Unhappy Pooch

Jessie Jane is not happy.

She is learning that just because it is my dinnertime, that doesn't mean that it is her dinnertime.  I do not share.  At least, I do not share spaghetti with my dog.  Not unless I want to spend time in the not too distant future cleaning my rug, as spaghetti doesn't settle well on Jessie's stomach.

I really didn't mind so much the standing and staring at me as I ate.  I didn't even mind the way her little eyes followed every movement of my fork.  I could live with that.

But when she started barking at me to cuss me out for not giving her part of my meal, it was time to draw the line in the sand.

I now eat my dinner in peace.

Jessie now spends my dinnertime in her kennel.

Grumbling.  And pouting.

Oh well!

Simple Happiness

One of the advantages of living a simple lifestyle is that it takes very little to make me happy.  My happiness doesn't come from the amount of money I have or the stuff I own.  It comes from the little things.

Like today.  While at the grocery store I checked the price of hamburger.  The kind I usually buy was $2.59 a pound.  I put a 5 lb. package in my cart.  About 20 minutes later I was back at the meat counter looking for something I had forgotten, and found that the hamburger had been reduced to $1.29 a pound.  Today was the "Sell By" date.  So this time I put 30 lbs into my cart.

After I got home, I browned it all and packed part of it into pint jars.  The third canner load is processing as I write.  Will finish canning the rest tomorrow morning.  I should wind up with at least 35 pints of hamburger.  That amounts to close to 70 meals for me, as I can generally get two meals out of one pint jar.

Yep.....it's the little things.

By the way.....if anyone is interested in canning hamburger, I have tried a couple of different methods.  The first hamburger I canned, I browned the meat, packed it into jars, added broth and canned it according to the directions for ground beef.  When I tried a jar of that hamburger, I wasn't at all happy with it.  It turned out with sort of the taste and consistency of dog food.  Which is what I will use that batch for.

Then I read a post by Jackie Clay on the Backwoods Home blog.  She is a canning goddess and many of the methods and recipes I use successfully come from her blog.  (The link is in the sidebar.)  She said that the method she uses for hamburger is the same process I used, except she doesn't add any liquid to the jars.  I tried it and it worked like a charm.  The hamburger turns out just like it was cooked fresh.

Another of those simple things that make me happy.

Back From Blogging Break

I have taken a bit of a break from blogging.  This fall I had fruit and produce coming at me from all directions.  It seemed that I no sooner was done with one batch when another would appear.

I canned ten crates of peaches and eight of pears.  There were two batches of tomatoes, 150 lbs in each batch.  Then there was 200 lbs of potatoes and 30 lbs of carrots, not to mention a big box of cranberries and some huge cabbages and a dozen big green peppers.  Oh, and don't forget the apples.....at least 40 lbs of them.  God bless Duane who made a couple of extra trips with the fruit for me and both Duane and Becky for the trips to the Farmer's Market.  And most of all for huffing all of it up the stairs for me.  To say nothing of the cases of canning jars.  I never would have been able to do all of this had they not helped me so much.

I lost track after a while of how many jars of fruit and produce I got out of all of that.  But I made peach and pear sauce and a little peach jam, about a dozen jars of canned cabbage, many quarts of potatoes and carrots combined, and many more jars of cubed potatoes.  There are jars of pasta sauce, pizza sauce and tomatoes with green peppers and onions and more of tomato juice.  And jars of homemade vegetable soup.

I had wanted to try making cranberry juice, so I did that this year and it turned out great.  I think I had over 50 jars of juice.  Before I drank some of it! There was lots of pulp left after making the juice, so I ran that through my food mill and added an equal amount of cooked apples and some sugar to sweeten it a little.  Made really good cranberry applesauce.

I dehydrated about two quarts of chopped cranberries to use in cranberry bread and muffins, and dried more apples.  I also dried some of the cabbage as it works really well in soup.  And dried cranberries and apple peels, ground into a powder, make a good, soothing tea.

I still have lots of tomatoes that have been peeled and diced, in my freezer.  Some of that will be made into chili to can and the rest used for pasta sauce and tomato juice.

So now I just need to concentrate on canning meat.  I have been hearing rumors that prices may go down some, so I hope to get some good sale buys.  I don't cook big meals the way I did when my family was home.  Now that I live alone, I really like being able to open a jar or two and have a good meal.

I realize that some in my family think that I go way overboard on the canning and dehydrating.  But then I watched news stories last week about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and saw the pictures of people standing in line for food and heard the stories of grocery stores either stripped bare or cash registers not working due to the lack of electricity.  And the pictures of people digging in dumpsters looking for food.  Now, here in the upper Midwest we don't get hurricanes.  What we get are straight line wind storms, rain storms with lots of thunder and lightning, tornadoes and blizzards, all of which can knock out electric service.

