• insulating partial upstairs and downstairs walls
• flooring upstairs and carpet for bedrooms to be built
• recover kitchen floors with luan and tile
• sand and refinish downstairs floors
• buy and install 3 baseboard heaters for bathroom and 2 bedrooms
• outdoor plumbing has to be dug up and buried further down
• some sort of storage, containers, shelving or adding closets in each room

So, that's our plan to get things done!  The hard part for me is being physically limited because there are a lot of areas that I cannot get to.  Nancy has to do all the heavy work, which I hate because no woman should have to do all that heavy lifting.  She does it without complaining even though it makes her sore and very tired.  We need all your prayers to get through all this and maybe help from some of our neighbors that we've lent a helping hand to over the past two years that we've been here.  I wanted to share some pictures of our house.  This used to be a church originally built in 1891 and it is still all originial woodwork inside and outside.  We marvel at the beauty that we live in every time we sit down as a family in our home.

                   me ripping out the kitchen floor to replace plumbing lines and put new kitchen cabinets in
nails from the floorboards, probably 116 yrs. old

old plumbing we pullled out....NASTY!!!
C-R-I-N-G-EEEEE  we think that's mold spores on the wall behind the old sink that we tore out...bleaching our hands was a daily activity back then...
floor underneath the old sink...now replaced with new flooring!
newly sanded and waxed floors!

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Hello, and I hope you're all doing well this day with the Lord!  Just a few tips on canning vegetables and some precautions to look for while canning.

•     In canning grean beans, squash, green tomatoes can all be done the same way except for squash; they should be cut open and take all the seeds out.  Depending on what type of green beans you're using they may be prepared differently, i.e., white half-runner green beans have to have the strings pulled off and broken at each joint and washed off.  Make sure on all vegetables that there are no bruises, bug bites, or bad places on them before canning to prevent spoiling.  It's best and faster if you have a pressure cooker otherwise you'll spend lots of hours waiting on the vegetables to finish cooking.
•     You will want to cut your green tomatoes and other vegetables into slices and then wash them thoroughly. 
  
• Next, sterilize the jars and make sure before using there are no chips or cracks in them or they won't seal.
  
• Fill your jars up to the shoulder (that's the rounded part at the top of the jar before the smallest curve in the jar).   Add a teaspoon or two to each jar, unless you prefer to you can add salt later if needed. Replace lids snugly on the jars when they have been filled.
  
• Depending on whatever size canner you have, 5 or 7 quart, place jars of vegetables in the canner then add about 2 quarts of water into the canner and place the lid on the pot.  Each batch should take about 30 minutes to cook.
• After the vegetables have cooked turn the heat off and let them sit in the canner for a few minutes to cool down or you could be in danger of getting burnt or cut from flying lid and jars breaking.  If you feel skiddish, like my wife, you can leave the jars in there for a few hours because she has had the explosion happen to her before...it was chicken that exploded and not canning jars...Hee Hee!!!
• After a while check the seal in the center of the jar and if it's popped out it's not sealed, when it will dips down in the center it will be sealed.  This can be fun for kids to watch if you have a couple of stray ,observant kids laying or running around the house.
  
• Ideally you should have a room or space where the canned goods can be stored at room temperature, i.e., a cellar, basement, or pantry.  Now, here's a great recipe for Sauerkraut that my Aunt Marie gave to me this weekend.
  

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Last time I wrote about How I Started Canning, so this time I thought I'd write more about what is needed to get started canning.  There are various things a body would need but not necessarily all of the things I am going to mention would be necessary.  My family always struggled financially so we always did the best with whatever we had.  First, you should probably make a list of things you want to can, preserve or freeze; secondly, I would make a list of any ingredients I might need from the grocery store, i.e., unflavored gelatin, salt, paraffin wax, spices, herbs, vinegar(s), food coloring, lemon juice...you get the point.  So, here are some things you may have to go to the local Tractor Supply Store, Wal-Mart, Southern States, feed store, Ace or Lowe's Hardware store or even the Dollar Stores and Big Lots!  Right now, Dollar General has canning jars.

• Large Pressure Cooker - holding 2-3 gallons of liquid
• Jars- whichever size you might need for the amount you have cooked.
• Ziploc Bags or Canning containers - I've learned not to skimp on these things
• Large Pots for transferring or used for cooking if a pressure cooker isn't affordable for you.
• Strainers
• Seive or Collandar - buy the seive used at a goodwill if it's in good shape...they're high even in Wally world!
• Lots of old towels, sheets that can be torn up or old diapers (anything that won't hurt to possibly get stained)
• Big spoons...lots of big spoons
• Tongs for lifting jars out of the pot
  
• Pot holders...lots of these too!

