At the farm, Jerry frequently cans a variety of things.
I like the idea of canning. It uses up surpluses (especially when you’re so sick of whatever it is that you can’t eat another bite, but you know it will taste so good in a few months), and it doesn’t take up freezer space. And as Brad mentioned, we have a lot of green tomatoes right now. My recipe search turned up some really delicious looking jams and marmalades.
But I’ve been afraid to try canning myself. It seems scary. You know, botulism and all that. But then I read up on it and thought hey, millions of people do this, and I’m reasonably capable, so let’s give it a try.
Turns out it wasn’t really that hard.
Jars boiling in a pot I borrowed
Final product
Here’s the recipe. I used slightly less sugar and two lemons instead of one. I also cooked it for 1-1/2 hours to get it syrupy.
It was really delicious (and no one has died so far). It was so good that I even made a second batch.
After doing this and also making cheese last week, I am feeling very pioneer-like. :) What’s funny is that it is the Internet that has allowed me to learn about all these ways that people did things before “modern” times. Ironic.
(And yes, for those of you who aren’t on FB, I’ve passed the 50,000 goal on NaNoWriMo. I’m currently at a little over 68,000 words and so treated myself to a little happy blog writing as a reward.)
Well, it’s moving along towards winter. I just checked the outside highs and lows for the last month or so: 90f-27f. What about inside you ask? The high was 80f and the low 69f. That is very very livable. This is with no heat at all. So far, I’d say that SIPS are a great way to build and the results are excellent.
The fireplace is working now, but other than using it a couple of times for fun, it’s off. I have noticed the floors are getting colder. This slab has no insulation so it’s going to get colder and colder as the ground outside cools. I ordered some moccasins as my feet are naturally cold to begin with. (Since I was a small child I wanted moccasins… it’s never too late. :) One thing (temperature-wise) about this house is that the south most room is clearly the warmest and it gets colder the more you are to the north–not a surprise. So, here we are headed into our first winter with no concerns.
Karen has gotten us into something new: Fil mjolk… or just fil (phil) as we call it. Basically, it’s a bacteria that does interesting things with milk products. It’s also like sourdough in that you keep it around as a starter. I have a friend who lives in Sweden where it’s very common and very popular. He gave us a few tips, but mostly it’s been Karen figuring out what to do with it. Most simply you put it in some milk and let it sit out for 12-24 hours, until it thickens. The longer you let it set the thinker it gets. Also, half and half produces a thicker fil. When it’s on the thin side, it’s nice on cereal and particularly granola. When it’s thicker and it’s more like sour cream or yogurt. (Unlike making yogurt, there’s no heat needed… other than what is in your house.) Yesterday Karen made fil into cream cheese. Wow! It’s so good. That was a little harder. You take fil that’s ready to eat and then heat it. Once it’s reached the proper temperature you let it cool and then put it into cheesecloth. The whey drips out and there it is… cream cheese – amazing! Karen’s using goats milk too. This gives you a thicker fil and is not recommended as a starter. We’ve even made it from soy milk — I was surprised it worked, but it was tasty.
We are off to work on the farm in a bit. Pleasantly, we are still surprised with the things we are learning there. The lettuce is as lovely as it has ever been right now. Apparently it can freeze without obvious side effects. The basil (on the other hand) died and turned black after the first really cold night; a total loss. The tomatoes too died off, we are now learning all the things to do with green tomatoes. I used to think green tomatoes were just a local thing to do in certain parts of the country… now I know it’s what you do when you have tomatoes that got green that you can’t bear see go to waste. It’s also interesting to see that the propagation house is being planted now for stuff that will go in the ground in January / February. Also, things like garlic and onions are in the ground now.
A small update on the solar power… I did adjust our panels for winter on the first of November. Karen’s dad was here and gave me a hand. I can do it by myself, but it’s easier and less risky and certainly more fun with help. I noticed some gain in power, but not a ton. I think our panels are pretty forgiving as far as positioning goes. Also, we are seeing a lot more sun than I was lead to expect. All the people I talked to and all I read said to count on 6 1/2 hours a sun a day in the winter-even where we are located. (Yes, we have not reached the solstice yet.) Right now, we are getting measurable sun (.5 KWH or better) for 10 hours a day.
