Two weeks crammed into one post!

 I've been making jam.   In the middle of July, I brought home  container of strawberries, my son brought some and so did hubby.  In the end there were 4 lbs of strawberries in the fridge.   After my son made cheesecake and we gorged on a bunch, I still had enough left to make a batch of jam. 

I'd looked at our market, but the vendor from Niagara with all the baskets of fruit, isn't there this year.   We were going to do a run down to the area to get apricots, but my sweetie found some locally.  I was thrilled to be able to make a batch of apricot jam.   I used pectin and was checking out recipes.  To my surprise, the recipe on the Canadian Certo packet insert is different than the U.S. recipe on their website.  Not just a little different either.  There was more fruit and a smaller fruit to sugar ratio for the same amount of pectin in the U.S. recipe.     Presuming the product is the same, I mean it's pectin, then that means the info about making sure you keep the fruit and sugar amounts exact isn't actually that important.  Obviously you need enough pectin for it to gel with the lesser cooking time and you need enough sugar to keep the beasties away, but there must be some flexibility.   I tried the U.S. recipe.  It's fruitier, not as sweet and way better than my previous apricot jam which was good to begin with.

There is also cherry jam - so yummy.   I found some frozen cherries in the back of the freezer.  I tossed them into the food processor a bit at a time and pulsed them until they were chopped up finely.   Jam is a great use for that bit of uneaten frozen fruit.  This batch is pretty and so tasty.   The bread is gluten free from the freezer section.  It's by Little Northern Bakery and it is really pretty decent for a gluten free bread.  So much so that the two little sections in the store freezer are often nearly empty or empty of the loaves.  It is so much better than the big name gluten free bread - really so much better.

We took a day trip on Saturday.  We went to Port Stanley but just kept on driving.  It was a little too touristy for us.  Just down the road though was Port Bruce.  We parked the car and took a trip over the sand dune to the lake.   I'd taken my shoes off and ouch, the heat off the sand was unbelievable.  The sand is  quite dark in colour.   It was absorbing the heat something fierce.   I had to put my shoes back on or walk in the water, which was a little too pebbly for my tender tootsies.   However, with a pair of water safe shoes, the beach would be great.   It wasn't crowded at all, despite it being a gazillion degrees out side - hmm, maybe 30° with a humidex of something more.   It was pretty and picturesque.  The water seemed clean and I'd definitely go there for a picnic and some beach play.   The town is tiny though.  I think it had only a cafe and an ice cream stand.  

We ended up in Port Burwell where we toured the HMCS Ojibwa, a retired diesel submarine.  Most of the inside of the submarine is controlled, so despite the fact that the technology is very old, we could look but no photos were allowed.  I'm standing at the back of the boat, looking toward the front.   It was an hour long tour, which was really interesting and well done.   The tour guide had the coolest Doc Marten boots on as well.

Today, at almost stupid early, the guys came from the eco metal recycling place in Hamilton to remove our oil tank.   They were here at about 7:30 am and were gone by 9 am, along with our old oil tank.   I hardly saw them, though there was a bit of grunting and gentle cussing when they had to haul it out of our basement.   At noon, the tree service dumped a chook playground in the driveway.  There were 4 of them sitting in various spots on or in the pile of logs only 10 minutes later.  

I've been hunting around for something called Gum Tragacanth - used in candy making.  So far I haven't found any locally or reasonably close.  This will take more research...

New Girls in the barn

Sometime back in the summer, I'd asked Lisa at Westfield what they were going to do with their chickens during the winter.   While they have a lovely, cozy barn there, since the village is closed for most of the winter, I wondered if they were going to keep them or not.  If not, I was willing to give them a home, since I was down to 2 laying girls and one who was retired and just hanging around.  I was told that someone else had said they wanted them.  We talked for a bit and that was that.  I went home thinking about it and remembered that you could order ready to lay pullets.   A few weeks later, I popped into the feed store and yes, they could still get me some ready to lays, especially because I wanted just 4 of them.  A week and a half later, my new little girls came and all was good.

So a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Westfield about picking up the chickens.   While it was a bit unexpected, I was pretty happy because really, having 10 young birds in addition to my 3 old birds means that they will produce enough heat to keep warm all winter.   These are the new girls, who arrived on Sunday.  They were fine and calm during the trip home, in a dog crate in the back of my pick up.  They popped out into the new pen as if they did this sort of thing every day.  Yesterday they gave me 6 eggs.  A couple of them came up to say hello and not a single hen showed any signs of stress.  They don't even seem to mind having shavings instead of straw!

 The bottom 2 photos are of my summer girls.  They are a couple of months younger than the new layers.   They have a little more white and some of the lovely bi-coloured feathers.   Between the two little flocks, they should make one handsome larger group of very pretty chooks.

I've been feeding them GMO free food which costs only a couple of dollars more than the regular layer mix.   It has 2% more protein though which has made a huge difference in the birds' condition.  As well, the chook who used to peck her egg open to eat it, has stopped.  Even my old girls have started laying eggs with a nicer shell and a more regular size.  I've very happy with it.

So anyone need farm fresh eggs?

