Friday FarmGirls@Heart...Canning the Produce, and I Need Your Opinions!

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl. It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done. It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work. It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment." 
~Rene Groom

To join the Fun of Friday FarmGirls@Heart, please include a link to my blog in your post, or grab one of my FFG buttons for your posts and to place in your sidebar! You can grab code HERE.

This has been a busy, busy week in my home! Perhaps your home is similar, if you:

• Started your homeschool year (we began Monday, 8/23), and spent this first week working out the kinks.
• Got a call from a dear friend notifying you that...surprise!...he's flying up from FL (we live in IL) to take a training class from Bryan, to learn how to start his own business...and he'll arrive in 4 days!
• Harvested (with the help of your dear friend, mine is Christine!) MORE GREEN BEANS!!! (You now have 4 or 5 pounds of the tasty critters!)
• Found the Red Haven Peaches from Michigan's Gunderson Orchards irresistable, so you bought a 1/2 bushel of them, and spread them out all over your kitchen table to ripen for 1 or 2 more days.
• Took your arthritic, 11 y.o. labrador retriever to the kennel so they could bathe her (because you are too arthritic yourself to wrestle a resistant 90 pound dog through a bath)...she's so soft now!
• Created, printed, and cut 300 flyers with coupons for your son's business, so you/he can hand them out to everyone at the Farmers Market on Saturday since it's his LAST MARKET DAY for this season (celebrate!!!) and you want them to keep coming to the home workshop for sharpening service.
• Made time to spend an evening visiting at a dear friend's home...the BEST!  :-)

I had a canning disaster last night...after everyone went to bed, I was feeling energetic still, so I decided to get in 7 quarts of peaches, raw packed in lite syrup. My kitchen was a little disorganized (a bad omen), and I found myself working to set up while I was blanching peaches. But I had the dishwasher started and the water-bath canner filled and heating. They both completed their tasks at the same time, and right on time! But I was still blanching and peeling/pitting/scraping/quartering peaches. I decided to pack what I had while I continued the process. My syrup was ready and hot, so I decided to start ladling it over my peaches that were packed to help hold their color.

BIG MISTAKE.

By the time I'd finished packing my 5th quart of lovelies, and ladled in the syrup, the first 2 jars had cooled a bit. But it was almost 1:00am, and I wasn't thinking too clearly. Into the boiling canner water they went...one, two, three, four...

Yay! Time to put in the final quart for the evening, then I could put my feet up for 30 or 40 minutes and watch TV! I lowered it into the center holding spot...

POP!!! Wow, what was that? Did a lid grab hold and seal already? Hmmm...odd...that can't be right...

I lifted the jar up out of the water...it was a whole lot lighter. That's when I realized what had happened...the bottom of the jar had broken clean off, and the peaches, along with all the syrup, were floating in the boiling water. The broken glass had settled to the bottom of the canner.

How fun is that at one o'clock in the morning??? I thought about just letting it continue to process, but then I remembered that it was processing in sugar syrup, and the sticky mess that I envisioned on the jars, not to mention the possibility that they may not seal because of it, changed my mind. I pulled out the other four quarts, rinsed them off, then put them in my refrigerator for the night.

Here's where I want to ask your opinion...should I:

• Just freeze those 4 jars of peaches? (They were prepared as raw pack in light syrup according to the Ball Blue Book of Canning; I did NOT prep them the way they say to for freezing.)
• Dump them into a colander, rinse them well, re-treat them to prevent darkening (I just use lemon juice), pack in clean jars, make fresh sugar syrup, and then try again, this time making sure everything is nice and hot when it goes into the canner? (This is my inclination...)
• Dump them into a colander, rinse them well, then make something else out of them? (I already have anough pie filling for 3 peach-blueberry pies...one of my favs!)

Here's what I successfully accomplished in the world of food preservation:

Chopped Tomatoes

Chow Chow Relish; Salsa

I also have the 3 quarts of frozen peach-blueberry pie filling and a few pounds of blanched, beautiful green beans all packed up and in the freezer...but my camera battery quit before I could snap a photo of them. I'll add these in just a bit.

What are you up to? Join me for this week's Friday FarmGirls@Heart!


Did you:

♥Grow it yourself?

