Search results

I bought a 30-lb watermelon from a neighboring farmer's market vendor last week. I have the rinds cut, peeled and soaking in saltwater at home, to be canned tonight. I've made 2 batches in the past, one good, one excellent! I hope this turns out :)

That has saved me endless time over the years! I can crank out 14 jars of diced tomatoes in 1 hour or less without getting the skins off!

Grape jam and diced tomatoes, 20 half pints and 12 quarts.

Last night canned up grape juice from 4 plastic grocery bags. I only got 9 quarts, but also a pitcher of juice and 6 cups juice/pulp to make into jam today.

How about renting it all out to someone who wants to farm? You still own it, but you only need to get liability insurance, make repairs, and not have to see them all empty.

More beans and chopped peppers. Freezer raspberry jam and sauce, too :)

I loved our Saturn (LS?) It was very basic car, very nonluxurious, but it never broke down and consistently got 40 mpg. Actually, DH now has it for the farm car and it's still running 16.5 years after we bought it.

We did a lot of harvesting this weekend: 3 gallons raspberries yesterday I was pulling out 3/4-lb carrots and beets Fri night! DH was digging sweet potatoes up to 4.75 lb!! A man bought that bad boy at my market on Sat and walked around acting like it was a football on his shoulder :) Insanely...

I'd like to learn to quilt, but not until I'm retired.

Oh, yum! My SIL gave us some once and my mouth still waters when I think about it. Truly the best jam I've ever had! 18 pints spaghetti sauce got finished yesterday Today: 21 jars of chocolate raspberry jam 23 jars of canned raspberry jam 16 jars of freezer raspberry jam 8 pints pickled beets...

Emerald--that reminds me! We were doing nonstop watering at our house for 6 weeks straight this summer, so a lot of electric for the well pump. And 2 steady weeks of watering the sweetcorn patch on the farm, another larger electric bill! Made me pretty grouchy when people complained about the...

I do have the fortune to be married to a farmer who has access to tractor generation and a regular gas-powered generator. Fortunately, up here in WI, we rarely (if ever) have power outages of more than a few hours. It would definitely make a difference to me if I faced hurricane-style outages...

oops--sorry to have missed the fact that you already gave birth--congratulations!

Typical has been $40-60 in the wintertime, $80-100 in summer. July was $140 this year, August $150, but they were also insanely hot and we had a walk-in cooler, 2 garage freezers and 1 garage fridge. When it gets super busy (July/Aug), we tend to use the dryer more rather than line drying. And...

Honestly, I just went deep inside myself, focused on breathing, shut everything else out and counted through the pain. I'm sorry I don't have other suggestions. I wouldn't have wanted anyone touching me, and a hot bath did not help.

Wow--that sounds delicious! I need to do pears and apples yet also. Our electric bill was pretty high last month and even higher this month at $150, but I've been using the stove a lot for far more canning than usual for the markets, plus cooking down sauce, which I rarely make. DH also built a...

How's everyone's canning going this year? I'm doing my usual canning and freezing, dehydrating only mushrooms and mint. Canned: jam for sale at market tomatoes salsa pickles dilly beans Frozen: pesto beans fruit (berries) sweet corn freezer jam for our own use peppers Dehydrated: mint mushrooms

Green beans and chopped green peppers.

Spaghetti sauce.

Yesterday canned 8 jars of mustard beans, 16 jars of dilly beans, 12 jars of peach jam, 12 jars of hot pepper jelly and now working on 24 pints of spaghetti sauce, all but the spaghetti sauce for sale at market for $5/jar. Also had U-pick customers come out for tomatoes, beans and raspberries...