Saturday afternoon found Lee and I, my mom and dad, and my sister Jessica driving around looking at potential houses for my sister. After we finished that activity, we took a quick swing over to Deterings Orchard to get peaches. The U-pick windfalls were 50 cents a pounds while the pre-picked were a $1.22 a pound. We choose to save a little money and went with the U-pick windfalls and ended up picking 146 pounds of peaches. As these were windfall peaches we had to start canning immediately to prevent farther deterioration. So here are the steps that we took…

We cleaned the jars.

The jar lids were put in a pot, covered with water, brought to a boil, and then turned down to low heat. They sat there until we needed them.

A sugar water mix was made. We heated water until the sugar was dissolved. My mom used a very light sugar mixture: 1 cup of sugar to 1 quart of water. The sugar water solution helps the peaches stay firmer during canning with better flavor and color.

We washed the peaches in cold water.

The peaches that we bought were very easy to peel. You didn’t need to boil them to get their skins off. For most peaches you would need to boil for one minute and then put into cold water. Any bad spots we cut out.

We just halved the peaches. They were placed right side up so we could fit more peaches in. We then filled the jars with the hot sugar water mix.

I ran a bubble spatula along the side of the jars to get out any bubbles. I got an amazing amount out. Then I retopped any of the jars that were low in the the sugar water mixture. The sugar water mixture should come to 1/2 inch from the top. After that we wiped down the rims, put a lid on, and screwed the lid on tight.

The jars were put into my mom’s waterbath canner. She added water as necessary so it covered the jars. With the lid on, we waited until it came to a rolling boil with steam spitting out and set the timer for 30 minutes. Here is a beautiful picture of a cooled down can of cooked peaches. Yummy!

So far we have canned 61 quarts of peaches with around 12-14 more quarts to go. The ones we didn’t can weren’t ripe enough at the time. There is a full box left to do.

I went down to my moms today and we canned up some tomatoes. This is how we went about it.

We cleaned the jars.

The jar lids were put in a pot, covered with water, brought to a boil, and then turned down to low heat. They sat there until we needed them.

The tomatoes were washed. Then we put the tomatoes one layer deep into a colander.

We boiled them for one minute

We then put them into a sink full of cold water. After that we started taking off the tomato skins and removed the stem connection.

Boiling the tomatoes made their skin crack and very easy to slip off.

Once the tomato skins were off we put them into quart jars. We filled them about 3/4ths way full.

Once they were 3/4ths way full we smashed them with our hands so that the tomatoes juices came out. That way you wouldn’t have to use any water. We continued filling the the jar up until it was 1/2 inch from the top. We then used a bubble removing stick to take out all the air bubbles.

We put one teaspoon of salt directly into the top of the jar of tomatoes. Then we wiped down the rims, put the lid on, and screwed the lid on tightly. The newer recommendations for canning tomatoes say to use some lemon juice to help with the acidity levels. We didn’t do that as my mom said that in all her years of canning she has never had a problem with botulism. If I was a person that liked to eat canned tomatoes straight from the can then maybe I would be more concerned with using lemon juice. As it is, Lee and I only use our canned tomatoes for sauces that end up getting simmered for a long time, and that would kill any botulism if there was a bad can. Cooking in a uncovered simmer for 10 minutes will kill botulism and the food will be safe for consumption. Also, suggestions on acid levels seem to be focused on water bath canning, and we pressure canned our tomatoes.

With my new pressure canner it calls for 1 1/2 inch of water in the bottom of the pot. Once we filled it with the specified amount of water we than placed the seven quart jars in it.

My All American Pressure Canner calls for you to wait until the canner starts spitting steam through the steam vent, then time that for seven minutes, put the weight on for 10 pounds, wait until it comes to the correct 10 pounds pressure, and then time the tomatoes for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes are finished, turn the heat off, let the pressure come to zero, take the weight off, and then wait 2 minutes before undoing the lid.

Tada, here was what one of our finished tomato jars looked like. Nice and pipping hot. I got nine quarts and my mom had eight. For my next batch of canned tomatoes I think that I will add some spices and onion to mix it up a little.

I mentioned in my last post about the chickens that I had been feeding them kale and bolted lettuce. Since they seemed to like the kale so much I decided to toss in a spent broccoli plant. They were all over that in a second and all you could hear was ripping of leaves. In the background of this picture you can see the stripped broccoli plant. I got a shot of them today stripping a broccoli plant. Bob with the big comb is standing on top of the plant chowing down. Or would that be beaking down.

