read a rant.  Simply put, I don't like what I see. 

So I am willing to put my time, energy and effort into changing what I see, wherever I can, and like most changes, it starts at home.  My little homestead is where I make my stand and start the process.  I hope that by sharing the journey through this blog that others will find some ideas and inspiration to make changes to what they see, perhaps just starting with the small steps of growing and canning fresh, healthy food.  I promise I'll try not to get too cranky.

He doesn't like the rain either.

Connections

Some of my reading lately has been looking at the many perspectives people have on "homesteading", "simple living" and "self-sufficiency".  There are many different ideas ranging from an off-grid cabin in the Alaskan bush to a home in the city with a tomato plant on the balcony, but almost always with the notion of being "away" from people.

I've thought that way for many years, being fairly content with my own company, and while I still cherish family and friends, I do prefer being home in my personal space with plenty of room to breathe and think. And even though some who know me personally may jokingly say I'm anti-social I know these connections with others are important,  and as I get older I begin to see just how needful those connections are.  And that even momentary connections can make a difference.

Earlier today a group of people from my church went Christmas caroling at a couple of local nursing homes.  It's an annual event I hadn't joined before, but since I found a nice basket with handles for carrying a tune I tagged along this year.  It felt a little awkward at first but as the age-old songs filled the halls I could see the people respond and saw cloudy eyes and palsied limbs forgotten as wrinkled faces beamed with joy.  At one point I heard a beautiful clear voice join in, and turned to see a tiny woman in a wheelchair, her face alight as that wonderful voice poured out in songs of praise and joy for the birth of Christ. I never learned her name, but I definitely felt a connection with her.  I so enjoyed singing with her I stopped worrying about how my voice sounded and simply had fun being a small part of bringing joy to shut-in folks.  Some of them may not have friends or family close by or may have out-lived their loved ones but for this brief moment of song they were reconnected to other people.

Even for somewhat anti-social, self-sufficient characters like myself, it's important to remember and celebrate our connections and look beyond ourselves.

December Moon

We're close to the winter solstice now and it seems like I no sooner get started on my chores than it gets dark.  I still need to cut and stack more firewood and clean up the remains of the garden fencing.  Aside from that frustration, I actually enjoy this darkest time of the year.  Instead of being busy outside until late in the evening, I have time for an early supper, connecting with family, a fire in the fireplace, and a good book. There's an incredible beauty to the nights this time of year, too.  I went out with the dawg a little while ago, and the full moon was perfectly centered in the bare branches of the trees, winking and grinning as it cast a gentle silver light over the yard.

I've always loved the beauty of a winter night. Sometimes I'll wrap up in a big ol' wool blanket and sit out in my patio swing watching the moon striking diamonds in the snow, creating a luminous landscape of silvers and blues. Orion hovers above the eastern horizon, his bow ever at the ready while over my shoulder Venus glows with a steady white light, putting me in mind of the Bethlehem Star. The air is still and crystalline, thin and pure, making each breath a treasure.  The stars come closer in the icy cold sky, and it seems if I just sit quietly enough I'll be able to hear them singing.  Truly the heavens declare the glory of God!  Finally the cold works through the blanket and I retreat to my warm living room, refreshed, calm and at peace, thankful to live out in the countryside where nothing blocks my views or interferes with the peacefulness.

Peace and beauty, stillness and rest.  May the blessings of a December night be yours.

Oh, the Noise, Noise, Noise!

One of the highlights of unemployment has to be the opportunity for a leisurely breakfast.  I still get up at the usual time (ok, not every day!) and do some laundry, redd up the kitchen, and so on, and then settle with my breakfast, some hot tea and the laptop to do some thinking, reading, and job hunting.

Well today I happened to turn on the tv before I sat down.  That may have been a mistake.  The morning news program was on, with self-appointed experts telling us what to think and what to do.  Did you know there's very little actual news reported on these shows?  When did we become such a shallow society, wasting time on trivia?  The last thirty minutes have covered the cost of a dress someone wore to an award show, how to gently reason with your children when they want more "stuff", (what happened to just say no?) the divorce of another famous couple, and an actor that was tossed off a plane for not turning off his phone.  Is any of that truly "news"?  Is any of it actually important, thought-provoking, useful for my day, or worthy of discussion?  I suppose I should be grateful for the passing mention of the Pearl Harbor attack, seventy years ago today.  We seem to have morphed from a nation united and devoted to our ideals to a lazy people addicted to noisy entertainments.  Time to turn the tv off! 

