Wednesday, July 14, 2010

My week

It's been a busy week here, after a little break in canning we're back at it full swing. We canned 14 quarts of sweet cherries, 7 pints of blackberries and 12 quarts of peaches with lots more to do this week. Have I mentioned yet this week how much I love bail lid jars? Well, I really do, I have never, ever had a seal failure with them. Ever. I certainly can't say that about regular bands and lids. Sigh. To can fruit I prepare the fruit as usual: wash, peel, slice or whatever and then I add sugar. I added 1 cup of sugar to 10 cups of sweet cherries, 1 cup sugar to 8 cups peaches, pretty much however sugary you like it. Let sugar coated fruit sit, covered, at room temperature for several hours or overnight and it will get juicy. Place fruit into jars, top off with juice and voila', canned fruit with no added water. When using the canned fruit you can freeze the juice into ice cubes and use them with iced tea for mulberry flavored tea or raspberry or peach. Mmmm. The fruit tastes so much better than fruit canned with water, try my method and I think you'll like it.
An outside shot of the cans to try to demonstrate the richness of the fruit.


Also this week we harvested the garlic. There are a few hundred bulbs, after they dry out a bit I'll braid them. Hopefully Katie will photograph the process and I can blog about it. We really like garlic, it's so good for you.



And today, oh the thrill of it I can hardly write. Today, I got to rewash all of the clothes that I washed yesterday. They got rained on and didn't dry quickly enough so now they stink. In case you might think I'm a big whining baby and should just blog about pertinent topics, I'd like you to know that for the past 3 months I haven't had a washing machine, all of our laundry is done on a washboard and with a scrub brush. Let me expound upon the good points of doing laundry this way.
  1. We now do laundry together as a family, usually anyway. The littlest girls can rinse, everybody can hang clothes on the line, we are working together.
  2. We are way more careful not to needlessly dirty up garments.
  3. The clothes get so much cleaner when scrubbed with a brush than any automatic washer I've ever used.
  4. My biceps really got toned up, lol. There is nothing in this world for getting in shape like good, old fashioned manual labor.

Seriously, I try not to bemoan things like this and look on the bright side. I have so much to be thankful for that what's a little trial here and there? Happy Fourth day to you.

6 comments :

  1. Dear Mrs. G. Where do you find the bail lid canning jars?? I might just have to try a few.
    Thank you,
    Robin
    P.S. the berries are BEAUTIFUL!!

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  2. Robin- you are my 3rd reader named Robin/Robyn BTW

    I got many of my bail lid jars from family members who no longer can and a local thrift store. You can find them in antique stores but they are priced too high, check eBay out as well. The jar rubbers can be purchased via Lehman's. Give it a go and let me know if I can help in any way.

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  3. I know that clothes get cleaned better when done by hand but my washing machine will have to break before I'll hand wash again...It's so sad/bad of me. However, when we lived in Texas, I did hand wash our clothes and the fire ants liked to eat the water/left over soap off the clothes when they hung on the line and you couldn't shake them off. You had to hand pick them off...So much fun.LOL.

    Everything looks so yummy, but how do you use the canned fruit?

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  4. Wendy, the fuit can be thickened and used as pie filling, it can be drained and used in muffins or scones, it can be used with the juice on pancakes, waffles, french toast or shortcake. Or it can be eaten straight out of the jar. :-D

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  5. I was totally thinking of the pie, but the others are awesome ideas I didn't think of.lol...Thanks!

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  6. Kudos to you for washing by hand...especially with your size of family!

    Also, will you elaborate on your uses for garlic? I know that it is very good for us and have been thinking of adding it to my health routine. Due to the odor coming out through the skin, I have thought of capsules, but they are never as good as the real thing. I would love to hear of experience and advice on this herb!

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