♥Make it in your kitchen using REAL FOOD (not processed food product)?

♥Make it with your own two hands instead of buying it at ***-Mart?

♥Do something with your way of life that's connected you back to this beautiful green earth (what's left of it, anyway!) that God has given us?

If so, you've got the Heart of a FarmGirl, whether you live in the country,

the city, or the suburbs!

Share your doings in a post today, and link it here to join Friday FarmGirls@Heart! 

Here's how to join the fun:

1) Grab an FFG (Friday FarmGirls) Button for your blog and post it in your sidebar so others can join with you. I have 6 styles you can choose from, and you can get code HERE.

2) Write your post and publish it on Friday...be sure to put your FFG Button at the top of your post, and link it to my blog ( http://www.illinoislori.blogspot.com/ ) so your friends will know where to come to join in each week.

3) Add your name and the URL of your post to the "Mister Linky" provided at the end of my post each week.

4) Leave me a comment, and visit the blogs of the other participants listed and leave them comments as well. If you visit and leave comments, you'll be visited and receive comments...it's as simple as that!

Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Tuesday Project Party...Did That, Did That, Did That, Yup!

Get out your "to-do" list, roll up your sleeves,
share the ongoing fruits of your labor, and encourage others along the way!
Click HERE to get started!

Whew, what a week it's been! Can I just say that I am glad it's over...I've been nothing short of exhausted. Slowly, slowly, the mountain of tasks is being chipped away. The extra laundry I've had this summer (filthy dirty farm-clothes) has come to an end as Bryan's summer internship is now over. So now it's just the normal dirty laundry pile! (His clothing for the farm was also historic costuming since it's a living history museum...he only had 2 outfits good in the hot humid weather, and he worked 4 days/week, so I was washing them over and over.) Anyway, it was a small thing, but a thing nonetheless, and it's now off of my list!

I got caught up on my work for my parents (financial stuff...it's been a huge learning curve to manage their accounts, and I think I finally understand all this stuff!), and will have this month's bills paid, premiums paid, taxes paid, license plate stickers renewed and paid, required distributions made, etc., by tomorrow afternoon. I have a filing cabinet system completed now for their things, and it is already 3/4 full! Now that I have a "big picture" of what their needs are, and it makes sense to me, I think it will be easier for me to manage.

Another HUGE project that's been looming large for the entire summer has finally come...and gone. My youngest son (Nathan) really knuckled down this last week to finish off his essays for his college applications. He's been thinking about them, and we've been talking about them for a while now...writing is not his favorite thing to do, even though he's good at it, and getting him to get started is like pulling teeth. So I've been cheerleading as well as pushing him hard to do it. I've always found that "interviewing" him seems to work to get his "creative thinking" side awake. When he sits down at the computer with a blank page staring at him, he just can't get started. Research papers or technical papers are easy for him...it's the creative, "touchy-feeley" kind of stuff that shuts him down, LOL! So I took him out for lunch, and I just asked him question after question about his goals, his vision, the challenges he's faced and how he feels about them...all while munching on chips and salsa. :-)   I think it helped him to start gathering his thoughts, and when we got home, he began to build his essays. He did a great job, I think, and I'm so proud of him! I proof-read it for spelling and grammar errors, and then took it to Christine (who is amazing at that sort of stuff!) for a second check-over...she found 2 or 3 more errors that Nathan and I had both missed (of course!).  Then it was on to figure out the rest of the Common Application, which he was able to send to several schools he's interested in. Gosh, this was a lot easier when I went to college! Especially for a homeschool high school, where I function as "counselor" and have to do all kinds of stuff to register myself as such, to get an ID and password for uploading transcripts and other documents they want...ay yay yay. Anyway, two applications are now in, and the third (and most important so far) will go in tomorrow, Lord willing! Then he'll do two more for schools that don't use the Common App. I somehow think those will be easier. The Common App. had some kinks in it, and seemed a bit confusing on our end. But Nathan got it done, and hopefully he did everything correctly!

Did I mention that college classes and our homeschool high school started yesterday (Monday)? I was ready for all of it! Everything went smoothly, praise the Lord! Nathan is in his final year of high school...Bryan is in his final year of college...and I am in my final year of homeschooling. Life is hard, but God is good. I can hardly believe we've come this far.  :-)

Now for my domestic side...