Another good thing about unemployment is being free to get to afternoon Advent services.  Taking an hour out of the day to pause and remember that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of our Savior, to sing the wonderful old Advent hymns is refreshing and comforting - and so much more meaningful than the television!

"And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Trial and Error Under Pressure

The Creature

Putting away the canning equipment, including that puzzling, exasperating and inspiring pressure canner, until after Christmas.  Finished up the turkey project last night by canning stock for turkey soup.  It sure has been a wild ride learning how to use this creature. I was reading my Ball Complete Book of Canning, checking the National Center for Home Food Preservation web, and following the advice of my online friends.  After a while it felt like canning by committee, especially when the advice becomes contradictory.  So often folks seem to write about pressure canning as though it were no more difficult than tying your shoes.  Perhaps I should trade in my bootlaces for velcro, because I have found the process most challenging.  Following directions for prepping the food is easy enough, but actually using the canner is an uncertain venture.  Is it vented properly?  "The weight should slowly rock."  What does this mean?  Even getting the jars out is a puzzle.  The canner's manual says not to rush the cooling and not to lift the weight to hasten the reduction of pressure.  The Ball book has a very short and simple paragraph about letting the canner cool to zero pressure, and pulling out the jars. It's not really so simple.  Questions come up, like how long to wait?  How do I know when it is at zero pressure?  I took the earlier batch of chicken broth out too early, and the jars pinged multiple times while the broth boiled like crazy, threatening eruption.  The jars of sausage stayed in too long and were cool to touch when I removed them from the canner. I have been told that leaving jars in the canner that long can cause the food to spoil.

After much trial and error I've come to a rough timetable of waiting thirty or forty minutes and then checking the weight on the canner.  If it is relatively cool to the touch, I lift it partway and if the steam just goes "psst" and stops, I consider that as reduced to zero.  If the steam hisses out hard and fast when I move the weight, I leave it in place and try again later.  Once the pressure is zeroed, I remove the lid and then wait ten minutes before taking out the jars.  The most disconcerting thing is that I'm not hearing the jars "ping".  All these years of doing water-bath canning, my favorite part is always hearing the jar lids "ping" and seal as they cool.  I have checked the lids carefully and they seem to be sealed; I'm assuming that they're sealing in the canner as it cools and I can't hear the "pings".

Turkey Stock

Turkey Meat

Regardless, I now have canned meat for my pantry.  I got eight pints of meat and six quarts of stock from just the one turkey, and I'm looking forward to more pressure canning in the future!

Do-overs

Saturday was filled with outside chores - which isn't a bad thing, except much of it was re-doing tasks I had already checked off my list, including re-tarping our little backyard pool and re-taping the plastic film I used to winterize the first floor windows.  I'm not surprised that the high winds tore the tarp off the pool, but I am very disappointed that the window film kits aren't holding on.  I've used the same brand for five years and this is the first year I've had this issue.  Probably yet another product that is now made in China. We did finally get the mower deck off the lawn tractor, the tire chains on, and the rack on the front porch filled with firewood.

Not-so-attractive pork sausage

Today was another busy day, makes me wonder how I had time to work when I had a job!  Had to take Daughter in for a dental appointment, pick up all the mail at the post office, and do some computer work.  Then, being a stubborn sort, (which I come by naturally) I started yet another pressure canning project.  My attempts so far have been less than successful, including the pork sausage.  Turns out I was supposed to cover the sausage with boiling water or broth before I closed the jars and put them in the canner.  My homesteading web friends tell me it's safe to eat, but just won't be as appetizing or last as long due to not being covered by a broth.

This time I tackled the twelve pound turkey I got at the after-Thanksgiving sale.  I decided to use the raw pack method, so I basically hacked the turkey up into bite-sized chunks, removing the skin and as much fat as possible.  The meat went into pint jars and into the canner.  The guidelines said not to add liquid, so I didn't!  It will be interesting to see how it turns out.  The bones and leftover bits went in to the big kettle to simmer and cook down.  You can be sure I'm watching that process very carefully! 

All of our snow melted during the weekend rains and I'm hoping to finish some more outdoor chores before we get more.  The last fenceposts and plastic mulch need to be removed from the garden, the downspout drain connection has to be replaced, and  I need to rebuild the front porch steps before I have any Christmas visitors.  I doubt even full-strength eggnog would make up for someone falling through the rotted steps.

Time to see if the canner is cool enough to open.  Here's hoping I actually have useable, nicely done canned turkey!

Take care, my friends.

Cooped Up!

Ever have one of those days when you hurry and work and still seem to not get ahead?  Today was like that.  Beautiful sunshine starting the melt the snow outside, but I had no time to get out and enjoy it.

