I scarcely ever miss a sunrise or sunset. The sunrise is so exciting and vibrant, hearlding the new day. I always wonder what it will bring and flash through the plans for what I need to and want to do today. But by sunrise, I’m ready to stand and watch the sun sink below the pine-jagged horizon and review what I actually got done. You KNOW it’s never what you thought you could get done, don’t you?

Well, today I got an envelope in the mail from the contractor’s supply store, Nortrax in Duluth, containing a little 3/8″ steel ball bearing. That little shiny ball is what we lost out of the bulldozer last Sunday, when David released the grease to get more room to get our thrown track back on. That one, tiny, teeny little ball blocks the release port underneath where we were supposed to “slightly” release the cap screw instead of take it out. And that o tiny little ball put us out of the clearning business for a whole week! Oh. By the way, it would have cost 53 cents, but they didn’t even charge me for it. Nice guys!!!

Then I put up some more jelly. Today it was spiced apple and wild plum. You see I had made 18 jars of wild plum yesterday, from the plums David had brought home from his friends on Sunday….before the bulldozer episode… My friend, Jeri Bonnette, has a steam juicer, a Mehu Miaja, which juices all types of fruit with very little effort. So I offered her half of the juice for juicing my bucket of plums. Of course she jumped at the offer and we both ended up with a gallon jug full of wine pink plum juice.

I put up the jelly yesterday and had 3 cups left over in the fridge. I worried that it might start to ferment so I opened a quart of crab apple juice and mixed the two. While it heated, I got to wondering about adding a pinch of cinnamon and some almond extract. Mmmmm. Well, I did just that and ended up with the best mixed jelly I’ve ever made. Good idea!!! (You add the almond extract when it’s at a rolling boil so it doesn’t boil out.) It made wonderful ruby red jelly that tastes oh so good too!

After I made the jelly, I went through my spring catalogs and boxed up a bunch for the recycling. It’s amazing how many “second” catalogs they send! I think I ended up pitching five Parks, four Gurneys, six Burgess/Interstate/Etc./Etc. catalogs and many others….all in color!!!! Gee, if they would just send ONE good catalog and reduce their prices some, they’d make more money and not make me go through all that work!!! I shudder to think what all those catalogs cost the companies. And I kept one of each catalog, too, just for reference. I’m talking about the ones I threw away. Wow!

Have you noticed how much the “shipping and handling” is now? Most charge over $7.99. And that’s if you only want a few packs of seeds. It sure makes growing open pollinated varieties and saving your own seeds look better and better doesn’t it? I know I grow more and more each year.

I’m sorting out more ripening tomatoes from the tubs full in the new greenhouse. It’s amazing; I made pizza sauce yesterday out of all the ripe ones and already today I’ve got a whole lot more that are getting red. These will be spaghetti sauce so I can use up the rest of my green bell peppers before they get too soft. Mmmm I’m getting hungry already.

So when that old sun begins to set, I stop mid-chores and visit my friendly donkeys, Moose and Beauty and watch it go. It’s been a good day. They think so too.

Readers’ questions:

Cat doo doo in garden

Hello! Are cats using garden beds as a litter box a danger to edible plants or herbs growing in them? Cats seem to enjoy our gardens and want to verify it isn’t a hazzard due to bacteria.

Alonzo Paul
Blackwood, New Jersey

I’m sure the cats do enjoy your garden beds….but it’s not a real good idea to let them do you-know-what in them. Not only are there some diseases that can be transmitted from cats to people (chiefly toxoplasmosis), but also some parasites could be picked up from feces, as well. To keep the kittys happy, and your family safer, consider fencing the beds with chicken wire, then making the cats their own bed, unfenced and perhaps containing some catnip and flowers, as well as some digable black dirt….just for fun.

The cats do a lot to keep down garden pests, such as voles, field mice and chipmunks, so it’s a good thing having them around. We just need to focus their potty manners to a healthier alternative. — Jackie

Highbush cranberries

Hi Jackie- First I would like to tell you that you are my favorite in the magazine. And I really enjoy reading about your everyday life in the backwoods of Minnesota. I would like to know if you have ever grown or are familiar with Highbush Cranberries. I have read that they need a moist ground and then read somewhere else that they are drought tolerant. Also have you ever made jelly or sauce with the fruit? I live in Northeast Michigan (zone 4) and plan on growing them in a southern exposure. I am curious to hear if you had any dealing with them and if they are worth the effort.

Craig Lough
Hawks, Michigan

YES! HIGHBUSH CRANBERRIES ARE DEFINITELY worth growing or hunting up in the edges of the lowland woods. I haven’t planted any yet because they’re quite common in the wild around here. They DO like moist woodlands, but are just as happy with drier ground. I’ve seen some planted in the rocky islands of the side of a Hardies up here that were loaded. Go figure. They make terrific, very beautiful jellies, jam and sauce. It’s a sparkling ruby red. Gorgeous. — Jackie

Will my salsa last?

