Canning time!

Today is tomato canning day. Actually, on our little homestead, many summer days are set aside for food preservation since I delight in serving these foods over the winter. It's like opening a jar of summer! So today I will pick whatever tomatoes are ready and get to work processing them. 

I used to get overwhelmed because I would spend an entire weekend working at it. For the past few tomato seasons I have planted more indeterminate tomato types which spreads my workload out. Determinate tomatoes ripen all at once and OH NO! I have 4,000 tomatoes to can TODAY! By switching to indeterminate types, I'll get a dozen or two tomatoes at a time. It only takes a half hour or so to prepare the tomatoes, if it's done in small batches.

Here's my method (I am not a canning expert. There are plenty of resources available including your state extension office that can take you step by step on the government's approved methods for home canning):
I put a pot of water on to boil loaded with my clean canning jars. I use a large soup pot. (I have a large canning pot, but with this method I usually only have 2-3 quarts going, so why waste all the water and fuel?) I heat a small pan of water with my lids and rings. I heat (to a boil) a tea kettle of water with a pinch of sea salt thrown in (Don't use salt with iodine). I slice up a few garlic cloves, pick a handful of fresh basil and set in small bowls off to the side. If your tomatoes are not very acidic, you will want to add a bit of vinegar to your process, too. I then put a sauce pan of water on to boil. I fill a bowl with ice water and set that in the sink.  I place two empty bowls in front of me: one for the peelings and scraps, one for the quartered tomatoes. Now I'm ready to begin.

I core the tomatoes then slice a small X in the bottom of each one. I sort them according to size. Once the sauce pan of water is boiling, I place two or three tomatoes in the water. It only takes about 30 seconds (or less) and the skin will start to peel back from the X. I remove the tomatoes and plop them in the ice water. Then add two or three more tomatoes to the boiling water. While they are doing their thing, I remove the iced tomatoes, peel and quarter them, and put them in the holding bowl. Repeat and repeat and repeat until I have enough tomatoes to fill my prepared jars. I get a rhythm going, and it all goes pretty fast.

I tidy up my workspace then remove one jar at a time from the water bath. I fill my jar with tomatoes, some basil, garlic, more tomatoes, Lightly pressing them down til it's filled up to about 1/2 inch from the top. Fill with boiling salted water, it doesn't take much. Using a plastic spatula, I remove air bubbles by sliding it around the edges and jostling the tomatoes a bit. Wipe off the lip of the jar with a clean towel, place a lid and a ring, and pop it into the bath. Repeat with remaining jars. Once all the jars are in the bath, I turn up the heat to bring to a boil. Once it boils, let it go for 45 minutes (for quarts, less for pints). Remove to a folded dishtowel on the counter, and listen for the tell tale "ping" of the jars sealing as they cool. If a jar doesn't seal (you can tell by pressing on the center of the lid, if it pops up and down, it didn't seal.) You can retry or just put in the fridge for use within the next few days. 


That's it. There's nothing cozier than pulling out a jar of tomatoes in February. And it makes an easy meal. Just open a jar, let simmer, and add any special ingredients such as balsamic vinegar or some wine, leftover chicken or beef, whatever you want! Toss with some pasta and top with feta cheese...YUM!  Summer in a jar.
 

Raising chickens Part 1

We've been raising chickens for eggs for the past 5 or 6 years, and I love it! It all started with a phone call from our favorite librarian who asked if we'd like to have a free rooster and hen, from another library patron. Sure! We'd been thinking of raising chickens. We packed an enormous box punched full of holes and set off to pick them up. Turned out they were bantams, the miniature dogs of the chicken world. Two pint-sized birds.That enormous box must have seemed so silly to the donors! 

After many questions, we loaded up Bruce and Betty and headed for home. We did this so backwards...where were we going to put them. How would I feed and water them? We stopped at the local farm store and picked up some feed, scratch (what we call chicken crack), and a waterer. At the time we had a dilapidated shed on our property that was going unused. Bruce and Betty quickly claimed their roosting spots and settled in. The place was drafty and I was afraid that unwanted critters would have easy access to a tasty, albeit small, chicken dinner. Time for another building project! Within weeks we dismantled the shed from around our two new pets and built the chicken condo behind our garden plot with the scavenged materials.

Those two birds were so lovely to have around. They had free range of our yard by day, and would return every evening to their home. I was so amazed by that! What? I don't have to herd them in every night? No, they do it themselves. Betty turned out to be a great producer of little pink eggs. And that got us started thinking... hmmmm, this is easy, maybe more?

Betty lived for two years with us. Upon her very sad death, I located a local seller and purchased a handful of birds. I knew NOTHING about buying birds and I got totally duped. This man kept them in rabbit hutches and the first thing we noticed upon getting them home was that they were terrified of the space in the chicken condo. They huddled in the corner on the floor. They didn't know how to roost! Bruce soon took over and got most of them to roost, or at least sit in a nesting box. But one little chickie was so enormously fat, she couldn't get up there. It was then I noticed that this bird had a damaged wing. Blanche, as we named her, would come and sit on my feet as soon as I entered the chicken shed. I had quite a tender spot for her. She didn't last long though. She would sit out in the chicken run and sun herself which made for easy pickings by some predator. Ok, now I know why weak birds must be culled. (Nice way of saying "gotten rid of").

Realizing there was something "wrong" about these chickens, I did more research. How do you know when a chicken is old? Well, it turns out that there are a number of ways to check. A simple method is to check the coloring and condition of their wattles (the hanging things under their chins), combs (the things sticking up on their heads), and legs. Easy enough. Hmmm, these chickens had really gnarly feet and legs that were pale yellowish grey. I compared to Bruce's, whose legs were clean, smooth, and a nice slate grey. The girl's wattles were almost colorless, as were their combs (Comb and wattle shape differs with each breed, so that didn't mean anything.). Yep, they were old ladies and just to prove it, as summer progressed one by one they died off;  just curled up and died wherever they happened to be in the yard. Sigh. Now I know how to tell young, healthy birds from old lady birds. 

Time to buy more girls. 

The oldest chicken on our homestead. She's four now and has just this summer stopped laying every day.

DIY

Being newbie homesteaders, we do a lot of DIY projects around here. House painting, building projects, landscaping, and this week: working DH's 1996 Honda. It just stopped running. When we were first married, he really didn't know much about cars, but he's learned so much over the years. Still, this was a frustrating process for him. He changed out several parts, each day trying to eliminate one more possibility, starting with fuel and ending with electricity. And I learned how to change spark plugs and wires! It turned out to be that the timing belt was bad. This morning we had it towed to our mechanic to assess any engine damage. Oh, the joys of having an old car.

That being said, we try to live by the adage,"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." We try to keep the cars going along. We do all our own work on the house, including some electrical work. (That always amazes me; I'm afraid of electricity.) We salvage materials to use in other projects. For instance, our original chicken house (the chicken condo) was built with 90% salvaged materials from a 1930's shed that was falling down.  He even put a very simple water collection system on the back for me.

Currently, we're working on a second chicken shed. We started a new flock of chickens this year, and I didn't want the hassle of trying to integrate my old ladies into the new flock. They deserve a nice peaceful old age. Plus, my old ladies have free range of the entire yard. I thought it might be a bit icky to have the entire flock traipsing around the yard. Too many "deposits." So, my dear is building a new shed, in the goat yard.

 

I guess my point is even if you don't have any experience with something, you can learn to do it just by, well, doing it. The worst that will happen is that you might have to start over. We learned quite a bit building this structure, but when you're working with scrap, you do the best you can. I love living on our little homestead!