20 January, 2011 Butchering and canning time.

Its's been a busy week.  We began the week with lots of snow piled up and ended it with rain and warm weather.  It looks more like late March than late January outside.  Lots of photos in this entry.

The snow slid off naturally on most of the outbuildings but I needed to scoop it off the two canoes, aluminum boat, trampoline and chicken house.

Tristan got the job of shoveling off the workshop/generator shed and the shack. 

Susan cooked up a big pan of rice.  We had Spanish Rice for dinner then she dried the leftover rice for later use.  When you dry cooked rice you have minute rice.  We keep some on hand for times when we're travelling or just in a hurry.

Aahhhh!  Dinner cooking on the wood stove.

We ran out of corn meal so I ground some more with our electric grinder one evening when the generator was running.  We buy organic corn then grind it ourselves to the consistency we desire.

Me working.  I sold two more articles this week.

We've gotten more done on the Uhaul now that the weather has warmed up.  I repoaced the door knob which was quite a job since I had to do some modifications to make it fit.  We use a home type door knob set and it wasn't designed to fit a camper door.  Susan took the screen frame out to replace the screen.

Finished!  She installed it yesterday and also put the last of the insulation in the back wall.

We had stew left over so she canned it for future use.

We had some sweet potatoes we hadn't got around to eating yet.  They were beginning to get old so Susan is peeling them to be canned.

Peeled and cubed ...

Stew on the left and sweet potatoes on the right.

Now she's getting ready to can butter.  She begins by scraping it into the jars.  We set the jars on the water kettle to provide a low, steady heat.

As the butter melts she keeps adding more until the jars are full.  The smaller jars are for summer use when we need to use it up faster.  Actually we have refrigeration now so it doesn't matter but before then it did.  We will probably take the small jars in the camper this spring.

Butter and cheese can be canned with a water bath canner (no pressure needed).  The rock is to take up space and raise the water level so we don't need as much water in the canner.  This is actually the water kettle we keep ont he stove most of the time.  It began life as a canner and we still put it to work that way at times.

Butter and cheese fresh out of the canner.  The butter separates in the canning process.

You have to shake the butter up periodically while it cools to mix it back up.  It will go back to it's semi-solid state when cool.  We open the can and use a knife to spread it when we use it.  When we use the cheese we dip the jar in hot water then the cheese comes out intact.  Then you just slice it or grate it as you would normally.  You can put it back in the jar if you don't use it all at one sitting.

Grinding venison outdoors.  The grinder has a clamp-on base and needs a stout table to hold  in place.  The picninc table is our best option so I grind the hamburger outside.  I've had this grinder for at least thirty years.  We have three meat grinders.  One is a small clamp on type and the other is for indoor use with a suction base.  We bought it at a yard sale.  It wouldn't hold up to heavy duty grinding but it has some good grating attachments for cheese, etc.

Susan cans hamburger patties in wide-mouth jars.  They have to fit inside so she uses a can lid to sixe them.  She's also canned sausage tties the same way.  We try to remove ALL the fat from our venison prior to grinding so there is very little shrinkage.

Once the patties are made she browns them in the skillet.  Note the canner in use to the left.

These small (pint) wide mouth jars are perfect for the times it's just Susan and I eating.  The small jars are used mostly when we go camping.  The meat will be eaten right away so we don't have to worry about refrigerating leftovers.

First batch of jars washed and waiting for their turn in the canner.   We had to get more out of storage before we were done for the week.

Some of the food canned this week.

The last two canner loads.  Yeah!  We have four pressure canners.  When we need to heat more than two at once we get out our "outfitter's" propane stove.  It's can do two more canners.

Home canned venison burgers and cheese with home made buns.  The burgers are moist and taste great.  You just need to heat them up.  We also have home grown onions to go with them and a we have few tomatoes left that are ripe now (we picked them green when we closed down the garden for the year).

We set some buckets under the eves to catch water while it was raining.  We left a couple out overnight and they froze.  Thankfully they didnt freeze solid and break the buckets.