In the kitchen I was finally able to get my Chow Chow relish made and then canned! I used the cabbage that I grew, plus my own onions and one of my red peppers! So much fun! So much work for 5 pints of relish, but I know that I will enjoy it so much this fall and winter (if it lasts that long)! I will post photos of my canning projects this Friday at Friday FarmGirls@Heart. I am too tired tonight!

Last week I posted that all of my napkins were cut out. I'm not much farther along on that project, but I did get the hems ironed on a couple of them! Knowing that there are 16 of them to be pressed and pinned is a little daunting. I'll just do a couple each day, in between other tasks, and eventually they'll be done. I can't wait to post those photos!

My projects right now are not very big nor impressive...but I feel like there's a thousand of them. I am overwhelmed, often. So, I delight and give thanks to God for each little victory over each little thing on my long, long list. I'm so glad for friends who are joining up with me on Tuesdays to share their projects, and hope that more will come alongside!

HOW TO JOIN: I'm looking forward to reading what you've been up to! Grap a TPP button for your blog, link your post back to my blog (http://www.illinoislori.blogspot.com/), and complete the Mister Linky below so we can all visit! Your post can be a description of what you plan to work on in the coming week, so don't feel you have to have a project completed in order to join. This meme is about the process as well as the finished product!

Visit other participants, and leave comments of encouragement...I'll do the same for you!



Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Friday FarmGirls@Heart...Canopies and Great Neighbors

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl. It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done. It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work. It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment." 
~Rene Groom

To join the Fun of Friday FarmGirls@Heart, please include a link to my blog in your post, or grab one of my FFG buttons for your posts and to place in your sidebar! You can grab code HERE.

Today I thought I'd share some photos of our wonderful "neighbors" at the farmers market where Bryan and I set up our sharpening shop each Saturday. A couple of years ago when we were there, business was great but some of the "neighbors" were incredibly...well...selfish and mean. Others were kind and generous beyond measure...but their kindness was equalled by the others' meanness.

This year, we have wonderful neighbors all around! What a blessing that has been during this hot and humid summer, working outside. When folks are kind and friendly in that kind of situation, they're just kind and friendly, hands down! I thank God for each one of them...it really makes the summer so much nicer!

First, here's Bryan at our booth:

Our next door neighbor, Bonnie (this is Bonnie's hubby, who comes out every morning to do the heavy set-up for her...what a guy!):

Our next door neighbor on the other side (blanking on his name right now...grrrr! I'll fill it in tomorrow after I get back, LOL!), who sells delicious sweet corn:

Our early-season next door neighbors (before the sweet corn was in season), purveyors of THE best Michigan blueberries...oh my goodness, I have 20 pounds of their berries in my freezer! They are FANTASTIC!!!

Across the aisle is someone who has now become a friend! Homeschooling mom, Michelle, and her adorable daughter (the one behind the table, blowing bubbles) are two of the "Three Cowgirls" below:

Finally, across the aisle from us and next to Three Cowgirls are the lovely ladies who kept us energized and hydrated with the most delicious real lemonade (lemonade "shake-ups," county fair style!) and granola snacks:

I thank God for each one of these market neighbors...it really makes the summer so much nicer! Bryan has learned great life-lessons here. Between the many, many vendors and the hundreds (thousands) of customers that come to this market each week, we've seen all kinds, listened to all kinds, talked to all kinds. You realize pretty quickly what "kind" you want to be in this world!
What are you up to? Join me for this week's Friday FarmGirls@Heart!


Did you:

♥Grow it yourself?

♥Make it in your kitchen using REAL FOOD (not processed food product)?

♥Make it with your own two hands instead of buying it at ***-Mart?

♥Do something with your way of life that's connected you back to this beautiful green earth (what's left of it, anyway!) that God has given us?

If so, you've got the Heart of a FarmGirl, whether you live in the country,

the city, or the suburbs!

Share your doings in a post today, and link it here to join Friday FarmGirls@Heart! 

Here's how to join the fun:

1) Grab an FFG (Friday FarmGirls) Button for your blog and post it in your sidebar so others can join with you. I have 6 styles you can choose from, and you can get code HERE.

