I roasted two chickens yesterday. We ate part of one for supper last night with rice and carrots. Wow, was that good! Today I’ll be picking chicken off the bone and canning both of them up in the wonderful broth made from the pan drippings. I have four more in the freezer but as it’s supposed to hit the forties I think we’ll butcher a couple more and then can them up right after they’ve cooled down.

Roasted-chicken
I also got whole boneless pork loins on sale from our local store for $1.99 a pound and I’ll be canning them up too.

We’ll be getting our beef back in about a week and we can hardly wait as we’ve been out of beef for quite awhile, except for canned beef. Canned beef is great but sometimes you just want some fresh meat too. Right now we’re starting to take orders for our last two butcher steers and hopefully we’ll get the meat sold before our butchering date in January. Craigslist has been good that way. It seems that lots of folks are concerned about where their meat comes from these days and that’s a good thing.

Will and I have been talking more about the varieties we plan to grow next spring and about fencing the 1½ acres that was our new corn/pumpkin patch. Unfenced, the deer left us the corn but ate all the pumpkins and squash. We can’t have that happen again so we’re trying to save up enough to buy fencing for it. We do have the fence posts already so I’m crossing my fingers! A local greenhouse has contacted us about supplying them with Halloween pumpkins and fall decorative squash next year so we’ll try to do that too out of our “test plots” on the new ground where we won’t be saving seed. (It’ll cross as we’re going to grow several different varieties.)

I’m feeling better but will sure be glad when I’m done with drugs! My stomach does NOT like them!

Well, back to canning. By the way, a big “thank you” to all of you who are continuing to order seeds from the click box at the top of the blog. We DO still have seeds but watch as we’ll soon be posting our 2014-2015 seed listing that will have many more varieties available. — Jackie

8 COMMENTS

  1. All,

    That photo makes MY mouth water, remembering how good those chickens tasted!!! Now they’re all canned up and I’m getting ready to do more. Homesteading is great! We are totally happy and eat like kings. Probably better than kings because we also have the satisfaction of growing our own food. Life is good. Thank you God!!

  2. Alecia,

    Sure, I’ll take photos. I just roast the pork loin, then cut it into either chunks, slices or make pulled pork and can using the pan drippings mixed with water as a broth. Yummmm and so easy too.

    No, city water isn’t much of an issue unless it either tastes horid or else you are making pickles. Some city water contains chemicals that make pickles darken or soften. Other doesn’t. You just need to experiment with a small batch to find out.

  3. Oh lawsy Jackie, never in my life have I produced a roast chicken that looked like that. It’s a work of art. Beautiful. If you ever decide to sell calendars, that photo should be included. Everything you do is just top class. The French are such snobs about their roast chicken, but no restaurant could come close. Lucky family you have there. Nobody gets food like that at my house. lol

  4. Alecia- I use city water all the time when I can and don’t have any problems except I do use bottled water for pickles, in Jackie’s canning book she suggests it if your water has a high mineral content.

  6. Great post and beautiful photo, JC…no matter how depressing things may seem in the world around us, I know a visit to your blog will always lift the spirit!

    TXCOMT

  8. Please post pictures and details when you can the pork loins, it helps so much to see the pictures as you can, especially meat. The first time I canned meat I was quite surprised when I removed the jars from the pressure canner. The meat did not look at all as I thought it should. Thank you for being so detail oriented.

    I would also like to know your thoughts about using city water when canning, we moved and no longer have well water. Is this a concern when canning?

    Thank you,

    Alecia

Comments are closed.