WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

I tell everyone I can that I am on the lookout. Wow, you really was blessed. I believe you get the desires of your heart and I really desire a canner. My sister has a pressure canner but Mama gave her the one she had so now Sister has hers and Mama's. I could be mad but Mama always did favor her. She apologized to me but nothing I can do about it. Sister bragged to me when she got it because she knew I've been looking for one. She's always telling me about her canning adventures and I tell her about mine with the boiling water bath, dehydrating and freezing. I can't hold a grudge. I offer to help her when I can and pray for her afterall she is my sister.

Families....

I made a jar of pickled jalapenos. I just sterilized the jar and lids and then brought vinegar to cover sliced jalapenos to boil. Poured in jar and sealed. The lig tinged right away but I will keep it in the refrigerator since it wasn't meant for long-term storage but it should last until they are eaten. We love hot pepper vinegar on beans and greens. The peppers will be ate along with meals as a condiment most likely. Hopefully next year I can pickle a few jars.

Finally brought in this year's crop of beets from where I had stored them in the greenhouse and I have them cooking to make Pickled Beets. Yum!

Pickled beets are a favorite of mine. My family doesn't understand how I like them and I don't understand why they don't.

My hubby loves pickled beets. They are ok to me.

The last 7 on the cull list are in the canner and stock pot as I type...am so glad to have all the killin' done for the year. I'm incredibly grateful for the bounty of meat and stock God provided for us this year...He works things out in mysterious ways, for sure. Always makes me grin when I think about how He does things.

Just need to can up pumpkin and squash grown this year(not all of it...most will be stored for eating later, by us and by the animals) and then this canner will get a rest and so will I. I need it.

Thirty- three birds harvested this season and canned to the jar, along with the stock, with fat rendered and frozen for later cooking.

Thirty birds on the shelf is a great feeling, knowing your family has the best food. If God can feed the birds of the field, then we can trust him to feed us.

Amen! I'll tell you how those birds got there.....I lost 20 chicks as soon as they were hatched this spring to a pair of black snakes. That's a hard hit, right off the bat and I'd never had that many lost to snakes before.

Then, in September or so, I had been working on the roosting section of my coop, had stripped it and hadn't put netting back on the hoops yet and I had an owl kill one of my birds, but didn't manage to get it out of the coop...think the dog stopped that. Attacked two hens out in the field but the dog foiled that attack, got a cut on his face in that skirmish. Both hens had to be culled, internal injuries were too bad. Several of my younger birds were picked off at dusk as they were still out ranging or in the early morning when it was still kind of dark out...the owl got smart and didn't attempt it in the dog's territory then.

Well, my first thought was to pen up the younger birds~replacement layers and fall meat supply~so I did for a week or so, then started thinking about that and changed my mind. Instead, I prayed about it and decided to trust God, like I always do about free ranging. This was the worst predator loss I had suffered in 40 yrs of free ranging combined and I was starting to feel a little anxious about our meat supply, getting a little mad too...but God soon chided me on that and I gave it over to Him, as I should have from the beginning. He cares for those birds more than I do and He is in control of their lives...if it served His purpose to let them be taken by predators, then I'm content with that. His thoughts are higher than mine.

Well...I let those birds loose and I don't think I lost anymore at that point but I had lost 8-9 birds total in that onslaught.

Then, out of the blue, one of my sisters decided to get rid of her flock, wanted to know if I wanted them...that was sort of strange because she doesn't kill chickens and she knows I do, but she gave them to me anyway. Seventeen birds, varying ages, most of them older, but she did have 5 BA pullets that would mature this fall/winter. Well, BAs are my favorite laying breed and I always have a few in my flocks, but I was down to just one 3 yr old BA hen.

One of her hens died from the move...she was FILLED with cancer and I do mean filled. I've never seen anything like that before. But the rest were harvested except for the 5 BAs and one EE bird that I saved back for my little grandgirl.

Same sister had given me 4 cockerels earlier in the year and my son brought me 3 cockerels he got for free elsewhere and all those were harvested for meat.

So, the good, good Lord gave me replacement meat for the ones I had lost and also replacement layers that will lay better than those that I lost. The best part of that story was that I feed my birds fermented feed, so their meat has a better flavor than the typical yard bird, but it turns out my sis was feeding her flock spent brewers grains, yielding the same effect for the meat. How's that for a twist? God not only gave me replacements for my lost meat, but He also made sure the meat had the same mild, flavorful taste.

He is truly a great and good Father to me!

God is good! The hard part is putting our trust in Him and not in ourselves.