I am working on getting rid of a bunch of canning jars. Found the perfect way. Our AC man's son is a beekeeper. Gave him a load of jars this summer. Got a quart of honey in return and promise(?) of at least one each year.
Glad to get rid of the jars and am looking forward to the honey.
I have a large number of Atlas jars with the standard small lid. Ran into the first bunch at a Pentecostal Church sale, five cents each. I carry a standard small lid with me when I go fossiking just to ensure they work. They were originally REAL jars from a spaghetti sauce, can't remember the name. They're still around but changed the neck of the jar so it is no longer of use for canning. They're not quite a quart but are really good for pickles and jellies. I'm looking at about six cases of pints, a couple of cases of quarts and a case of half gallon jars right now. Plus a bunch of little 1/4. 1/8, etc. jars that have come in over the years.
I accuse my lovely wife of hoarding and she smiles and mentions my canning pantry. Touche!
You're giving up the trade Susan? I will be 77 the 23rd of September and am slowing down a bit but not giving up yet. How many folks have disappeared from rec.food.preserving over the last 20 years?
I've offered to teach the trade to our elder grands but they don't seem interested. Two of them don't even garden, even after all our work to teach them how to preserve their own home grown food.
I don't, but wife loves Miracle Grow.
Our "native" dirt here is two inches of sand over five feet of Houston gumbo clay, put in at build to raise the houses above the minimum flood zone, saves on $$$ but is very bad for gardening, hence the raised beds.
Yup, but the barrier fabric is pretty much gone by now, has been in place since early 2013 and was intended to rot away eventually.
Yup, we both grew up on small farms, almost always had composting in place, plus we had large critters for several years and they dropped enough good stuff on the land that it became very rich. Horses, mules, cows, goats, etc. Improved grass lands, eaten by large critters then given back to the earth. In Louisiana we had access to friends who had large critters and we always had a pickup truck. Go clean out a rain shed that had two feet of excrement that was aged from two to five years, take an axe, cut out large chunks, use the hay fork to toss into truck, repeat many times. Take it home, put the stuff through the wood chipper and blow it into the garden, Use the tiller to turn it under, water, plant seeds, jump back as they grow. I miss those days, about the only big critter poop you can get here is Black Cow in bags and that is from huge feed lots and no telling what was going through the critters and into the bags.
Not giving up, just slowing down after 2 years of medical problems. Hoping I can get a smaller garden going next year. I still have lots of jars, many of them still full of food. (food still good and being used) I looked at my records and about the 3rd year we were here I set out almost 100 tomato plants. I do keep track of what is on the shelves and get rid of anything that is too old. Getting harder to get rid of stuff since older son's wife has a small garden and younger son has his own garden, freezer and canner.
BTW I'm only 16 months younger that you.
At our ages who quibbles about it! I am very lucky though, over forty micro-strokes, four major strokes, heart attack, coronary bypass, multiple stents in heart arteries, etc. I've had everything but small pox, which my mother had and gave her children immunity. I'm grateful to be able to love on my great grands and one of those is closing on age 17 so I may be able to see a great great grand before I'm gone. My doctors read my chart and sometimes just gasp at all the stuff that has beat up this old body. Sometimes you're just lucky. Miz Anne and I will be married 57 years in December, we've already beaten the record of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. Thank goodness for modern medicine, of which I take a lot.
The Cook wrote: ...
that's a nice arrangement. :)
we've had a few people who used to can who've given us a lot of jars the past year. which is why we are ok with passing them along to others without being too concerned if we get them back.
songbird
The Cook wrote: ...
we'd need help and machines to keep up with that many plants! :)
but they'll take some jars? :)
you are both about Ma's age. she can run laps around me health-wise. :)
be good to yourselves...
songbird
George Shirley wrote: ...
i've got a bag of odd little sized jars in the closet that i would use for odds and ends of jam batches, but now that i'm doing freezer jam and have been happy using pint jars i hardly even use them any more. and some of those decorative diamond pattern jars which are too tippy and i don't like 'em. tried a few minutes ago to talk Ma into letting me put some tomato juice in them so i could get rid of them... nope... darn... :)
har! i have boxes of old bottles on top of the book- cases, that i really should just see if anyone wants them because i've not bothered with them since i put them up there. some old ink wells are about all i really like and a few coffin bottles and colored soda water bottles. used to go with a friend digging for bottles and would help him scrub them so he'd let me take a few here or there.
that was a long time ago when i was up north.
songbird
...
ah, ok.
that will be where any earthworms will hide from the heat when it gets too bad out.
oh, that's ok, at least you have sand and clay if you ever need it and the worms can get in and out.
