moldy
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Post by moldy on Jul 25, 2011 9:03:34 GMT -6
This was one of my favorite theads somewhere else. It gave me great ideas, alerted me to bargins, and reminded me of certain chores I shouldn't put off. So, here goes:
Today, I'm going to weed my tomatoes and potatoes, check my relish to make sure it's sealed, water my raised beds, call the vet about some meds for the heifers, make some granola, then go to work tonight.
How about you?
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Post by echo38 on Jul 25, 2011 11:02:43 GMT -6
Well I am going to kind of loaf today got the kids off to woodman camp yesterday so am going to take advantage of the peace and quiet and do some reading. Naturally watered garden and picked few things this morning took care of animals and am running laundry and have bread rising now but mainly just having an lazy day.
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Post by mnn2300 on Jul 25, 2011 14:02:01 GMT -6
I need to pick up some potting soild to start my fall seeds indoors -- maybe it'll cool off enough to plantthem by the time they're ready.
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Jul 27, 2011 8:25:05 GMT -6
Weed, weed, all day long; busting my tail from dusk till dawn (sorry, just channeling my inner Alan Jackson). Seems like the weeding never ends, even when the plants are bigger. I swear I'm seeing puncture vine in my sleep!!
Today is a day off, so I'm planning on going to get my driver's license (only my eighth visit to get my to get one - but that's another rant!), making more relish, blanching and freezing some broccoli, and seeing what other trouble I can cause. Oh, and I need to order a conversion kit so I can run my stove on propane instead of natural gas.
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Post by suvalley on Jul 27, 2011 10:34:33 GMT -6
I just put up some broccoli myself last night, you might try not blanching, just washing well. Let it drain and dry, and vacuum seal. The texture is much better and the flavor not so intense-same thing goes with cauliflower too. Did this as a test last season and did half of each blanched, and half not. Not was much better
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Jul 28, 2011 9:35:05 GMT -6
Thanks for the hint, suvalley - I like anything that saves me work - and heating up the house! I got my drivers license!!! Boy, are there benefits to going to a smaller town to do that. Today I need to finish my relish, make some granola, and clean some. I'm feeling kinda puny, so I'm going to try staying inside a little more. Last night, we also brought home a load of wheat, took the heifers to the sale barn, and unloaded some hay. No wonder I'm a little tired
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Jul 29, 2011 11:46:12 GMT -6
Ran errands before heading off to work. Head's up to all you canners: Dollar General has Golden Harvest (made in the US) jars for $6.50-8.50 a dozen, but the supply is just what they have in the stores now (or at least for the one I hit).
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Post by suvalley on Jul 30, 2011 7:55:03 GMT -6
Cheapest price on canning jars up here is $9 per case. You don't even want to know how much quarts are, lol
I was gifted with some extra produce the other day, made up a killer hot batch of salsa. This weekend I plan on making tomato sauce out of the balance, putting up more broccoli and cauliflower, plus I need to make some cranberry ketchup so out come the high bush cranberries.....
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Jul 30, 2011 15:46:42 GMT -6
I'm working 3 12 hour shifts this weekend, so I doubt I 'll get much done. I'm really wanting to try some banana jam - need to clean out the freezers to get ready for sweet corn - and it just sounds interresting. I never have been able to dehydrate bananas to where I like them.
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Post by suvalley on Aug 1, 2011 12:54:50 GMT -6
I've had no luck making banana chips either, so you aren't alone. Not quite nasty, but not very tasty. If you are blessed with an abundance of squash however, it does lend well to drying. I recently heard of using Russian kale to make some sort of baked "chip" but I have not tried it as yet.
Tomato sauce done, cranberry ketchup done.....have to see what else is in the freezer that I can process to make space for what is to be harvested.
In fact, I am wondering if a person can make a sort of "vegetable leather" or roll up type thing, out of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Imagine being able to dry that and use it on down the road....
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 1, 2011 20:25:14 GMT -6
Getting ready for a short vacation, so I picked a bunch of stuff to take with us, tidied up. Our anniversary was Friday, and DH bought me a hoosier cabinet with side cabinets and a wood-burning cookstove. He can do NO wrong for Quite a while!! We got some high temp epoxy to fix a couple spots on the stove today, picked up some cattle panels that were on sale, some welding stuff for him, and are now packing.
