If it can go wrong, it will !!

Well it's been one thing after another today here on the Johnson Family Farm. I had hoped to start work on the milking stand today but the rain kept me from that one. Ok, I'll go down to the clubhouse to work on some renewable energy projects that I have had in mind for some time now. Walked in the door to find that the chimney was leaking like crazy, water all over the floor and all. Ok, I'll work on that and get it fixed. After climbing the ladder in the pouring rain I finally got the pipe sealed off pretty good. Or so I thought. Went back inside and got a fire started in the wood stove. After a few minutes I began to hear drip, drip, drip. Once the stove pipe had heated up it must have melted the sealer a little and began to let more water in. At this point I'm out of sealer. I put a pot near the stove to catch the water and let the fire die down some. Nothing else I can do at this point, I'm not going back to town to get more sealer today. I had to leave the farm 3 days in a row and that's about it for me for a while. I'm a home body to the 10th power.

I did check to see what I had available to me for my off grid projects and was pleased with what I had. 2 cordless drill motors that will work as 12 volt DC generators. 1 24 volt permanent magnet motor from an old electric scooter that will act as a DC generator also. 1 small solar panel that I took of off a solar fence charger that works as well. I hooked up the new volt meter to each of the cordless drill motors and gave each a spin. Each showed voltage while being spun. Same with the Scooter motor. Hooked the leads to the solar panel and even with it raining like crazy outside and me being inside with just the light from the door window the meter read 8.2 volts. I have some goodies to play with for sure. Now just decide how to turn the motors, wind turbine or hydro (homade of course). I do have 2 12 volt rechargeable batteries from the scooter that are in working order. I gave them a full charge here in the house with the adapter that came with them. Rather than use an inverter to change this 12 dc power to 120 ac power, I want to have a complete 12 volt dc system. You can get some nice lights that run off of 12 dc and many other useful things too. Still looking into all that. At least I got some idea of what I have and what can be done with it. The first thing that has went right today, I'm feeling better now.

I made a big pot of chicken vegetable soup on Monday. Today we had left overs and that was about all the soup that we wanted for a while. I have been having canning withdraws for weeks now so I thought I would can what we had left. Got my jars out and cleaned and put them in the oven at 220 degrees to keep them good and hot. Got my caner out and noticed that the dial gauge was reading 11lbs. Wait, that's not right, it should be on zero. I gave it a shake or two, smacked it against my hand a few times and then it was back to zero. I'll still keep a watchful eye on the caner just to make sure. After I put the hot soup in the hot jars and place the lids on I put the jars in the caner. Let it steam for 10 minutes and then put the weight on. Everything seems to be ok. After about 5 minutes the dial was on 5 lbs. mmmmmm. Should be a little more than that by now I though, I'll keep watching. After 2 or 3 minutes more the weight began to rock, this is one of the many safety features on this caner. The thing is that is doesn't begin to rock until the caner is up to 15 lbs. and my gauge is reading about 6lbs at this time. Oh well, turn the burner off and set the caner to the side to cool. Once the jars cool I'll put them in the fridge where they will keep for a week or 2 no problem. I have read somewhere that the County Extension office will check your caner gauge and recalibrate it if need be. I'll have to look into that and see.

Well, if it could go wrong today, it did. But on the bright side, I'm warm, I'm dry and my belly is full. I'll make it 'til bedtime. Tomorrows another day, a better one I hope.

Wish this crop would have done better

If only I could grow more of this crop things would be a little eaiser around here. We use a lot of this and there never seems to be much left over to can, but every little bit helps. To can this crop, fill jars with product, no need to leave an inch head space on this one. The more you can get in there the better. No boiling water bath or pressure canner needed. Dig a hole in the ground and bury, be sure to mark the spot.

Just kidding, I would never part with my mason jars. haha!! That's what coffee cans are for.

Canning "Survival Chili"

Well I made a big batch of my World Famous Chili today and I canned what was left over. We love chili and was wondering if we could can it at home, Hormel does it so, I thought we should be able to also. After a little research over at Jackie Clay's Blog I found out how to can my own at home. We ate all the chili that we wanted and still had 5 qts. left to can. This will provide easy meals that you just heat and eat, that's my kind of cooking. I much rather can foods than freeze them because ya just never when the electric my be off and you loose all the stuff in the freezer that you can't eat up pretty quick. Plus this is good Survival food. Throw a quart in your 72 hour bag as you head out the door and you have a good meal that's easy to prepare. I guess I may have to start calling it "Survival Chili". In an power outage one can heat it up on your woodstove, you do have one don't you? If not think about it getting one soon, the grid is and will be even more unpredictable in the future (Near Future)

Here's the question that one of Jackie's readers ask:

Canning chili with beans

I was wondering if I am able to pressure cook can chili with beans. I am only able to find recipes without beans.