...
i know. i don't buy the stuff any more, but i did try a few bags when i first put in the strawberries. decided i could grow/harvest green manure crops for a fraction of the expense and run it through the worm bins. :)
i envy younger people who can handle larger animals and have the inclination. you can do a lot of regenerative grazing on beat up farmland to bring it back to prime condition, run chickens through right after you graze and the chickens will pick through the cow plops to get the fly grubs, and scatter the plops around.
in those winter sheds, this guy takes whole shelled out corn and sprinkles it in there once in a while and then as the pile builds up he doesn't do anything until after the cows come out of the shed and then he puts his pigs in there and they root through it all and turn it looking for the corn. :) i think that's a great idea for stirring compost... using an animal to do it.
for me, worms are about as far as i can go for now. eventually i hope i can do some quail here just to get a population back that has been eradicated.
songbird
Miz Anne's two sisters are coming in from Maryland today. Getting all set up for our eldest granddaughter's forthcoming wedding. So, Miz Anne is mowing the yard again and weed eating and trimming everything to look good for her sisters. I just got up from a nap, have been feeling really lousy for about a week, hopefully that will go away soon.
Have been having a little rain here and there and the gardens are picking up. I am amazed at how much stuff from over a year ago planting are still producing and growing. The latest plantings are taking over the gardens due to the rain I reckon.
Miz Anne turned the last of the Tennosui pears into a nice pear pie today. We have tried the newest pear jelly and it is outstanding in color and taste. I think we're going to get along with the tree alright. Will try the pear sauce I made soon. I added nothing to it, just canned it and put it in the canning pantry. I tasted the raw sauce and it was excellent. Miz Anne thinks I should have added some cinnamon or another spice but I am hoping it will just be good as is. Sometimes the lily does not need to be gilded.
George
Back in the sixties and seventies my Dad and I operated a gunsmith shop and we also handled antique bottles and jars. Our area of Texas at that time was loaded with old homesteads, long burned or taken out. We could find the privy holes easily and dug out many an old bottle, jar, or whiskey jug. Soaked them in #2 wash tubs for a week or two and then put them in an antique display cabinet we ran upon. Folks would come in for the husband to look at guns and the wives would see the display cabinet. We generally sold more antique bottles than guns because of that display.
Folks liked the bottles and jars that had turned a light violet color due to the sun hitting the glass for years. Mostly turned violet if there was a good bit of selenium in the glass. We would take the privy bottles and put them in a box I built with a barber's sanitary light in the top. One week and we had genuine antique sun purpled bottles. Price of those doubled and tripled.
George
My Mom always had several dozen laying hens, she sold the fresh eggs to folks in town at a good price. The chickens had free run of the ten acres during daylight hours and then went to their roost before dark. We also fed them "laying hen feed." The yolks of the eggs were a deep, golden color and the taste was much better than those from the supermarket. Chickens, ducks, etc. do a good job of fertilizing the fields too. Our guinea hens roosted in the tallest trees on the property, they didn't much like hen houses but they went there to lay their eggs. The occasional hawk would get one once in awhile but those roosting trees always had deep green leaves. Lots of guinea poop on the ground.
...about zones...
roughly the same here, except not so arid.
and at elevation 620ft, which also makes a lot of difference in sun intensity.
for arid climate wind-breaks can help a lot. he's mentioned before getting very strong winds.
and mulching to hold whatever soil moisture you can collect.
and using contours to harvest any run-off so you don't lose topsoil and rainwater. stop it, slow it down, soak it in. water stored under- ground is much better than in a pond when it comes to arid climates.
songbird
We get 7 inches a year on average. When it rains, sometimes there are flash floods and then the water disappears.
We have some awesome thunderstorms. The most incredible five minutes of weather drama you can imagine.
Are you all better yet? Or just getting there?
Some are taken care of pretty well and others we are learning to live with or work around.
This is good news indeed.
Amen! Started becoming decrepit in my mid-fifties, will pass my mid-seventies the 23rd of this month and am becoming more decrepit.
My lovely wife's two sisters are here for two weeks. Luckily we get along quiet well. The three of them are gone most of the day as the sisters are from Maryland and haven't seen much of Majestic Texas. Off to the Farmer's Market and several other places this morning. The dog and I will begin napping soon, something we both enjoy immensely.
I am the head cook here at the Hacienda and the sisters-in-law are learning to eat Texas grub and they are surprised at how good it is. Eldest granddaughter is getting married Monday, they're trying to get me into a suit again. Gave suits up in 2007 but I will put on long pants and a nice shirt. My normal wear in spring and summer is cotton shorts and a cotton tee shirt. Winter apparel is long cotton pants, and a long sleeved tee. I see nothing wrong with that at a wedding but all the hens and chicks in the flock are pushing me toward a suit. I'm not giving the girl away, not part of the wedding party, what is wrong with shorts and a tee in a church?
Garden is still producing, sweet peppers, okra, and eggplant mostly. About time to start our winter crop, probably toward the end of September. The lone, nearly two year old pepper plant is still producing like crazy. We're going to try to keep it going another year.
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