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Post by patience on Aug 8, 2011 10:03:11 GMT -6
I've been lurking and reading the stories here for too long without contributing... The heat here in southern Indiana is more than I can take in the middle of the day. Age 65 and had a heatstroke before. You never, EVER get over that. It messes up your internal thermostat so you tend to overheat more easily. That is a fast route to a heart attack, so I stay inside if it's too hot. But, in the mornings and evenings I do what I can. This morning, I weeded the asparagus bed in front of the house while it was still in the shade. We pulled all the standard Yew shrubs from in front of the house a couple years ago and now have strawberries growing in one area and the asparagus in the other side of the front porch. We have a small but rich garden area just off the back porch that I began weeding yesterday evening. Got a lot of it finished, and dug the multiplying onions (Egyptian onions) to dry. They yielded a host of onion sets. They grow at the top of the plant, instead of seeds like a regular onion. These onions make small bulbs, and are a bit on the hot side, but not bad, and they have the advantage of providing their own sets for next year. Plant them now in late summer, and they will be the first things to come up next Spring. We grow a lot of herbs. There was some Fennel (licorice flavor) near the onions so I pulled that too, since it was ready. Wife and I snipped off the seed heads into a couple plastic shopping bags to finish drying, whereupon I will thresh out the seeds to store for seasoning use or replanting. I've been cutting Okra in that patch, and harvesting a handful of cherry tomatoes each day. There are some Steuben grapes along the lower fence there that are growing fine, their second year after starting as cuttings. In the back yard of our one acre lot are 3 garden areas about 30' x 80' terraced into the steep hillside, with RR tie retaining walls. This year, one is full of Reid's Yellow Dent field corn for the chickens, one is doing poorly with tomatoes, onions, and a fair crop of potatoes that are now ready to dig. The uppermost patch has the best soil and has yielded lots of Broccoli, cucumbers, green beans and banana peppers and has 2 rows of popcorn (open pollinated, so I can save the seed), a long row of sweet potatoes, and 5 hills of cantaloupe, now with melons almost full size. There are a few cauliflower and cabbage plants still going there, and a row of beets that is about half grown, then a late row of green beans. Our 5 hens are 2 years old now, and just starting to lay again after a moult, giving us 2 to 3 eggs a day. Time to clean the henhouse, too. My to-do list is VERY long.....
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 8, 2011 11:09:22 GMT -6
I understand about the long to-do list.... I've put up 19 1/2 quarts dill pickles, 6 1/2 pints dill relish, and 10 pints rotel-type tomatoes today. Still need to work on laundry. DH sprayed the garden for grass hoppers yesterday, so we need to stay out of the garden for a few days. The bugs here are awful! I need to get some herbs cut and hung up to dry.... i have marshmallow, yarrow, horehound, and mint that I need to put up as well.
Seems like summer is speeding by and that fall will be upon us before I am ready. We still have wood to cut, and a gazillion other little chores like transplanting strawberries and rhubarb and blacking the stove.
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Post by patience on Aug 8, 2011 12:16:56 GMT -6
Yes, it is canning season for sure. Our garden isn't doing so great, but my wife has made 20 pints of bread and butter pickles, 9 pints of pickled banana peppers and a dozen pints of green beans so far.
We are doing the groundwork to go solar PV, so we are trying to unload one freezer. So, wife canned 62 pints of pork loin to get it out of the old upright freezer that is destined for the dump.
Lots to do here, and not much ability to get it done in hot weather. I have about a bushel of peppermint drying on the back porch that needs to be hung up somewhere, too.
There are 2 pear trees on the back of the place that are LOADED this year. They should be ripe in another couple weeks. That will be a job!
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Post by mnn2300 on Aug 8, 2011 13:59:35 GMT -6
The heat here in southern Indiana is more than I can take in the middle of the day..... so I stay inside if it's too hot. You know, thats really the whole key, if its too hot outside stay where its cool. That's how we Texans survive, we do our outside work before 10AM or after 8PM outside. I'm just trying to keep my plants alive til it cools off, we're at day 40 with 100+ temps and no rain for even longer. I did start my starter plants for fall crops, squash and soybeans are coming up already, got them on the patio in the shade right now.
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Post by patience on Aug 9, 2011 16:34:21 GMT -6
I got one strawberry bed weeded this morning, then banged on the old sorghum mill for a while. I succeeded in getting all the top bearings loosened and removed. The lower bearings are soaking in old motor oil in the sun.