Yes, you may home can chili with beans. I do it nearly every year, which gives us convenient, instant meals without the chemicals included in store-bought chili. Besides, mine tastes like chili, not some flavorless goopy paste.
Make up a big batch of your favorite chili, then ladle the hot chili into quart jars to within an inch of the top of the jar. Remove any air bubbles with a wooden spoon or spatula.
Process the chili in a pressure canner only, at 10 pounds pressure for 90 minutes. If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning manual for instructions on increasing the pressure to correspond with your altitude. — Jackie

2 qts. filled and ready for the canner. We canned 5 qts. in all.

Guess what I've been doing ?? haha!!

Just can't seem to quit making apple butter.

Getting jars filled and ready. 6 soldiers ready for battle.

I guess I better get to cracking those Walnuts and Hickory nuts.

Making Apple Butter

As you may recall, I was lucky enough to be given a lot of apples. Well, we love apple butter and have been making up a bunch for ourselfs and to give as gifts. All my family back in West Virginia have let me know that they expect some apple butter when we come back for Thanksgiving, so I have been busy.

First you need apples (Free ones will always taste better) We for some reason or another we don't have a food mill. I can hardly belive it myself, but we don't, so I had to peel all those apples. Like nearly all of my reciepes this one came from here. Lucky we found this really cool apple peeler at a yardsale this summer for 25 cents. Best Quarter I ever spent.

Place apple on top.

Start turning the hand crank.

And you have a neatly peeled apple. These are much faster than peeling by hand but the best part is that it wastes none of the apple. All you get is a very thin peel.

The most important part of making apple butter is having a good helper. Katie is testing the apples to make sure we use only the finest in our apple butter.

Me, happily at work.

Cut the apples into slices and cook until soft.

It's gonna look something like this. Cook in a crokpot over night. It gets darker as it cooks.

More Preps from the Flea Market

Sunday morning came as it always has, with sleepy eyes and hunger stomachs. After breakfast the girls mentioned going to the flea market and ask if I would like to go. They know that this is about the only place that I will go so it was a pretty sure bet. Once there we went our seperate ways, they like the inside of the market where all the new stuff is and I much prefer the outside vendors with all the good junk. When we reach the van they were all sporting new designer purses with pride, but nothing could match the smile on my face as I carried the boxes toward the van.

One of the goodies that I found was this canner/stock pot. It is in pretty good shape for it's age I guess. I know it's an old one because someone went to the trouble of fixing a leak. Most people today would have just thrown this thing out and went straight to Wally World to pick up one made in China. I paid $2 bucks for it. A simple fix with a screw and rubber gasket.
Also in my arms was this old school food processor with 3 blades. Another great off-grid item. No electricty required, just elbow grease. $8 bucks was a little high I thought but then again I'm pretty cheap.

Katie learning the age old art of food preparation and preseveration.

And the BEST for last. 26 canning jars in all, all pints or half pints. I also got a perfect mason pint jar which I haven't seen for a while. There was one cute little half pint that Olivia claimed for her own. I paid $4 bucks for these jars or about 15 cents a piece. Not bad for a days Scavenge. haha!!

Got Kraut ??

We have been so blessed latley ( Not that we aren't always ) with an abundance of food. Neighbor down the road gave MMIL ( My mother-in-law ) 4 huge heads of cabbage yesterday, and I'm talking HUGE. Well she came straight to our house and said that we should make kruat and then split what we can up. You gotta know I was ready to tackle the job. Having never made kraut before I went to my favorite canning site, pickyourown, and read all about it. Much more involved than I thought, mix cabbage in a brine and let sit for 4 to 6 weeks and then process in the canner. Got to be something better and faster than this, so I moved on over to Jackie-Clays blog and found just what I was looking for. Gotta love the internet!!! Shredded the cabbage and packed into clean jars add salt and cold water and place lid and ring on, let sit and ferment for 4 days and then give it a good boiling water bath. Now that sounds more like what I had in mind. Be sure to check out Jackie's blog for more great information. All said and done we got 13 qts of great looking kraut. I gave MMIL 7 of them and kept 6 for my pantry. Wed. or Thur. they will get their hot water bath in the canner. I know I have talked alot about canning for the last few weeks but whats the point in growing all this stuff if you can't preserve it? We have had so many people give us their extras because they either don't know how to preserve it or didn't have the time. I guess if things get as bad as I think they are going to we will have plenty to give a helping hand to those in need. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Canning for half. Good or Bad ?

