Daddy & Jasper before church two Sundays ago
This is where Jasper always wants to go...he even says, outside & swing set.
However, we are inside a lot and Jasper has found many new places to climb. Here he was caught standing on the bread maker. He definitely looks guilty.
Darrell spent the last week of his summer vacation looking into energy-saving ideas. He found some pretty cool websites where people share how they cut their power bill to a tenth of what they are currently paying!! That would be great! Ideas like chest refrigerators, clotheslines, solar powered water heaters, bicycle-powered washing machines...let's just say some of these are obviously more practical than others! I had asked for a clothesline for a while (it is suppose to be better for drying cloth diapers, I still haven't tried) and Darrell put one up off our back porch. We are enjoying it so far and it is really not that much extra work to use.
There have been a few times I have not used the clothesline - Jasper moved all the clothes from the washer to the dryer so I personally saved energy, ha ha.
Canning AdventuresWe attempted (and technically succeeded) to can spaghetti sauce on Sunday night. We picked 28 lbs of tomatoes from Darrell's dad's garden on Friday evening to jump start our canning adventures. The recipe calls for about 20 lbs of tomatoes to yield 7 pints of sauce. That is not a whole lot and I wanted to use quart jars which would yield not quite 4 quarts! I guess I did not put this all together...tons of time and ingredients for 4 jars of sauce!
I started the sauce mixture boiling way before the 33 quart water canner pot started boiling and we ended up having to wait a long time for the canner pot to boil. Meanwhile I am watching the sauce disappear before my eyes! I wanted to keep the sauce hot and I had it simmering but I really think at least half of the sauce boiled off. I was so disappointed for all that work...
I only got 2 quarts! What in the world???!!!! That is probably some really thick, strong sauce. Let's just say I am thankful I got all the ingredients for free. If I had to purchase tomatoes, peppers, basil, etc, then I would say these are easily $20 each.
Tonight's canning adventures went much better! The salsa recipe called for 20 lbs of tomatoes to yield 9 pints. I did go to the farmer's market this morning and buy 15 lbs of tomatoes for $18. I got the other 5 lbs from our garden, yay! Darrell & I were much happier with the resulting salsa jars. I used the canning recipes from the website Pickyourown.org.
Though I think all our latest energy-saving efforts were canceled by the amount of energy to keep a 34 quart pot boiling for 45 minutes on Sunday night to process the spaghetti sauce and 20 minutes tonight to process the salsa. We're learning!
6 comments:
Jasper is already doing laundry?!? When I have babies, I'm going to send them to your house for training. :)
yum! it sounds great! and i need jasper to come over and help with some laundry please...
love that clothesline - looks very usable without being super in-the-way...my current clothesline is my guest bathroom shower rod LOL - I hang dry pretty much all of Walker & my permanent press-type clothes...for him, if a stain doesn't come out and I miss it, it gives me a 2nd shot at it :) and the colors seem to stay so much brighter...for me, I just hate the way so many of my cotton tees seem to constantly shrink down...never thought of it as being my green contribution, though!
W also loves helping with laundry, if I ever drop a sock on the floor, he is so excited to throw it in for me. Unfortunately, he also has quite a fascination with the lint trap, so if I don't clean it out immediately, it ends up everywhere LOL
We need to get a front loading washer and then Kate and Jack can fully help me too! Right now they just push them into the dryer for me. I like hang-drying my diapers but haven't put up a clothes line here. You need to read Serve God Save the Planet if you haven't yet. I'm trying to make time for it now. Maybe I can bring it down on the 21st (it's Wren's copy).
Jasper is getting so BIG!! he's a doll...and ya'll are cute too!!! Go with your canning!!Michael and I put up 30 quarts of Stewed Tomatoes and 2 bushels (Minus about 8 ears..They dried out because I couldn't get them done soon enought) ...Michael wanted to by some peaches(Some meaning a bushel) and I told him NO!!!!
1.) WAY impressed with pretty much everything you mentioned about in this post.
2.) when I dry my cloth diapers outside, they are SOOO much more soft if I throw them in the dryer for about 5-8 minutes first, then hang them out. It makes a world of difference. I'm sure you knew that, but just thought I'd mention it.
3.) We have a clothesline, but I like how yours is not cemented into the ground and not visible from the road. Ours isn't visible from the road, but looking out our bay window, you can see it in the back. Sometimes I wash too late in the day to dry them outside, but I'm happy to have an option and an avenue to save money.
4.) When you jarred that sauce, did you boil the lids and it just sealed the goods in there? I have yet to jar and seal. I jar and freeze, only because I have yet to research how to jar and store in the pantry or outside of the fridge. Any advice you can give me? Anything you learned? email me!
Post a Comment