Since I did play a little in the woods yesterday. OK I played a lot in the woods, but I did get a quick picture of some turkey hens and poults on my way back to the house. I love every turkey sighting as I think they are just the coolest birds. Benjamin Franklin liked turkeys too (or so I'm told) so I am in good company. Well, the only thing I was able to get accomplished yesterday evening just before dark was getting a 5 gallon bucket of green beans picked. That is about a 1/2 bushel give or take a bean or two or three.
After a leisurely morning, I set forth to canning the green beans. Step one: grabbed a chair and my bucket of beans and set up in the shade of a maple tree next to the house. The weather was PERFECT for sitting outside and preparing the beans. Still smiling thinking of how pleasant the weather was this morning. Good thing the weather was so nice because snipping green beans is one of my all time least favorite jobs. It's just that it is so very very very very tedious. Most years, Mike helps out by doing this while he watches t.v.. Two mindless activities combined can turn into something productive. But today I was on my own. As I was sitting in the yard snipping merrily away, I couldn't help but have flashbacks to my college days when I worked for one whole semester in the dining commons making toast. Two hours, five days a week. Putting bread in the toaster, taking bread out of the toaster. Thankful for the money, but seriously had an issue with toast for quite awhile after that.
Then onto loading the jars and cranking up the canner. The only thing that I don't like about the pressure canning part is that I really need to stay close to keep an eye on things. First the canner needs vented for 7 minutes. Then it needs to be brought to 10 pounds pressure. That takes about 5 minutes. Then the stove top temperature needs adjusted so the pressure vent doesn't go off too much or too little. Then the canner has to run for 25 minutes. Then it has to come off the burner and cool down naturally to zero pressure and that takes about 15 minutes. So there is never really enough time in between any step to do another job. But when it is all done and over, the sense of preserving more fresh veggies from the garden to enjoy in the winter is all worth it. Oh and if anyone ever tells you that you can't pressure can on a smooth top range they are lying. Well maybe the manufacturer of the stove tops doesn't like such nonsense and maybe there is a good reason, but I've been doing this for over 10 years. No problems yet.
In the end, I now have 14 quarts of green beans to put on the shelf plus a little left over for tonight's dinner.
Oh and the other thing I did today was preserve some peaches. This is my FAVORITE fruit/veggie to preserve for winter. Get ready for the directions. Take peaches. Place in Ziploc bag. Put in freezer. Done. Yes, it really does work. I tried it last winter. When you pull the peaches out of the freezer, run them under cold water and the skins will loosen right up and come off. Then make sure (and this is VERY important) to slice them before they thaw completely or they will turn to mush. I made peach cobbler last winter from peaches preserved in this method and it was VERY YUMMY! I love things that are so easy peasey.
As far as the rest of the farm goes, we had all three boys over here working this afternoon and Ed was here both morning and afternoon. I know Ed picked some green beans that Mike loaded up and took to the Middlefield auction. MIke had to buy some more produce boxes there so it is always nice to drop off some produce to sell to cover the gasoline for the trip there and back and hopefully the cost of the boxes too. I think this afternoon, the boys worked on picking cherry tomatoes. Dang, I hope they left me some. I could use some for dinner salads later this week.
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