13 January, 2011 Yo Yo weather?

We've gone from lows of 12 below zero with highs in the single digits earlier in the week to rain today and highs in the upper 30's.  Of course, before it rained it snowed about four inches which soaked up the rain and made for some very heavy snow.  Tristan shoveled the snow from the roof of the shack today.  while I cleaned off the porch.  Susan shoveled the snow off the top of the Uhaul.  I planned on using the snow blower today but the snow is too wet (and plugs the outlet). 

We're down to our last deer to butcher.  Hopefully the warmer weather will thaw it out.  I've been hanging them up in the shack where I can keep the wood stove going.  That way I can warm them up enough to get the skin off to butcher them.  (I'm down to the last one now.)  I didn't bother firing up the stove when it was so cold but now that it's warmed up again I'm running the stove.  Other than that it's just typical winter time activities.  I do a lot of writing in the winter.  About half of the wood I cut last summer was green so we put it (in the round) in the back half of the wood shed.  It's hard to split green wood but it's dries out now and splits easy so every three days or so I go out and split enough to keep us going a few more days.

This is a frost pattern on one of our windows.  It was about 10 below zero when I took this picture.  We seldom see it on the double-pane windows.

Susan canned up some venison chunks, ham and bean soup, and chili for use later in the year.  While we have the woodstove going she makes several gallons at a time in some large pots.  We have it for supper then she cans what's left.

I butchered the first deer but some of the meat is still frozen solid.  As the weather warms we'll grind what's left into hamburger.  Susan got more jars out along with the meat grinders (we have three).

Susan shoveling snow off the Uhaul's roof.

This is the coat I modified.  The upper is the original coat.  We bought two and I cut the second one up to use the material on the first one.

Front view.

It was a little tight across the back so I split out the center seam then cut a section out of the other coat and sewed it into this one.  The white lines outline where the new section was sewed in.  The original was short so I added a section on the bottom to make it a longer.

I wanted more insulation on my back so I cut out part of the nylon lining and sewed in a piece of wool material from the other coat.  I'm really happy with it.  I would like more pockets and may sew some on eventually but for now I just use the two large pockets that came with the coat.  It has a zipper and a storm flap with buttons.  I may cut more out of the lower front part of the skirt to give my legs more freedom of movement.  I want to try it like this awhile first though. 

There were some questions on the forum regarding tire chains so I took a picture of the chains on our S-10, 2wd pickup.  I put the chains on in the fall before I park the PU for the winter.  That way if I need to take it out It will already have the chains installed.  The only reason I'd use it is if the Cherokee and the Dodge were not available.  (They are both 4wd.)  So far I've never needed it.

I bought the chains that are on it at a yard sale for five bucks.  They're made for cars so the chain is lighter duty than my other chains but they work well for the S-10.  They're just a little long for these tires but I'm not going to cut them down because they'll work on the Cherokee like they are.  I have chains for both the Cherokee and Dodge too but they're heavy duty truck chains.  The bungee cord is to keep the chains centered.  Otherwise thay can roll around to where they slip off the tire.  When that happens they can tear off the brake lines.  That's not a good deal at all!

7 January, 2011 Rain???

We had several days where the high never hit 10 degrees above zero and now we've had two days of rain!  It's supposed to get cold again tomorrow and then have several days with highs in the single digits which means our road will become a skating rink.  Uhg!

Susan spent the first part of the week with kids/grandkids in town helping with the newest addition to the clan.  I was busy with domestic duties while she was gone as well as other things.. I usually do some heavy duty gun cleaning when she's gone because the fumes from the copper solvents, etc. get a little strong in the cabin.  We've been suspecting that one of our batteries had gone bad.  Mainly because the battery bank was discharging at night when nothing was turned on.  We've had a long series of cloudy days so I had to run the generator for awhile to charge the battery bank to full charge before I could test them.  To test them I have to disconnect the wiring to every battery then check the water levels and run a load test on each battery,  We had six hooked up in parallel in two different battery boxes.  One of them tested bad so I put the five remaining batteries in one box which meant I had to rewire them all.  A battery can test good, weak, or bad on the load tester.  If it's good, when you apply the load the voltmeter needle drops slightly and holds steady in the green.  If it is weak the needle drops into the yellow zone.  Usually if it is bad the needle drops quickly into the red zone.  I purchase the tester below from Harbor Freight Tools.  It isn't fancy but so far anyway, has never been wrong. 