I feel like I'm forgetting something...Like I said, some of these things probably won't be necessary unless you're doing a great deal of canning at one time...which is the best way, if you can get all your fruits and veggies to grow to maturity all at the same time. 

If I know my wife like I think I do she'll have a list of all the items to be canned and ingredients for each item, then she'll summarize everything into one long list for the trip to the store.  Since we don't even have a pressure cooker it's going to be a budget buster or a long time watching the pots on the stove.  Either way, it's sure to keep our house heated up! 

One tip you may not know:  When you're freezing berries or fruit it's best not to wash them before putting in a bag for the freezer.  We found out purely by accident one year that the fruit doesn't spoil as fast or turn brown if it's not rinsed beforehand...do all that afterwards, when you're ready to eat them.

Have a GREAT week!

Gerald

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I recently decided to start writing on HSB along with my wife, and in setting up my HSB account we called it Shedding Notes. I always love being outside and wanted to write about the great outdoors. One of my first comments was to ask me to write a post on how I got started canning fruits and vegetables.  Here is the story how I started.

Well, it was sort of a family tradition since I am from a large family.  I was one of nine children and my dad was one of thirteen children.  My dad came up during the great depression and his family had to get a lot of their food from the land so they would plant garden seeds like corn, beans, potatoes, etc. because if they didn't then they would go hungry. So my dad and my grandparents made sure that they passed what they knew about canning and preserving foods on to the next generation.  Outside of that I have always had a great fascination for God's wonderful creation for everytime I walk outside I marvel at the trees, hearing the birds singing, flowers blooming and the feel of the fresh air blowing.  Those are just a few of the things that make life so wonderful. 

I spent years helping out in the kitchen with my mom and dad helping with the canning that we did every year when I was a teenager.  From the time I was very young I was surrounded by the life of canning every summer and fall.  We had a bountiful supply of green beans, corn, tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, apples, peaches, strawberries, blackberries, we also pickled foods in vinegar such as cucumbers, beets, and eggs.  We always stored arch potatoes, red potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions.  This is done by making a wooden box and filling it with hay and layering the hay with the potatoes/onions and they would last throughout the winter.   We had as much as 70-80 bushels of these stored in one season to use throughout the year.  After my parents passed and I was 35 I kept canning and preserving food for myself and my older family members.  I learned to make plum butter, it's much like apple butter but maybe thicker.  All the plums have to be washed very well and stems removed, put in a large open kettle and boil until the peelings crack,  then put them in a collander to mash the pulp out  and this goes into a second kettle.  Add to the cooked plums some nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon and sugar to taste and then boil again until it's thickened the way you like it.  Persimmons can also be done the same way.

My wife and I planted our first crop this year, since losing everything a few years ago and I'll teach her a little more about canning. She has never done any canning on her own but did grow up surrounded by the annual canning season as I did.

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Hi-

My name is Gerald and my wife is Nancy (nancysnook), my daughter is Kelsey (funkyleo).  This is my new blog. Nancy has been asking me to make a blog for a while now, but I wasn't sure how to set it all up and get it going.  Today we saw the Carnival of Homesteading site and I really wanted to write about my outdoor fun and my canning.  She took advantage of my peaked interest and told me I could write to CoH if I had my own blog...that brings me here!

I'm planning on writing about gardening and how much I enjoy canning fruits and vegetables.  I used to do a lot of canning but when my wife and I lost our home to a fire we had to move away.  We managed to save some of the fruit trees but many were damaged by the flames and the fire.  It's taken us 3 years to get back on our feet and we still don't have everything we'd like to so that our home feels more comfortable.  This is the first year that we've planted a garden and since we live on very rocky ground we've planted everything in some old car tires that we found at the back of the property. 

I would also like to keep a journal on all the changes that have been going on with our house.  It used to be a Christian church, built in Sept. 1891 we believe, and has been very abused since the building was sold to private parties.  We've worked extremely hard on remodeling the place and putting up walls, new floors, plumbing, and new electrical (which isn't finished yet), insulating. 

I'll write more about all that now that I'm here on HSB!  I want to be able to make friends and share ideas with other people.  I'm really excited about doing the Carnival of Homesteading. 

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