Harvest Tally 2014

Finally, I'm able to wrap up our harvest tally for the year.  It's less in many ways than other years but it's so much more than I thought we were going to be able to accomplish. It worked well for me to lower my expectation to absolutely nothing and then be pleasantly surprised as our pantry slowly filled up.  God is so very good.

We used a pressure canner for the first time this year (green beans and soups) and this was our first full year of using the Tattler Reusable Canning Lids.  Overall, I'm still very impressed with them and had good success.  For some reason, I didn't get good seals on my peaches which was discouraging because of how much work canning peaches is.  I just chopped up the peaches that didn't seal and threw them in bags for the freezer.  I do love that buying lids every year or so is a thing of the past. Also, I can say that not one of our Tattler lidded jars has come unsealed- a problem I occasionally experience with metal lids.  Their seals are super tight.

I hope your harvest was gratifying no matter what it's size.  What a gift it is to grow your own food!

Harvest Tally 2014

2 gallons, 1 quart and 1 pint honey

zucchini, chopped and froze, 17 2-3-cup bags
New Zealand spinach, froze, 11 quarts and 11 pints
zucchini relish, 15 jelly jars, canned
zucchini bread, 20 loaves, froze
green beans, 37 quarts pressure canned

tomato soup, 6 quarts canned
chopped tomatoes, 13 pints canned

Brunswick Stew, 14 quarts pressure canned
tomato sauce, 17 quarts and 28 pints, canned

corn, 10 1/2 quarts froze
red raspberries, 1 quart and 3 pints froze (many just didn't get picked or what did were eaten)
vegetable soup, 13 quarts and 1 pint, pressure canned
bell peppers, 1 gallon froze
peaches, 23 quarts canned and 8 3-cup bags froze
peach jam, 12 jelly jars froze

tomato juice, 13 quarts pressure canned
pearsauce, 10 1/2 quarts canned

applesauce, 105 quarts canned

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Pallet Trailer for Lawn Mower/Tractor

Jamey wanted something to haul things around the property.  Things like firewood, produce, brush, etc.  There's often room for kids as well.  Working with some used pallets, some old (and new boards) and a couple bicycle wheels, he built this and it works great.

sweet potatoes

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October Thus Far

Where does the time go?!  I actually know right where it goes I just wish it I could control the speed of it all. You know- to fast forward through the laundry and dishes and vacuuming and press slow motion during the sweet times with kids, friends and family and those rare, rare moments I have to myself to recharge.

Here are a few glimpses into our last few weeks.

I'm sorry this photo is blurry.  I just wasn't willing to get any closer.  Sadie had run inside saying there was a huge raccoon by the red raspberries.  To make a long story short- it was acting really strange so I called animal control and a ranger came out and put it down.  It was a beautiful animal but the safety of our kids trumped its sick self.

We traveled to Jamey's parents' house for applesauce making and when we drove in the driveway, they were well on their way!  They had all the apples and jars washed, many apples were cut and a large vat of applesauce had already been turned through the strainer.  Three cheers for my amazing in-laws!!

After making applesauce and celebrating Jamey's birthday with his family, we traveled north into Sullivan County, PA, where my family is part owner of a hunting cabin (where I've been going since I was very young).  We like to travel up this particular weekend for the local Fall Festival.  If you ever have a chance to go, you must!  There are craft and food booths galore but what we enjoy the most are the lumberjack competitions- log rolling (above), chainsaw carving, ax throwing, spring boarding, hot saw competitions, etc.  Jamey would love to enter one of the competitions some year. Pharmacist lumberjacks are a rare breed, I would think:-).

The rest of the weekend was spent enjoying family (particularly my newest nephew who we met for the first time), taking walks and playing in the creek. Oh, and eating. We do a lot of that there as well.

Walking with my {almost 12-year-old} boy.

At home, the rest of the garden was brought inside- white potatoes, sweet potatoes, dry beans (Scarlet Lady Runners below), butternut squash, some surprise tomatoes and peppers, and...

...a huge bowl of shiitake mushrooms.

With the garden gleaned and the applesauce made, our harvest season is complete...except for our pig. But she's a story for another time.

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We are in Love with Pearsauce

I wish I had thought to take a picture of our entire pear tree a few weeks ago when it was covered in pears. I also wish we had picked more of them because we finally have our pear groove on.

When we bought our house there were six large Keifer pear trees in our front yard.  They had gotten extremely tall making them difficult to pick, we hadn't yet learned the best way to ripen pears and even when a couple ripened successfully, they weren't that tasty.  Eventually, we cut them down.

Back in the little orchard behind the house however, was/is a pear tree of a different variety.  We took better care to prune it and tried year after year to eat and use its fruit.  It's a tough little tree.  Not only has it survived another tree falling on it and has provided shade and shelter for our chickens but every year it gives us a nice little crop of small pears.

in the shade of the pear tree

(If any of you recognize the variety, I'd love to hear it.  They are small, tart and change from green to yellow as they ripen.  We don't spray them, so this is what the un-sprayed version of this variety looks like.)

Once we learned the best way to ripen them, I started canning them and we all started eating them fresh because they are wonderful when allowed to ripen properly (otherwise, they ripened from the inside out).  This year they were especially small so the thought of peeling and canning them was not appealing so the plan was to try my hand at making pearsauce.

Jamey picked two 5-gallon buckets full (later regretting he didn't pick more) and he carried them over to our neighbor's house who generously keeps an empty refrigerator in their basement for our use. Thank you, Marie!! After chilling them for a few days, these same generous neighbors allowed us to lay them out on newspaper on their basement floor to ripen.  On Saturday Sam brought the pears back over in our little red wagon.  I halved them, removing the stem and loaded them into pots to cook them down.

You use the same method to make pearsauce as you do to make applesauce.  I did make a couple adjustments.  First, the pears were much juicier so I needed to pour off most of the liquid before loading them into my Food Strainer (we call it a "Squeezo"-the brand my mother has) otherwise I got more of a pear juice than a sauce.  Because these pears are tart, I also added some sugar.  The hot sauce was canned and processed in a hot water bath for 35 minutes.

The result was AMAZING.  We all love it- possibly more than we love our applesauce and that is saying something.  And we have plans to turn every last pear on next year's tree into pearsauce (except those we eat out of hand, of course).  Our two five gallon buckets yielded 10 and a half quarts and a bowlful for eating and making Upside-Down Pear Gingerbread.  If you haven't tried that recipe yet, you must.  I make it most often without even turning it upside down- we just spoon it out of the pan.

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