Tis the Season...

for canning.  I finished canning the meat from my last grocery order.  Wound up with 19 pints of hamburger, 12 pints of chicken and 6 pints of pork.  I was disappointed in the  quality of the boneless country ribs.  There was way too much fat on them, unlike others I had ordered in the past.  That's the down side of ordering groceries.  Sometimes the quality is less than you would like.  Anyway, I decided to bake the pork and shred it when done.  The fat was easier to remove this way.  Then I stirred in some barbecue sauce and canned it as barbecued pork for sandwiches.  I would rather have worked on the canning when our temperatures weren't in the 90's, but I just don't think, considering our uncertain world, that waiting is an option.

A dozen bell peppers and 20 lbs. of carrots made their way through the dehydrators and are packaged up and on the shelves.

Oldest Son did a Farmer's Market run this morning and showed up with two and a half flats of strawberries and some rhubarb that will turn into strawberry jam, strawberry rhubarb sauce and strawberries in syrup.

There are several Farmer's Markets in our area, but the one we like is in St. Paul.  They have a website that includes a list of the produce and dates when it is available, so we are checking that weekly to make sure we are able to get what we need.  By the end of the season I hope to have everything I need canned, dried and on the shelves.

I haven't had a chance to try out my washer and dryer as yet.  That will just have to wait until preserving the food I have here right now is completed.  It just seems to me that things are sliding downhill a bit faster now.  I am not in panic mode, but I do think it would be foolish let an opportunity go by to add to my food storage.

So I am off to the kitchen to hull some strawberries in preparation for another canning session tomorrow morning.  I think I will take my laptop with me and listen to an audio book while working.  Cleaning berries and a good murder mystery.  What a combination!