2) Write your post and publish it on Friday...be sure to put your FFG Button at the top of your post, and link it to my blog ( http://www.illinoislori.blogspot.com/ ) so your friends will know where to come to join in each week.

3) Add your name and the URL of your post to the "Mister Linky" provided at the end of my post each week.

4) Leave me a comment, and visit the blogs of the other participants listed and leave them comments as well. If you visit and leave comments, you'll be visited and receive comments...it's as simple as that!

Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Tea Talk with Ruth...8/18/11

Click the graphic above to join me and our lovely hostess, Ruth,
for Tea Talk each Thursday!

I'm having...Green Mountain's "Island Coconut" coffee (fair trade certified!) in my white everyday mug.

I'm feeling...physically tired but my mind feels awake, and I'm ready to get back to making and canning my chow chow relish today so I can post it tomorrow for my Friday FarmGirls@Heart meme!

On my mind...still decluttering my house and my life. Today while my relish is processing in the water bath canner, I need to pay bills for my parents. I feel like I just did it last week! How time is flying. We begin our homeschool and college classes on Monday...summer vacation comes to its end. Selah.

"...Lead a quiet life...and work with your hands"
(I Thessalonians 4:11 NASB)
(My theme verse for August)

 

My silly dog, who always likes to come to Tea Talk.

Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Tuesday Project Party...Seeing Red and Processing It, Too!

Get out your "to-do" list, roll up your sleeves,
share the ongoing fruits of your labor, and encourage others along the way!
Click HERE to get started!

My fabric napkin squares are all cut - 16 of them - now they just have to be hemmed. Maybe they'll get done in the next few days? I hope so!

My big "sell-off" project noted in last week's TPP post has not happened. It remains a HUGE project looming over my life, so it clutters my mind, and my shelves, LOL!

I did get a couple of things out to my email list about our archery equipment being for sale (it is competitive target archery stuff, not hunting equipment), but no nibbles yet.

That said, I am not all downcast! I DID accomplish something that really got my engines kick-started into productivity...

Nothing like perfectly ripe and ready tomatoes to give a gal a deadline! I have another batch that was ready this past weekend, but a 50th anniversary celebration (for my pastor and his wife), that was held at our church that I wanted to prepare extra food for, plus my own parents' 57th anniversary on the very same day, in honor of which I gave a little dinner party, made it impossible for me to process that other batch of beautiful tomatoes. So I took Mary's advice, and just tossed them, washed and whole, into the freezer!

Mary, if you're reading this...thank you! Now to recall what to do when I'm ready to process this batch...as they thaw, the skins should slip off easily. Then I can get them in jars and can them...I think??? Anyone done this???

My projects right now are not very big nor impressive...but I feel like there's a thousand of them. I am overwhelmed, often. So, I delight and give thanks to God for each little victory over each little thing on my long, long list. I'm so glad for friends who are joining up with me on Tuesdays to share their projects, and hope that more will come alongside!

HOW TO JOIN: I'm looking forward to reading what you've been up to! Grap a TPP button for your blog, link your post back to my blog (http://www.illinoislori.blogspot.com/), and complete the Mister Linky below so we can all visit! Your post can be a description of what you plan to work on in the coming week, so don't feel you have to have a project completed in order to join. This meme is about the process as well as the finished product!

Visit other participants, and leave comments of encouragement...I'll do the same for you!




Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

My Journey to Honest Food...READ THE LABEL, Buyers Beware

If you're not yet a compulsive label-reader at the grocery store, you might want to get started, and SOON. This in from Natural News (link to full article at end of this intro):

(NaturalNews) Leave it to Monsanto to take a good thing and corrupt it for financial gain. According to a recent report in Forbes, the multinational biotechnology-slash-agriculture-manipulating monolith has developed a new genetically-modified (GM) soybean that artificially produces stearidonic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid -- and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve the "frankenbean" sometime this year.

Monsanto appears to be introducing the omega-3 enhanced GM soybean oil, called Soymega or "stearidonic acid soybean oil" (SDA oil), at a craftily strategic time when much of the world is still reeling from the Fukushima Daiichi mega-disaster, which left ocean waters ridden with radioactive isotopes. And since omega-3s just happen to be most readily found in fatty ocean fish, the perpetual fear over radioactive and other poisons that may be lurking in such fish could drive many to embrace Monsanto's fake fish oil instead.