This sorghum mill is a junkyard find, for $130! It was made by B.F. Avery in Louisville, KY, model #1B, a 6" wide mill = small. They were made up to at least 12" wide rollers. My antique dealer friend told me it is worth $400 at least, when I get it worked loose and operating. Not for sale. This is for our preps. Another friend grows sorghum cane, my DD has horse harness and her neighbor has horses we can use to power this thing.
FWIW: The process is to use this mill, a super-duty cast iron wringer affair, to squeeze the juice out of sorghum cane, just like sugar cane. Then, the juice is boiled down to thick syrup and hot-pack canned for keeping. Great on pancakes, and can be substituted for honey in recipes. Sorghum is the flavoring in brown sugar, I am told. Makes some killer molasses cookies, too!
Lots of work to do on this project. I still have to finish taking it apart. It is rusted severely, but still in better shape than any other I have seen. Most of these things are around 100 years old....
It remains one of the most practical ways to get a sugar product for us, since sugar cane won't grow here and sugar beets take more machinery to process. Too, sorghum requires less cooking than maple syrup. Don't have enough maple trees anyway. Honey is an option, but bees require some expertise to manage properly that I don't have.
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Post by hua man on Aug 10, 2011 11:15:44 GMT -6
Cleaned out some 2 liter bottles and checking over some buckets my mother found for me. Need to go over some old TA-50 (military gear) and check local prices on grains.
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 10, 2011 14:07:05 GMT -6
Patience - I am GREEN with envy!! We have been looking for a sorghum press for a long time without any luck. They are very difficult to find and you have been blessed!
I have the girls out weeding today - they are starting to get away from us again. I need to pick veggies again and try to figure out what to do with them. Any suggestions on what to do with cukes that isn't pickles or relish to preserve them??
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Post by patience on Aug 10, 2011 19:29:59 GMT -6
moldy,
I don't know what to tell you about the cucumbers. The Brits make sandwiches out of them for formal ladies' lunches, I've read, but that just doesn't cut it for my lunch...
Finding the sorghum press was mostly luck on my part, but I have been actively watching for a good one for over 10 years!! RARE as hens' teeth. This one is small, 6" wide rolls, but nothing broken nor missing. It even has the little cast iron cover plates on the top bearings!
The best of these now are in poor shape. Mine has heavy rust, and I still haven't gotten the lower bearings loosened up yet. The adjusting screws on the bottom are frozen solid. I'm still getting dried mud and plant roots out of the thing. Must have sat in the fencerow for a very long time...
We shopped today. Wife and I hit the 2 milsurp stores in the area and got lots of socks, the 50% wool/30% polyester/20% cotton blend. Those things are tough as nails and keep your feet toasty in winter. Some black, some green. Also found a rubberized pouch, Swiss made, the lady said. It can fit on a belt, a pack, or a shoulder strap. Good for carrying all manner of stuff, and can be thrown around in the dirt and mud, then hosed off. This first store threw in a P38 as a giveaway. Socks were $3.95/pr. I asked about a USMC Kabar, and yes they had them for $84. UGGHH!!
At the second store, I found the M1956 butt pack I've been looking for, in nylon, and a real GI trifold entrenching tool with its' pouch. That all goes with the Get Home Bag. The butt pack will fit on a belt and then you can shoulder an ALICE pack over it. That means you can lay down the ALICE pack and still have a day's worth of goodies in the butt pack.
That last store also had a bumper sticker I couldn't leave without: "Support the Chinese Army-Shop at Wal Mart". Said they had 'em made up special. That one is going on the truck.
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 11, 2011 6:40:13 GMT -6
Well, it's still early and I''ve already sent DH off to work and made a pumpkin pie for breakfast. Hey, I have to do SOMETHING with all that pumpkin from last year!! We need to work a little more on the garden today and get beans picked. My DN (dear neighbor) is giving me some chokecherries if I pick them, so DD and I are going to do that this morning. I'm so excited - she is also said I can have some seedlings this next spring to plant at our place.
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 12, 2011 7:06:06 GMT -6
Got finished with 20 quarts of pickles and juicing the chokecherries yesterday. Today is finishing relish and tomato sauce. DH picked about 1 1/2 five gallon buckets of green beans yesterday - I'll get to those if I have time. Oh yeah, I also need a nap before heading out to work tonight for a 3 (12 hour) day stretch. This time of year, I wish I could take more time off.
ETA: When I took the girls to another neighbors for haircuts, she gifted me with a bag of currents. Not really enough to do much with, but I"m going to juice them and make a chokecherry-current-crabapple jam and some syrup. What do y'all think??
