The Big "Iron Out"

For the past week or so, a junk dealer has come out to the farm to get scrap iron and old vehicles and machinery that has been here for years.  Some of this stuff has been here since the late 60's.  It was definitely time to clean the place up.   Every guy in the neighborhood needs a "scrap iron pile", but hubby's pile was just a little too big!  I think all the useable parts had already been taken out of the cars and farm machinery and all that was left was just the body.  All the farms around here probably need a good iron out cleaning, so now I'm the envy of all the ladies in the neighborhood, as they have also been after their husbands to clean things up!  It must be a "guy thing" to keep piles of farm stuff and iron and cars out in the 'back 40' !  Every guy around these parts does his own welding and repair, but there comes a time when enough is enough.   (Of course, we won't mention that the ladies in the neighborhood have their own "iron pile" of cabinets full of quilting material and fabric for that future project, many sets of dishes for that special occasion, and clothes by the heaps in boxes for when we lose weight, ya know?) Ha!  Sometimes human nature is strange......

A 1954 White Co truck (used to be Harold's Dad's).  This one was actually in a neighbor's scrapyard!  I guess the guys around here share scrapyards??

One of many trucks of scrap

Ancient machinery!

The scrap dealer brought his tractor to load stuff.

One of the last loads.

 

The $12 Potato Lesson

I've been canning potatoes for years and never have any problems.  I have canned both red ones and white ones.  Canned potatoes are a good convenience for me in the pantry, as they cook up quickly for breakfast potatoes, and you can shred them up easily for hash browns.   So, last week I bought 10 pounds of beautiful looking white potatoes at the farm market from another vendor.   They were firm, and sized right.  I thought:  Ooh!  These will be great for canned potatoes!  WRONG!!  Apparently they were of a dry, baking variety.  I usually can up waxy-type varieties of potatoes, like Red Nordlands or White Kennebecs.  Not sure what these were, but they were obviously for baking or making mashed potatoes, or frying - but NOT canning!  They had a lot of starch in them, and when they came out of the canner, the potatoes became a gelatinous mush!  See the photo below, showing a jar of red potatoes canned, and a couple jars of the wrong kind to can!

A little research on the internet told me that only waxy type potatoes will be successful for canning, as they have a lower starch content and hold up well during the canning process.   I guess the potatoes I bought were the kind for baking, and were of a dry type, and during the heat of the canning process, the starch in the potato mixes with the salted water and become a gelatinous mixture.   They also soaked up every drop of water in the jar and were completely inedible.
So - all you ladies out there who like to do canning - don't buy anything other than red potatoes for canning!    I wasted $6 for potatoes, $3 for lids and at least $3 worth of electricity to learn this lesson.   Too bad, too, because those potatoes I bought would probably have made some lovely mashed potatoes.  Live and learn, ya know?

A Good Salad Dressing Recipe

I thought I'd share with you a favorite and easy to make salad dressing recipe that is really good on coleslaw or salads.   A full recipe makes a lot, but it keeps well in a jar in the fridge.  I usually make just half a recipe, which seems to be plenty for a few days of salads.  It's not exactly low cal, but a little goes a long way.  It is especially good on cabbage or pasta salads, but I also think it's great on spinach salads.  My garden produced a lot of spinach this year, so I've been eating this on spinach salads for the past few days.

Sweet Sour Onion Dressing

2/3 c. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 small onion, cut up (or half a medium onion, use your judgement and taste)
1/3 c. vinegar (red or white, but I prefer white)
1 c. salad oil (I like to use Crisco oil)
1 T. celery seed
1 tsp. dry mustard powder (optional, sometimes I don't use this)

Put all ingredients in a blender and whirl away for a minute.   Store in a glass jar.  When you want to use it, just shake it up.

A Quick Way To Dry Herbs

Being the avid gardener that I am, I also grow my own herbs:  basil, oregano, parsley, dill, cilantro, chamomile, peppermint and lemon balm.  I discovered an easy way to dry herbs using the microwave.

First, pick the fresh herbs in the morning, shortly after the dew dries.   Then I wash any sprigs that need it, and let the herbs dry on a kitchen towel for a couple days in my warm kitchen.

A towel full of parsley ready to dry. 

Then put a small amount on a paper towel:

Next, cover with another paper towel, and put the whole "package" into the microwave for 1 minute. 

After a minute, the bottom towel will be a little wet, and the top towel not so much wet.  Put the herbs on a fresh paper towel, cover, and microwave for another minute.  Keep doing this until the herbs are dry enough to crumble with your fingers.  For basil, you might have to do 5 or 6 minutes in the microwave, one minute at a time.   As you dry the herbs, you can often re-use the paper towels, as they won't be as wet.  When the herbs are dry, crumble them (discarding the stems) onto wax paper and then funnel the dried herbs into jars.   They will keep nicely for a year in a cool dry place (NOT in a sunny spot next to the stove!). 

Parsley dries quickly in just a few minutes.  Dill dries very quickly, too.  Other herbs might need a few more minutes.  Always do one minute at a time and change towels (or re-use the drier ones).   This is quicker than using a dehydrator, which needs an overnight time.  I have tried drying herbs in an oven at 200 degrees, but that uses more electricity and takes longer than just a few minutes.  If you like to grow things, try growing your own herbs and drying them this way!

Basil, parsley and oregano

August Already??

Wow - the summer is going by so quickly!  Can it really be August now?  One more month of summer and we are back into the "winter is coming" mode.  Ugh.
The garden is recovering nicely after the torrential rains of June, and we are having a very successful farm Market.   Yesterday we sold about 35 pounds of green beans, about half the honey we had left, all my breads, and a great many heads of romaine and leaf lettuce.  Harold built a nifty little cart to attach behind my riding mower so I can drive up to the garden and load 'er up with produce and then drive back home to the back door.  Sure beats lugging buckets of heavy produce by hand!  I'm getting too old for that!  Anyway, check it out.  Seems like my curious cats are checking it out, too!

Harold used some more of that "scrap iron" to build a great veggie cart that I pull with my lawn mower!

Speaking of market, this was our set up yesterday.  We are allotted an 8 x 10 space.  Market is every Thursday afternoon until freeze up in October.

Not sure what Harold is doing.  The cooler has gallon bags of leaf lettuce keeping cool.  Other lettuces are standing in plastic tubs of cold water, as well as the smaller tubs of cilantro and basil. 

Remember that Ferris wheel planter that Harold made for me?   The flowers are so pretty in it now:

Take a look at our beehives - lots of honey supers are on!  We anticipate a great honey year.  The bees are working like crazy now.

Another month to go and we will probably put on a couple more layers of honey supers.

Unfortunately, our grapes got a fungus disease.  Too much rain, too much humidity.  We might have prevented this with an application of a fungal spray, but we didn't get it in time.  With this disease, the grapes turn brown and shrivel up.  We will have NO grapes this year.  sigh. 

My poor dying grapes. 

Oh well, you can't win them all.