Most of the day was spent in the kitchen, scrubbing the remnants of the grease and soot from the stove and microwave, doing dishes (how do just two people make so many dirty dishes?) and continuing the organizing and cleaning.  It's amazing how one change creates an avalanche of other changes that need to be made.  A family member bought a new stove, so I inherited the old one.  It's a switch for me from an electric to a propane model, which of course means I no longer have the big drawer on the bottom for all the pots and pans.  Moving the pots and pans means clearing out shelves and cupboards, which means reorganizing everything, which leads to a major sorting, winnowing and date-mark checking sort of day.

I gave up on my broth I was making; even though I had put it in the fridge, when I heated it up again it just didn't seem right so I didn't can it.  A lot of  effort (and risk!) for no reward.   :-(

I also tried another experiment, this one of canning up some bulk pork sausage.  I did a lot of recipe reading and advice asking, and still managed to have another problem!  This time I was following thee directions for browning the sausage prior to putting it in the jars, and managed to burn it.  Sigh.  Not too bad, but there I was, fishing ball after ball of sausage out of the frying pan, and cutting off the burned sections.  The rest of the process seemed to go alright, and I canned up eight pints of funny looking, lopsided sausage balls.  All the jars seemed to seal, I'll check them thoroughly in the morning. 

Lakota Squash

It's an heirloom - I saved those seeds!

The big canning pots are washed and stored; the dehydrator and it's trays have been scrubbed and put away; and I got one of my Lakota squashes baked and into the freezer.  So perhaps the day wasn't a total loss after all...but I sure would have liked to have gotten out in the sunshine!

Sparrows Are Liberal Democrats

I have several bird feeders just outside my window, and it's amusing to watch the mannerisms of the different types of birds.  The goldfinches are sedate, four or more sharing the feeder at the same time with a minimum of flapping and complaining.  They delicately pull one seed out of time out of the feeder mesh, and finish it before grabbing another.  The cardinals are noisy and bossy, making strafing runs at the feeder to chase everyone else away.  Only then will they stop to eat.  It's fascinating to watch them pick up a sunflower seed, crack it open, eat the nut, and spit out the shell all in one movement.  It doesn't seem that a beak should be that dexterous.  The woodpeckers are fairly anti-social, ignoring everyone else, including each other, to dig into the suet cake.  One in particular is very industrious, constantly swooping to and fro as he places nuggets of suet in the rough bark of his favorite tree. Every now and again an oriole will come by, perch on top of the hook, and sing a sweet song in payment for his supper of berry suet.

But then there's the sparrows.  A noisy, garrulous lot, running in flocks that are cheeping, chirping, squawking and complaining from sun up to sun down.  They descend on the feeders like a swarm of locusts, chasing all others away, erratically darting about and even running into the windows.  Then they stick their beaks into the feed and swipe their heads from side to side, searching for that one particular biggest, tastiest seed, flinging what they don't want over the edge.  They also jump in and scratch like chickens, throwing seed in all directions, making a mess and wasting much more than they ever actually eat.  Sometimes they're so bad the sound of the feed hitting the windows and siding is like a mini hailstorm.  Yelling at them and rapping on the window frame doesn't faze them in the least, they simply give back an impudent stare out of a black, beady eye.  It seems they're raising their young to be freeloaders, too.  I've seen a fledgling who could obviously fly and make his own way perched on the top of the suet feeder, while the adult sparrow dug through the seed, picked up a mouthful, and then hopped over and fed it to the youngster.  The young one sat there, beak open, as though entitled to whatever the other bird could pick up, and let out loud, raucous cheeps if his handout wasn't getting there fast enough.

All this behavior puts me in mind of the worst of the liberals.  So until a way is found to disenfranchise the sparrows, without simply removing the feeders and denying all the birds their dinner, we'll amuse ourselves by naming them.  (At least until we can no longer afford to fill the feeders, which with how much they waste, will happen soon!)  The skinny, bossy one is Obama, the short, ruffled looking one that wastes so much is Pelosi, the slow one with spectacle markings is Levin, the one that flies into the window all the time is Wiener, the one that falls off the feeder is Biden......this could take a while!

View from the deer blind

In the meantime, there's plenty of chores to do, trying to make a few bucks by listing a ton of stuff on ebay, scrubbing the kitchen, cutting firewood, getting out the Christmas decorations, and doing some painting.  Not to mention trying to find a few hours to get back out in search of venison for the freezer.  At least there aren't any sparrows near the deer blind!