I have picked out a generator. We’re going with a model from Generac. I’m waiting a bit because I need to get one of the newest versions because they have a 2-wire kit that can be added on so it’ll work with our solar equipment.
That’s it for now except for a bit on the weather here… It very much seems that here there is almost always a time of day that is lovely. During the summer we often hide out when it’s hottest, but the evenings outside are always awesome. Right now, the nights are a little cold, but the middle of the day is sunny and warm (75ish). In the middle of winter it’s a lot colder, but it’ll be warm inside and there’s lots of sun in our office. Living the life…
So, I’ll most likely be absent from this blog for the month of November while I’m NaNoWriMo’ing.
(If you’re interested in the progress, I’ll be *very* sporadically posting updates on FB and Twitter.)
In the meantime, hopefully, Brad will write some posts. I know we have a backlog of things to write about (building drywall arches, etc. Maybe he’ll write about what I’m like in Nov. :).
Until December, be well, and send positive energy my way!
This was a place I’d passed on the highway many, many times and really wanted to visit. With Dad’s interest in Native American history and this being on the way to Casa Grande, the opportunity was ripe.
This was a very nice museum and separate art gallery, both housed in beautiful colonial Spanish buildings. The works here belonged to the private collection of William Fulton, a businessperson and later archeologist, who moved to Texas Canyon, AZ to further his studies.
These ancient ruins are from the Hohokam culture and feature the “great house,” a four-story high structure housed under a modern shelter to protect it.
We’d planned to do Fort Bowie in the morning and the Shakespeare Ghost Town in the afternoon, but Fort Bowie ended up being a bigger adventure than we’d thought and we spent all day there.
We hiked to the fort (though I now understand that you can drive there), and it was a beautiful hike through amazing country to get there. After we hiked back (different trail…well worth it), we were famished and had a great picnic lunch.
This was the state park where we camped on the first night of our two-night trip up to Bandelier. It features a large number of upright rocks made from eroded volcanic ash, one of only six geologically similar features in the world.
This place was awesome! Just about every camp site was great. We got in just before sunset and left the next morning, but we’ll definitely be returning to check out the surrounding trails and to spend more time here.
This site of Ancestral Pueblo dwellings has been on my to-do list since the first time we went to Albuquerque, and it met all my expectations plus some. Brad and I even hiked up to the Alcove House, which features a 140 feet climb up four ladders.
In addition to the fascinating ruins, we saw lots of beautiful fall foliage. And the drive both into and out of the part was stunning.
We camped at Jemez Falls campground (which was great) and also enjoyed a nice breakfast in Jemez Springs at the Jemez Stage Stop. (This seemed like a fun little burg to spend a weekend or something.)
Our region is so packed full of unique and interesting natural and historical sites, some of which we’ve visited and others of which are still on our list.
I’ve been thinking about this for two reasons. One is that we are having some visitors here this month. The other is that I am excited about the idea of doing some projects with local school kids around some of these sites. Being a fairly remote location, a lot of kids think it’s boring to living here and that anywhere would be better. On the other hand, a lot of us adults have chosen to live here because it is such an interesting place. Kids here (many of whom have never seen these sites) should get a vision of why it’s a cool place.
So here’s a list of some of the sites, just in case you’re wondering.
Shakespeare Ghost Town Again, haven’t been there yet…hoping to go for the re-enactment weekend later this month. (I’m leaving Tombstone off this list…I hear it’s grotesquely commercial, and Brad won’t go anyway.) – Update: We’ve been to the Shakespeare ghost town; interesting, a bit touristy, but good if you like this kind of thing….and some day, I want to go to Tombstone; a free beer goes to whoever comes and wants to go with me.
At 3:00am this morning, I was awoken by a kind of constant whiny mewing just outside my window. A kitten? I didn’t think so since there are no feral cats around here that I know of and the sound was too small to be a bobcat. Maybe a baby opossum, some kind of rodent, or even a baby skunk?