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galee
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Post by galee on Aug 12, 2011 20:55:31 GMT -6
Hello---been lurking & reading stories. Things are busy around here--grapes to harvest. Made 20 pints of grape jelly in the last 3 days. I love my Nutri-Steamer juicer. It sure beats crushing and straining to get grape juice. DH and I also started 2 big buckets of wine yesterday. I dropped off a dozen pints of grapes at a fancy food store yesterday hoping they will buy a bunch from us. They buy blueberries from us each year in May. Those crazy shoppers at this store pay $6/pint for them. I know they are great berries, but $6? Planning the new larger chicken coop with 4 runs surrounding it so we can rotate them. We were letting them free range but we have a fox who is developing a taste for chicken (even with the dogs roaming the property). I will shoot it if I see it but we are penning the hens behind electric fence for now. Next week will be time to start seed flats for Fall vegie garden. Have some prep work to do in garden area also--mow, till, bed shape and lay irrigation lines and plastic. Our heat has also made it difficult to work during alot of the day so we try to work outside in mornings and evenings. Even with the hard work it is all a blessing.
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Post by patience on Aug 13, 2011 15:21:52 GMT -6
I finally got the sorghum mill all taken apart and cleaned somewhat with wire cup brush on an angle grinder. So far, I only have one blue fingernail from dealing with this monster. Yeah, that fingernail is history. It will fall off someday, and hopefully I can grow a new one. Got all the parts loaded in the truck to go to the sandblast guy when I can catch him. I spent the day today cleaning up my last junkyard haul, a 5 gallon bucket of tools. Gave 20 bucks for it and got a Vixen body shop file (for Bondo and body lead), a Blackhawk piston ring compressor, a brake cylinder hone, one wood splitting wedge ($18 new for one made in India), a lead hammer, a battery test meter (for 6, 12, and 24 volt batteries, with a 90 amp ammeter--great for solar stuff), 8 blacksmith's hardy tools (fullers, hot cutter, bending fork, a pair of tongs and more--$10 to $20 each at the blacksmith shows), a hacksaw blade and a set of Allen wrenches. This all looked a lot like junk when I got it, but is in fine shape now. The bucket also had a Delaval sprayer PTO pump for a farm tractor spray rig--$100 new cost. I'm giving that to a farmer friend as a deposit in his "favor bank". At new/good used prices, this stuff would have cost $400+. Amazing what some people throw away. Wife is baking bread today, and getting banana peppers soaking for pickling. I need to check the cukes again. Since we got some rain, they revived and are bearing again
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moldy
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Post by moldy on Aug 17, 2011 11:12:48 GMT -6
Boy, I am DRAGGING today. the kids are even out-working me!! I've got my brined pickles soaking for today (I'll can the sweet pickles - gherkins- this evening), I need to can my relish and tomatoes today and get the bolted lettuce fed to the pigs/chickens. We also need to set up for chicks that should be delivered the end of the week. Sigh... and laundry.
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06
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Post by 06 on Aug 18, 2011 19:27:40 GMT -6
Howdy, whew--where to start. Swapping engines in the wife's car. Earlier this week we put in squash, winter squash, blue lakes, half runners, and beets. Washed a few dozen quart jars for "moma". She put up some pear sauce that was surprisingly good. Salsa, soup, and tomatoes are beginning to fill the new(old kitchen) cabinets in the renovated office/reloading room. Got the reloading desk situated better and mounted much needed shelving and cabinets. Moved and repacked some preps into vermin proof containers(lost two of rice). Everything almost is in the basement and neatly stacked--cannot believe it. Found a box of '89 MREs and we are eating them. Still good after 20+ yrs. Bought 8 mobile home axles for $20 each. Two will go under a firewood trailer we are welding up from 11/2" angle iron. New gas tubes in the weed eater-now she runs like a champ. Have a water line leak to repair and while there will put a line off it to the end of the new orchard. Got enough 20' 2X6s to raise the roof over the breezeway (reloading room) to match the rest of the roof. Have the old short wave gear into a Faraday box finally. Been adding screws/brackets/nails to the desk shelving to hang odds and ends on. Added a 4' florescent above it--now I can see the head stamp lettering. New matching locks front and rear on the entrance doors. Other than that have just been piddling about and loafing--lol. Headed to the flea market next week end with a big trailer load.
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