We just canned some salsa by hot water bath. It was mostly tomatoe based, but had a lot of peppers, onions, and celery. The jars all sealed but will the salsa last, since it was not pressure canned? No vinegar was added, just some lemon juice.

David Keefer
Willard, Ohio

Your salsa is PROBABLY alright; according to most recipes I’ve seen for salsa, there can be quite a few peppers, onions and celery or other veggies before it needs to be processed in a pressure canner, especially when you have already added “some” lemon juice. But it’s a good idea to follow a tried and true recipe, as far as the amounts of vegetables in your salsa, as compared to how much tomato. The spices or amount of heat in it doesn’t matter one whit. There’s a fine line here between safe and questionable, and we don’t want to make an error in judgement. — Jackie

Well, not quit, quit, but hang ‘er up for awhile to regroup.  Let me explain.  Yesterday afternoon was a gorgeous fall day.  The sun was out, making the colors of the autumn trees brilliant and the moist warm soil simply smell wonderful.  Definitely a time to do something outdoors.

I was working in the house, getting ready to can up some on-sale turkey breasts and David took the bulldozer down the hill to do some clearing in front of his main deer stand.  During the three years we’ve been here, those little popple trees went from shoulder high little wisps to twenty foot high bushy tree trees.  There were also some large bunches of alder and a few fir trees that needed to be cleared out of the area to ensure a good shooting lane in several directions.  No one wants to shoot a deer they can’t see at least a good portion of.

When I finished working, I went down to help David chain up the trees and watched as he pulled them out just like I pull weeds out of the garden rows.  That 1010 John Deere has plenty of power without even thinking about it.  I can only be a few minutes outside at a time because I don’t dare leave Mom home alone, so I jumped on the four wheeler and went back up the hill to check on her.  I told David he shouldn’t take the crawler across the little creek closer to his stand.  It was getting late in the afternoon and I didn’t want problems.

So of course when I came back, where was the crawler?  Yep.  Well it was going okay, but I just had this feeling…..  And when he turned around in tight quarters, the track hit a stump and peeled off.  Ker-screech.  Nifty……  The rear end was down in the swampy creek and the blade was up on high ground.

We worked until almost dark with a huge pry bar (tanker’s bar), raising the front end of the dozer up with the down pressure on the blade.  Then David had the idea of releasing the grease pressure in the tightening arm to let the grease out that provides track tension.  To do this, he unscrewed the bolt that is on top of the assembly.  Sure enough, when he shoved back on the front wheel and track, the assembly slid backwards, a big gob of grease popped out the top.  So he did it twice more, shoving against it for all he was worth. Lots of grease and the tension was much less.

I wanted to read the shop manual first, but it was almost dark and what the heck, maybe the kid’s right?

Right.  Well, we got the track back on and went to re-fill the grease by pumping it into the special fitting with the factory grease gun made for that purpose.  But as we pumped, it was evident we were out of grease!  Had to gently back it out the way it was and go to town this morning for more grease.

We returned all gung ho, but were quickly shot down when grease not only went into the fitting but ran out in a steady stream from a hole underneath.  At this point I went back up and read the shop manual.  What we should have done last night was to unscrew the cap bolt SLIGHTLY to allow the grease to escape from the hole underneath.  Oh oh!

I talked to my friend Will, in Washington, and he said he thinks there was a little spring/ball valve in there that blew out with that first big gob of grease.  Oh great.  I went back down and dug around in the piles of grease that I could find.  Nothing.

To make a long story short, we put the track on like five times totalled and got kind of smart by jaming a heavy bolt against the tightener to hold the tensioner tight enough to drive it up the hill, back home.  David almost made it too, but near the top, the bolt bent and….you guessed it, the track came off again.  Now we’re talking about a track that weighs probably four hundred pounds here and it’s NOT handy to handle.

We’d just about had enough of the bulldozer for the day and just parked it.  We quit.  Kind of.  Tomorrow I’ll call a John Deere parts dealer and find out what we need and get it ordered.  In the mean time, we’ll have a mental health vacation for a couple of days.  Read the directions first!

Readers’ questions:

Canning goat’s milk

I have a question that may or may not be able to be answered. I have nubian does in milk and want to can some of their milk. There are directions for this in my Goats Produce Too book to both use a
hwb or pressure canner. However, I would also like to can sweetened condensed milk. Would the addition of the sugar change the canning time? (Goat’s produce says to can at 15 lbs. pressure for 10 minutes)

Jammie Payne
Moody, Texas

No.  The addition of sugar won’t affect the processing time of your milk.  I process my milk at 11 pounds pressure for 10 minutes, but it would depend on your altitude.  I live at 1,500 feet above sea level.  But when I lived in Montana, I was at 7,400 feet and processed everything at 15 pounds pressure.  — Jackie