My neighbor that brought the cuke's a few weeks ago ask if I would like to can his green beans for half of the crop. I thought that would be great for both of us, he doesn't have the time and he is a really good friend too, plus he is Liv's uncle and the one who let us use his tractor. I would do just about anything for him anyway. I canned 35 qts. on Tues. and Wed. I canned 29 more for a total of 64 qts. all together. I must say it was a LOT of work as anyone who has done much canning can tell you but worth it just the same. I now have 32qts. of beans that I didn't have to go through the trouble of raising. I have plenty in the garden but it's hard for me to turn them down on a deal like this. Plus it was a big help to him also which makes me feel a little better to. We both seem to come out on the deal. Some friends say that they would not do it for half. (These friends don't have any beans either I might add ) But for me it was a fair deal. He also ask if I was interested in doing the same when his corn comes in. I'm sure I will, like I say I have plenty of beans and corn growing of my own, but I have the time to take advantage of helping others and myself by canning on the half's as we call it around here. Is this something that you would do?? If you don't have room or time for a garden but have time at night or whenever to can maybe you can see if anyone in your area is interested in canning on the half's. Here is a picture of the first 35 qts. canned. Neighbor supplied his own canning jars and lids.

UPS Delivery !

UPS came today and brought the Home Canning Kit that I had ordered from Amazon. Man I really need this kit, the jar grabber alone was worth the price to me, I have been dipping water out of the canner with a cup and then reaching in with a dish towel to get the HOT jars. This will make things a lot more enjoyable and safer too. You can find the link to this kit on the left side of the blog, if you don't have one this is a great kit and a great buy. Comes with all you see here.

HELP !!!! I'm Canning and I Can't Stop

Well guys i've been at it again, this time tomatoes. Call me crazy but I was at the Farmers Market the other day and I came across a guy selling tomatoes for $12.00 a 25 lb box. The first thought that crossed my mind was buy, buy, buy. That's 48 cents a pound, China-mart is selling them for $2.28 per lb. and Kroger had them for $2.89 per lb. so this had to be a good deal. Sure I have maters growing in the garden but they aren't ripe yet and who knows I could have a hail storm or anything and then not have any maters. Maybe I'm thinking this thing to death but, a bird in the hand, well, you know the rest. I calmed myself down and bought only 1 box, 25lbs and came straight home and fired up the canner. We saved some to eat and gave a few away ofcourse and I canned the rest, man these things are great. Ended up with 7 beautiful qts of tomatoes to be used in soup and so on. I have come to love this food preservation thing. The sound of lids popping as the jars are cooling are music to my ears. Here is a picture of one of the cans. Liv made some really nice labels using address labels, we got the date wrong but it's close enough.

Rind Pickles are finally done !!!

Well it's taken a while but here they are. Got the recipe from here. Mine did not turn out red like the ones on the link but they sure smell good. That much sugar and cinnamon sticks it has to be pretty good. I didn't get the 4 to 5 pints that they said so, I just put half into 2 different qt jars, giving one to Liv's mother. I'll wait a few weeks to try them, let them sit and work awhile. I still think they look alot like apples. They have a very nice amber color to them. But anyway, I gave it a shot. Never had them before but wanted to try to use the rind that most just throw away. When I try them I'll post the results. If anyone else tries this, please let me know how yours turn out.

Even More Pickles !!!!!!!!!

What do you do when a neighbor brings you 25 cucumbers?? Make more pickles ofcourse! Not that we really needed any more pickles but you just can't seem to eat cukes fast enough to use them up before they start to go bad. We had the mix, sugar and viniger , so why not can them.

Liv's mother , Gracie, cutting up the cukes to fit into the jars.

Finished product, 9 qts. and 2 pints.

And we still had this many left over.

Got to go and start on the pickled watermelon rind, it's gonna take a while. I'll keep you all posted.

Canning Green Beans

As you all know I got my canner in the other day and I am very excited. After reading the instruction book from cover to cover I decided that I was ready to give it a try. I went to the garden today and picked green beans, I had enough for 5 qts.. The canner can handle 7 qts. but I thought this would be a good time to hone my skills with the canning process. All went very well, the only difference was that instead of a boiling water bath the jars went into the canner instead. My booklet said to co0k at 11 lbs pressure for 25 minutes. The hardest part was maintaining the pressure at 11 lbs. It took a little time and effort to keep the canner at this pressure ( very easy to get the pressure to high ) but I guess with practice things will get a little easier. Anyhoo, I canned 5 qts. of fresh green beans and they look great to me. As with most things I do, time will tell. I am very happy with the ease of use of this canner and the great instructions that can with it. If you're interested in this canner check out the amazon add at the left of this blog for more information. I think if you purchase one through my blog I get like a buck or something. haha!! Either way I just hope you all find the canner / cooker that's right for you. I sure did.



Canner holding steady at 11 lbs. pressure.


5 qts. canned and ready for the pantry.

Look what Fedex just brought !!!!

Fedex just brought the 23 qt. pressure canner/cooker that I ordered from Amazon. More on this later, too exctied to blog....hehehehehehehhehe!!!!!!!!!