The last of the plywood ceiling in the living room was taken off. We managed to not get beamed on the head by four pieces of wood left up in the ceiling. There wasn’t as many mouse nests which was nice. But there was still droppings all over the floor by the time Lee finished.

I decided to call this room the boardroom. Lee hates this room with a passion. The reason being that every time he uncovers a wall it has boards then making a new wall. All of the plywood had been taken off the walls but Lee had never touched the ceiling. We thought it would be just like the ceiling out in the living room with plywood over the floor joists. Nope! It had plywood over boards attached to the floor joists. There was much groaning on Lee’s part.

The drywall was taken out at the end of the stairway.

These next two weeks or so we will be having some home improvements done. We are getting a new roof along with shoring up some structural issues. Lee and I are excited beyond belief–then we will be poor beyond belief. The last couple of days have been spent prepping for the upcoming activities.

Lee and I dug up our potatoes today. We ended up with 64 pounds. Lee was a little disappointed as he was hoping for more. I am pretty happy overall.

In about a month and a half we should start seeing eggs. We still can’t figure out if we have any roosters. I had resigned myself to all hens (I wanted at least one boy) because they all look the same. Now I have one Rhode Island Red and one Barred Rock that are very advanced in their comb growth and color. Their tails still look like the other hens. So they are either advanced or maybe roosters. None of them have ever tried crowing yet. Here is an example of two Barred Rocks combs and wattles.

Elwood on the other hand is just her same goofy looking self. For a chicken that was terrified of leaving the coop she sure has changed. Elwood comes charging out with the other ones when the door gets opened. Never the last one out anymore. Today she has started making funny noises that sounds rather like a barking dog. So either she is trying to be a rooster or there is something very wrong with her. Hopefully she will still be alive tomorrow.

One thing that I didn’t realize was that chickens eat a lot of vegetation. After we started letting them out everyday in the small temporary fence, they had eaten almost everything green. Now it is just a bare lot. Now everyday I go out to the garden and pull a bolted lettuce head up along with some kale to toss into the pen. They absolutely LOVE the kale and will strip every leaf off the plant and leave the stems. The lettuce they don’t like as much but still nibble on it.

After the big chicken pen is completed they should have fun eating the rest of the vegetation. Once we get our entire property fenced, we will move them around more so they can’t eat everything to a bare lot. All the greenery they will eat along with the bugs that they will keep down will just go to making a much better tasting egg.

All of the chickens mouths are hanging open as its almost 100 degrees outside. Poor little hens.

We finished installing the woven wire in the new chicken pen, but first I have some pictures of the brace wires. This first picture shows the only instance where we installed two brace wires in an X pattern. One wire resists the pull of the fence and the other wire supports the weight of the gate. They were installed crossed in one direction and in line in the other to avoid the hot wire that will terminate at the gate post.

This is what it looks like from afar.

This second picture shows what most of the brace wires look like. They were also crossed (keeping them to the center of the brace) to avoid the hot wire as it turns the corner.

The starting and ending posts have brace wires that are not crossed. Since the hot wire terminates at these posts (at the center), this keeps the brace wires to the outside to avoid contact.

The entire chicken lot fence is now stretched and is waiting for the gate and hot wires to be installed.

And this lovely little instrument is a fence stretcher. Lee finally went and bought one after using our homemade one. It makes the whole fence stretching process so much easier. At least it does when you use it right. This picture actually shows us using it wrong as the wedges are supposed to be facing out instead of to the side. There wasn’t any instructions included in the box but when we contacted Premier they straighted it out for us. They have such awesome customer service! Tools work much better when used right.

Back in April we had two Port Orford cedar trees fallen in front of our house. Since that day we have just been walking over them to get to the front door. I jokingly referred to the fallen trees as our anti theft device for our house.

We didn’t want to split the logs up for firewood. The reason for that being is that Lee would like to have them milled and use some of that cedar for making closets in the house. He bought a drawbar and borrowed an old log rolling tool from my Uncle. Then Lee pulled them to the back of the house with his tractor and stacked them. I thought for sure he was going to take out the mail boxes or get one of the logs stuck in the middle of the road. I am ever so impressed. Not to mention I am not going to miss stepping over those logs while carrying groceries.

This is our third armful of cucumbers we have picked. The cucumber plants are just gearing up too. So far we have just munched on them. I have plans on trying some pickles though.

This is our first harvest of tomatoes. Well other then all those delicious Sun Gold cherry tomatoes that we have been snacking on. I want to make some spaghetti sauce along with some tomato sauce soon.