According to an FDA letter responding to Monsanto's request to have SDA oil approved for use as a food additive and acknowledged as being "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), the FDA noted that Monsanto intends to use its omega-3-enhanced oil in a variety of food applications. These include baked goods, breakfast cereals, fish products, frozen dairy desserts, cheeses, grains and pastas, gravies, nuts, poultry, fruit juices, processed vegetable products, and soups -- yes, basically every processed food product in existence.

Monsanto created its GM soybean oil by injecting two specific enzymes into soybean genes. One came from Primula juliae, a type of flower, and the other from Neurospora crass, a type of red mold that grows on bread. As a result, the beans produce SDA oil and gamma-linolenic acid, two compounds not normally found in soybeans...

Read the rest of the article by clicking the link:
Monsanto preys on popularity of omega-3s by developing GMO soybean that produces fake fish oil
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033305_GMO_soybeans_fish_oil.html#ixzz1UwsYrtQR



Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Friday FarmGirls@Heart...The Harvest Begins!

"There is rhythm to being a farmgirl. It is the rhythm of working hard when there is work to be done. It is the rhythm of finding joy in the "doing" of the work. It is also the rhythm of slowing down to enjoy each moment." 
~Rene Groom

To join the Fun of Friday FarmGirls@Heart, please include a link to my blog in your post, or grab one of my FFG buttons for your posts and to place in your sidebar! You can grab code HERE.

The fruits are beginning to show themselves...fruits of a small amount of labor on my part (Bryan helped create the raised bed at Christine's house, along with her boys)...I tucked in a few plants that I bought from my friend, Becki, who raises them from seed...and then I planted a few seeds. I weeded a couple of times...but truly, it's amazing what God has created!

Last bits of red leaf lettuce...I'll be replanting a fall crop this week. 

Still getting lovely hibiscus blooms!

Of course, it's not all perfect...this isn't the Garden of Eden, you know, and we are under a curse...

Japanese beetles on basil flowers...they've eated my roses and some of the basil leaves, too. Yuck.

Today I'll be making something with my tomatoes, and likely freezing it. Or, if I really get crazy, I'll process them into tomato chunks! But my time is limited today, so I'm thinking marinara sauce for the freezer. Easier, less brain work!

What are you up to?


Did you:

♥Grow it yourself?

♥Make it in your kitchen using REAL FOOD (not processed food product)?

♥Make it with your own two hands instead of buying it at ***-Mart?

♥Do something with your way of life that's connected you back to this beautiful green earth (what's left of it, anyway!) that God has given us?

If so, you've got the Heart of a FarmGirl, whether you live in the country,

the city, or the suburbs!

Share your doings in a post today, and link it here to join Friday FarmGirls@Heart! 

Here's how to join the fun:

1) Grab an FFG (Friday FarmGirls) Button for your blog and post it in your sidebar so others can join with you. I have 6 styles you can choose from, and you can get code HERE.

2) Write your post and publish it on Friday...be sure to put your FFG Button at the top of your post, and link it to my blog ( http://www.illinoislori.blogspot.com/ ) so your friends will know where to come to join in each week.

3) Add your name and the URL of your post to the "Mister Linky" provided at the end of my post each week.

4) Leave me a comment, and visit the blogs of the other participants listed and leave them comments as well. If you visit and leave comments, you'll be visited and receive comments...it's as simple as that!

Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe

Thursday Tea Talk with Ruth...8/11/11

Click the graphic above to join me and our lovely hostess, Ruth,
for Tea Talk each Thursday!

I'm having..."Jamaica Me Crazy" coffee (coconut, mostly!) in my white everyday mug.

I'm feeling...glad that the carpet cleaners are here now, and we got all the prep-work done (moving furniture, getting the dog to the kennel for the night, etc). They are also cleaning/touching up the hardwood floors. My home looks empty...I LIKE IT!
On my mind...still decluttering my house and my life.

"...Lead a quiet life...and work with your hands"
(I Thessalonians 4:11 NASB)
(My theme verse for August)

 

My silly dog, who always likes to come to Tea Talk.

Leave a note...I love to hear from you!
Subscribe via email for blog updates: CLICK HERE to subscribe