OMG!

My Canning Bible


The Weekend Bounty

Apricot Pie Filling using ClearJel for the FIRST Time....It's a Keeper!

Strawberries being juiced for Jelly

The Yearly Apricot Gift

Nectarines waiting to be canned? Eaten? Ignored?

Group Photo.....

7:00 P.M. and it's 105 in the shade....can you say: SUMMER!

My weekend started Friday when a friend of mine (Paula) suggested I meet her at the local feed store and nursery (Griff's)...she's from Chico, but they had a special pepper she likes to grow in her garden...you betcha' sista...anything to get out of the house (read work here)....well my dear friend (Paula) came up with this brilliant idea: Our other good friend (Nancy) was out of town with her nursing friends celebrating her up-coming departure to the Peace Corps (Zambia)...part of the process was Nancy selling her home which was being picked up as a listing on the 30th...Anyway...Nancy is this awesome flower gardener and her yard is totally OO-La-La...so good ole friend (Paula) says: "Let's go raid the yard"...and we did! You can't even tell we were there (don't get your panties in a bunch)...Nancy will notice...but what the Hell...we're baby-sitting them while she's in Africa...jeese what are friends for....in the process I picked the fruit from the Plum and Apricot trees (I had permission...Nancy likes my jams and jellies)....so here's the photos of my Saturday and Sunday....no pictures of the raid...who wants evidence! The green beans and strawberries where from the Colusa Certified Farmers Market...the lug of MORE APRICOTS are a yearly gift from a local grower because we let him post his Apricots 4 Sale sign on our property and the nectarines came from the fruit cocktail tree Tessa planted at Claire's (Rudy brought them over)....and I baked Honey Buttermilk Oatmeal Bread and fried one of the Frankenchickens I raised....and I still have TONS of fruit to can tomorrow. FYI: I don't like the way these pictures posted...don't know how to work a blog yet, but when I figure it out I'll come back and fix...for now, PUT UP WITH IT.

Please Fence Me In!

Something is snacking on my squashes in the garden...I thought maybe a ground squirrel...Bill thinks it's a cottontail and Sam thought it could be the chickens. I know it's not the chickens, but they have been getting into the beds and wrecking havoc on the new seedlings...chased them out but I need something more permanent...A FENCE! Rudy's probably not too happy with the new project, but I've gotta' have it. Once the garden fencing is finished I'll put him to work on the new shed and then a nice chicken tractor...that should put us into late Fall and he'll be ready to go back down to Mexico.

Weather Getting Back to Normal?

Nice SUNNY WARM day! June 21st and we finally get some good gardening weather. The garden is looking nice and green...some fruit starting to develop...squashes, tomatoes, lots of chard and Wonderberries. The Boys keep telling me the Wonderberries are weeds and the squashes and melons are going to get pulled out when theirs start their bloom (cross-pollination)...over my dead body...I bought the Seed Savers book and plan on "brown-bagging" the blooms and doing some hand pollination. Sam says the tomatoes have some kind of disease...of course he's Mr. BIG when it comes to tomatoes! I just ignore them all and keep on keeping on! My beans are just ok...not hot enough! Planted zukes and marigolds in a wine barrel yesterday, still want to plant in the other barrels...it's just been too windy and cold. I have started some sweet potatoes (yams?) and will put those in today or tomorrow and would like to throw some more potatoes in some bags of compost. I need to plant my fall/winter plugs this week too...I wonder what winter will be like this year...I had a beautiful garden last winter.

Colusa Certified Farmers Market is today and I will miss it. I went to the last two and bought LOTS of green beans (I canned them), strawberries, blackberries and I even bought 4 Raspberry plants to replace the ones I lost (because I didn't plant them right away). My strawberry plants were a joke! The chickens have really torn up that patch...I'm going to go a head and put together a raised perennial strawberry and rhubarb bed and then another one for the asparagus. I need to move the artichoke next to the deck out to the vegetable garden area...just not getting enough sun and I want to put in automatic soaker hoses for the time being.

The canning is going great. 16 pints of green beans and I will do at least another 20 this week...I have Mel picking some up for me at the Farmers Market. I've frozen a gallon each of whole blackberries and whole strawberries and will get 2 more 1/2 flats from Mel to freeze. I dried a large bunch of basil and will do some chard later today. The chickens are laying 5-7 eggs a day...I think we'll start selling them at the Farmers Market the first of July along with some pillowcase dresses. I told Mel I'd take the spinning wheel to the market and spin, so why not try and sell some of my surplus!

Nancy thought the plums were ripe on her tree, so I was all stoked to go picking, but altho the color was perfect they were as hard as a rock: same with the apricots on the Fruit Cocktail Tree Tess planted: we're all in a holding pattern just waiting. In the meantime I've stocked up on jars and ClearJel....let the games begin!

June??!!

I've missplaced May! It totally slipped through my fingers! At my age you just can't afford to lose a whole month! So, I'm going to make up for it by double-timing June! TA-DA!

This weekend will be garden, garden, garden. Have to have the meat chickens butchered...I only have four and I REALLY thought I could do it...but it ain't gonna' happen...but I really can't bear to watch those little Frankinchicks much longer with their weird heads and HUGE bodies...there should be a LAW! So, from now on, only HERITAGE *open-pollinated* meat chickens for me. My hens should be happy to see the buggers go...they have been totally freaked out since I decided to let the creepy little guys free-range to have better "quality of life" before the ax dropped...yeah my husband even caught me pushing them in the stroller to the front of the yard....Look I have a huge yard and now that they can barely support their weight on their screwed up legs I thought maybe they'd like to keep me company while I pruned the roses in the front of the house. I'm 56, give me a break!

TO DO LIST: Make Laundry Soap (A First!)
Butcher Chickens
Bake: Bread Paula's Tart Angel Food Cake (A First...Scratch)
Pretzels and Brioche
Dehydrate: Chard, Onions
Freeze: Strawberries, blackberries, onions, chard, cherry pie filling
Can: Strawberry Jelly and blackberry jam, cherry pie filling, lamb
stew and chicken soup
Sew: 6 Pillowcase Dresses
Clean and set-up Louet Spinning wheel.
Pick-up 10 frames for the beehives.
Tie up the tomatoes Plant sweet potatoes Plant squash and more green
beans and beets
Pack for the Cabin (pick-up new propane line and tp)