I listened to it for awhile becoming more insistent and clearly irritated. I woke up Brad.
We went to the window. It seemed to be almost directly against the house, but we couldn’t see anything. We turned on the outside house lights and got a flashlight. Still nothing. But the mewing continued.
Finally, Brad ventured outside (in his underwear…quite a sight, and it was cold). What he saw was a spade footed toad….being eaten by a much smaller snake.
The snake looks big in this zoomed up picture, but the snake was only the thickness of a fat pencil and less than a foot long. We think it might have been a juvenile nightsnake but we’re not sure.
Last week was crazy here. We spent many hours getting ready for the big open house at the farm. It went great and we had a tremendous turnout, but boy were we tired at the end of it all. (We made something like 50 pizzas, 3 trays of lasagna, salads, bread, 20 or so pies, and cheesecakes.)
We also had our first overnight visitor at the guest house. It was great to have Brad’s mom here, and we put her to work! (I’m a little worried that we are going to get a reputation for working our guests to exhaustion. :)
After all that, we finally made a trip to Gila Cliff Dwellings. Over the past five years or so, we have made several attempts to go there but for a variety of reasons, none have come to fruition.
This park is only about 2 hours from our house, and it is fabulous! We’ve visited several other cliff dwellings, but have seen none like this where they let you actually go into the dwellings themselves. It was great. (The hike to the dwellings is a short one mile round trip.)
These structures were built by the Mongollon people who lived in the area in the late 1200s AD. They apparently only occupied the dwellings for one generation. No one knows exactly why they came or left. There are six separate caves with 46 rooms.
The area surrounding the park is beautiful country, and we look forward to going camping there in the future.
It seems time for one of those newsy updates about life here.
We awoke this morning to a cool steady rain. It was the kind that really soaked the ground, much better for the plants than the storms that whip through here, though less entertaining for us. The rain gauge this morning held a little over 1/4″ (three-tenths as they would say here), and there are still low clouds holding rain all around us.
Yesterday, huge thunderclouds loomed all around us, and by sunset, there were huge downpours falling to the north and south of us, but only a few drops here. So it was nice to wake up to the sound of a steady rain.
Other than that, the weather has still been hot during the day (90s), but it has been getting very cool at night (high 50s). Fall seems to be in the air. (At the farm, we are harvesting pumpkins and winter squash, more signs of changing seasons.)
We haven’t quite started the second house yet, but have been working on some changes to the plans. Now that we’ve lived here for a while, we have a better feel for things. In particular, while we’d been warned that we probably designed with too many windows, we are adding even more windows to the second house. The summer heat hasn’t been too bad (especially with the ceiling fan and shades), and we love the views more than we ever thought we would.
We are also getting new quotes on materials. We’ve heard that prices have gone up considerably in the last few months. I can’t imagine why — has there been a resurgence in the building economy that I’ve missed? At any rate, we should start ordering and then building soon. (By the way, what do you all think of “Gila” — pronounced heel-uh — as a name for the second house? I’m not sure it means anything by itself but there are many things named for it, including a river, mountains, a county, a fish, and obviously a monster lizard sometimes seen in these parts.)
In the meantime, we’ve had time to finish up some detail work in Tumbleweed that we hadn’t gotten to previously. Not that there won’t always be more to do, but things are very livable and mostly finished looking now.
Our garden, though late in coming to its prime, is producing a lot now. We’ve had tons of green onions and cucumbers, and yesterday I counted 12 green tomatoes of varying sizes. (We’ve harvested four so far.) We’ve also had a good amount of green beans. I’m currently planting a fall crop of spinach and lettuce, and we are also planting garlic and Egyptian walking onions. I feel like I’ve learned enough this year that we’ll really have a good garden next year.
If you haven’t had time to read the many voluminous posts on food issues I’ve written lately, perhaps you would have time to watch this short video that summarizes some of the main points.
(For those interested, I did my presentation on this topic at our local “Heritage Days” event this weekend. It was very well received, and I think it will make a difference in how people think about their food choices.)
This concludes this series of posts…for now. I can’t promise I won’t write more about food politics in the future though. ;)