Susan's been making more hotpads.  She's going to a craft sale tomorrow.  She's rented one of the tables with her middle daughter.

My favorite designa are those in the first picture.

Susan made a big pot of chili and a pan of cornbread.  The pot is about 2/3 full.

After we had two meals from it she still canned over two gallons of chili for future use.

Some wild turkeys decided to take a stroll through the parking lot of the Safeway gas station in Whitefish.

Our dog found the old tetherball we tied in the tree for a dog toy.  The previous dog liked to butt it around with her nose but Odie prefers playing tug-of-war with the rope.

Our non-electric iron heating on the wood stove.  The top opens up so you can also put hot coals, charcoal or hot rocks inside to make it hotter.  I has vents you can adjust to regulate the burn rate of the coals inside.  We just put it on top of the stove to heat it up.

These were dump finds.  The hatchet is an old railroad hatchet I found in the dump.  The handle was broken so I made one out of an old axe handle.  I keep it in the shack to split kindling for starting the fire in the barrel stove.  The knife too was found in a dumpster.  I use it mainly for fleshing skins on my fleshing beam in the shack. 

New Year's Day 2011

Ha ... got to get used to writing 2011 instead of 2010.   Been cold the last couple of days.  It was 15 below zero F yesterday morning and almost as cold the morning before.  Guess winter is making an appearance now.

Susan has been growing a pepper plant in a pot on the windowsill.  It finally has two blossoms on it.

The nice thing about working at home when it's ten below outside!

Susan doing some isometric exercises while on the computer.

The cat in recovery mode from it's exercise program. (I think it just finished eating.)

"Let's see, if I use the whole chair no one else will be able to sit here and I'll have it all to myself."

One of the neighbors over to help break in the Wii we got for Christmas from one of the kids.

Off to feed the buffalo on a frosty day!  The temperature is about 5 - 10 degrees above zero.

Pull the sled up the hill then ride it down the hill!

The bull always gets first choice at the hay.

The old cow is next and the two young-uns get what's left.  You can tell their ages in relation to each other by the length of their horns.The old cow is on the far end with her most recent calf beside her.  The older calf is directly behind the bull.  The bull is younger than the cow and the cow used to push him around but not any more.  He's definitely the boss now.

Susan riding the sled down the hill on the way home.

We got the snowmobiles fired up yesterday when another neighbor came over with his.  He and Tristan spent some time roaming the hills before they got too cold.  It's always a pain to get them started the first time of the winter.  We take the plugs out and pour gasoline in the cylinders then put the plugs back in and start them.  The fuel pump may be a little weak on one because we have to go through the procedure about three times before it's pumping enough fuel to fill the carburetors so it will keep running.  Once they're going they run great and will start relatively easy. 

Supper cooking on the wood stove.  By the time it has simmered for a few hours the house smells wonderful!  The big kettle on the left is an old canner we keep water in.  It evaporates about 2 - 3 gallons of water a day to add humidity to the air (depending upon how hot we keep the woodstove).  The metal is thick steel so it doesn't burn through.  If you've ever done this you'll know that tin pans/kettles burn through the bottom after a shor time so finding this was a good deal for us.  It's lasted seveal years now. 

One of the good things about a week of sub-zero temperatures is that we don't have to put food in the refrigerator to keep it cold.  I bought the pizzas in town a couple of days ago.  Tristan and I went in to do laundry and pick some things up. 

One of the bad things about a week of sub-zero temps.  Brrr.  That outhouse does get cold!