Raspberry Jelly and Tattler Lids

It's just a bit early yet for raspberries here.  You can see them starting to form on the plants, but mine won't be ripe yet for another week or two.  I did have a bunch of raspberries left from last year in the freezer, which desperately needed to be used.  I put the frozen blocks of berries in a large saucepan, with just a little water, set it on the stove and turned it on very low.   A while later, the fruit was defrosting and the juice was starting to be released from the mushy raspberries.    I had looked for a period 19th century raspberry jelly recipe, but they seem to all require currants, which were not ripe yet.  After a bit of research which suggested raspberries are fairly low in pectin, I used a commercial pectin and the packet recipe.  I always use the liquid pectin if I'm using it, as it seems to set up better than the dry crystal stuff.

 I needed a new canning jar rack or a canner for smaller jars.  The jar rack I had, had wires spaced to far apart to support smaller jars.  I was tired of makeshift methods of keeping the small jars from touching the bottom of the pot, so I headed out to the hardware/department store to see what I could find.  I found a rack which would suit my purposes and was much less than a new canner would be.  What I also found were some packets of Tattler reuseable canning lids.  

I've read about these but never found them locally.  I didn't want to mail order these from the U.S., just for an experiment.  But, here they were, right in front of me at the store.   They were expensive.   The rings which hold the lids down are re-useable and until they get rusty, they don't need to be replaced.  The metal lids though, need to be replaced every year.   The ones I just bought before I found these, cost $2.88 for a dozen.  These plastic lids with rubber rings cost $9.99.  That is pretty steep for a product which seems to have mixed reviews, and a fair learning curve to get to work properly.  However, the re-useable nature of the item and the advertised BPA free made me want to try them.   I used two of the lids on the larger jars, since those are the ones I can guarantee I'll keep for home use.  The small jars may or may not end up as gifts, but I didn't want to give away the expensive experimental lids, just in case.


I had no issues getting the two lids to seal.   It will take over 3 years for them to start paying for themselves though and by then I imagine I'd have to start replacing the rubber rings.  So for a preparedness aspect (you know, for when the zombies eat the electrical grid and nobody makes metal canning lids anymore) and the less product in the landfill, they are an enticing product.  For the immediate financial outlay, I'm not so sure.  Plus living where we do, I may never be able to find them again, or replacement parts in the future, which would make them very expensive.

Will I use them?  Yes, sometimes but until I know that I can purchase them regularly locally, it will have to be the very once in a while extravagant purchase.   Besides, they are hard to label.  I can't just write on them with a Sharpie, like I do the metal lids... and they're a tad on the ugly side, but that may just be because I am not used to the look yet.   You know though, if a case fell off a truck and landed at my feet, I'd use them for sure because the possibilities for environmental benefits would work for me, even if the economics don't.

Random Project updates

 The linsey woolsey is off the loom.  It's been wet finished and heavily pressed.  It's an okay fabric and will make a decent apron.  The reed marks didn't disappear which is a little disappointing.  It makes the fabric look like it has more inconsistencies than it really does.   It's a pretty fabric though and the stripes are fairly even.

I need to cut it up and sew up the apron to be able to tell if I'm really happy with it.

More proof of Kevin's loom antics.  I caught him in the act, again.  I'd meant to cover the warp before I went to bed, but forgot.  This is how I found him in the morning.   I've never seen him do this when there was a project on the loom before, so who knows why he chose this particular one, when it being well executed meant more to me than any of the others I've done since he  "enriched" our lives.  Silly cat!

 We've pulled the spiles from the Maple trees and ended our syrup season.  We might have gotten a few more boilings done, but it's a lot of work.   The melting snow has flooded the fire pit, so boiling the sap down, is a wet, muddy and not such a nice experience.   We've gotten 4 litres and a bit,  so not too bad a haul for our first try.   The syrup is pretty tasty and will likely last most of the year, depending on how much ends up in my daughter's pantry.
 Maple syrup drizzled on oatmeal makes an awesome breakfast!

Gluten free chocolate angel food cake, with chocolate drizzle was today's way to use up excess eggs.  It was pretty delicious, as well as pretty to look at.  I just took my regular angle food cake recipe and substituted 1/4 cup cocoa for an equal amount of gluten free flour.  Instead of lemon flavouring, I used vanilla, so it has a really interesting depth of flavour.   This one was a huge success.

Sappy Story

It was cold outside last Saturday,  with what felt like gale force winds.  Really, the temperatures were hovering just above the freezing mark, with winds at about 45 km/hr, gusting higher.  However, the few trees we tapped had been running and we had 5 or 6 gallons of Maple sap collected.   It was forecast to be a high of -8 on Sunday, so out we trudged to see if we could find the fire pit under all the snow.  We spent 5 hours outside and a day's worth of wood.  Luckily we had a few cedars downed a couple of years ago, so it was softwood that we wouldn't burn to heat the house, that fueled the fire pit for this venture.  It would have been less wood if it hadn't been so windy.

The sap is finally running!

One of two buckets with sap.  It's just barely sweetish tasting.

Just starting to boil.  It took forever because it was so windy.

Makeshift wind break to try to keep the fire burning.

Finally, after over 4 hours, the sap has started to colour.

5 gallons of sap yielded 2 cups of syrup.

I heated up the final syrup in the house, filtered it though paper coffee filters and bottled it up.  The next batch will be filtered, heated up and then put into sterilized jars for storage.