If a tornado takes the building I live in, then I am out of luck.  But if not, I am ready.  Nobody in my family will have to stand in line and beg for food or go dumpster diving in order to eat.  That is a comfort to me, gives me peace of mind and is well worth all of the work that goes into preparing and canning food.

And then I took a week and pretty much did nothing.  Life is good.

Home Canned Tomatoes

When I told my youngest son that I was going to buy tomatoes to can at the Farmer's Market, he said that his tomato plants were producing more fruit than he knew what to do with, and offered to can some for me.  And because I am not a completely stupid woman, I readily agreed.

Today David showed up at my door with 20 quart jars of canned tomatoes and four quart jars of homemade pasta sauce.  I am impressed.  They really look good.  I couldn't wait to try the pasta sauce, so I had spaghetti for supper.  I called him later and told him that the sauce tasted just like good homemade pasta sauce should taste.  It really was a treat for me.  I would have taken a picture, but the spaghetti just didn't last long enough.  Because the sauce was canned in quart jars, there is enough left for a good kettle of goulash for supper tomorrow night.

And there was a bonus.  It seems that Boston was in the garden picking cherry tomatoes, and sent two ice cream pails full for me.  Thank you, Boston.  I cut most of them in half and filled four dehydrator trays.  The rest, a good-sized bowl full, are all mine, for snacking.  They taste so good.  I sent some quarts of peaches that I had canned a few weeks ago, home with David.  I had promised Boston that I would trade peaches for tomatoes.  I think that I got the better of that trade!

Just a Cat

Some would say that she was just a cat.  And maybe to some, that would be true.  But she was much more to me.

She was the cat who had to be in charge and always, always be first in everything.  First to eat when the food dish was filled each morning.  First to use the clean litter box, whether she really needed to or not.  First to jump up on my bed at night to be petted and have her ears scratched and belly rubbed.

She was the one cat, out of my three, who claimed my lap if I sat in my recliner.  She was the one who would nudge the others out of the way because, after all, it was her right as top cat to have my undivided attention.  And if she didn't get it, I got a head bump to remind me of my duties to her.

She had a need to help me, whether I needed her help or not.  If I cleaned out a cupboard, she was there to inspect it to make sure it was done right.  She spent countless hours laying on top of the chest freezer in my kitchen, supervising whatever I was doing.  She was the only one who didn't run and hide when the vacuum cleaner came out.  She was fearless.

So when she became so ill that there was no hope for her, a decision had to be made.  I didn't want to make that decision, but neither could I stand having her suffer.  When she could no longer eat and showed no interest in what was going on around her, it was time.

Kiley was a good old cat.  She was my buddy.  While she lived with me, she was a happy, contented cat, in all her queenly glory.  She was affectionate and she made me laugh...out loud.  I will miss her.

Farming Genes

I wonder if farming genes are passed from one generation to the next.  My children come from farming ancestors on both sides of their family, and it seems that my grandchildren are really enjoying the process of planting a garden, taking care of it over the summer and most recently, harvesting all sorts of good things to eat.

Their Dad says that his little garden is a long way from the kind of farming that his father and grandfather did, but I think that it doesn't matter if the land is measured in acres or square feet.  The love of working the soil and watching plants grow and the satisfaction of a good harvest is the same.

And it does this old heart good to see these values and traditions being passed on to yet another generation.

Another Phone Call

Got another one of those phone calls I love so much.  Boston called me a little before supper time to tell me to check my email.  They had sent me another picture!

Boston said that she had been in the garden picking vegetables.  They have tomatoes growing along a little fenced in area that is a run for Charlie the Beagle, and she said that she had to go to the other side of the fence to get some of the tomatoes.  It seems that the vines had grown through the fence.  Boston said that she and her Dad were going to can some pickles this evening.  I'm not sure what they are going to do with all those beautiful tomatoes.  She said there are lots and lots more waiting to turn red.

Boston also told me that there were some more cherry tomatoes with my name on them.  I asked her if she would like to make a trade.  Duane had brought me ten cases of peaches and I spent today and will spend the next couple of days canning them.  Am thinking about some peach jam and peach butter as well.  I have been canning in half pint jars for Duane, as he likes that size to take to work.  And pint size jars of peaches make a couple of meals for me.  So I told Boston that if I could have some more cherry tomatoes, I would can up some peaches in quart jars so there would be enough for her family, and I would trade the peaches for the tomatoes.  She thought that sounded like a pretty good trade.  It is, too.  The peaches are delicious!

Boston said that her Dad thought it might be good for her to spend a day with me and learn to can things like peaches or jam.  I thought that was a pretty good idea .  My mother taught me.....her mother taught her.  I like the idea of passing along those skills to another generation.