It’s deer hunting season here in northern Minnesota, so I’m quickly canning up some great smoked pork shoulder that my friends, Pam and Joan, brought up to me awhile ago. They got a great deal on it and shared with me. I had taken it, frozen, to my friend, Jeri’s house. They’re on grid and had a nearly empty freezer. So I brought a case at a time home to thaw and can. And I just finished yesterday, and have washed and dried the jars tonight so they can go down in the pantry. How pretty they look! And pretty tasty, too. I love the variety of meat and poultry in my pantry. It makes for a wide choice of meals, which I love.

My oldest son, Bill, called last night and told me he had an “extra” deer for me. David and I have been hunting, but so far all we’ve seen have been does and fawns. Call me a fool, but I won’t shoot a mom with babies; they need her if the winter is bad, in order to survive. They haven’t learned the ropes yet. We’ll get a dry doe or a young buck. We aren’t trophy hunters and I prefer a tender, large deer to huge antlers any day. I love the hunt, especially this year, where the days have been above freezing and beautiful. I love the canning and eating. But I DO hate the killing. (Remember that I can’t cut the head off a chicken?)

But between hunts, I’m helping get ready for winter. I cleaned out the chicken coop and put the shavings on the flower beds, am pulling tomato cages and hoses from the big garden, and am splitting cedar kindling for the stoves. Will has been working on logs for the second part of our new hayloft, putting the bulldozer back together, and working out details for the stairway to the new loft. It’ll be much better than a ladder for us “older” folk! We not only plan for today but for ten or twenty years down the line.

Readers’ Questions:

Canning peach pie filling

I canned peach pie filling using a recipe I got off of Canning USA. It called for cornstarch. I heated the peach filling thoroughly and then water bathed them for 30 minutes. They seem to be OK. What do you think?

Can you give us your version of a good, safe canned recipe for peach pie filling?

G. Koskinen
Celina, Texas

We canned peach and other fruit pie filling for years, using cornstarch. Now there’s Clear Jel, a refined cornstarch product that is recommended instead. Plain cornstarch seems to thicken more and there is concern that the center of the jars might not heat thoroughly enough for safe processing. Personally, I wouldn’t toss my pie filling. But I would use Clear Jel in the future…just to be safest. Here is a recipe using Clear Jel, which is available in many health food stores and markets in Amish and Mennonite communities, or sometimes at your local extension office:

6 quarts, sliced, peeled peaches
7 cups sugar
2 cups + 3 Tbsp. Clear Jel
5 1/4 cups cold water
1 3/4 cups bottled lemon juice

For fresh peaches, place 6 cups at a time in a gallon of boiling water and boil for 1 minute to heat thoroughly. Drain and place in covered container to keep warm. Do remaining batches. Combine recipe water, sugar, Clear Jel in large kettle. Bring to a boil and stir until it thickens. Add lemon juice and boil 1 minute more, stirring to prevent scorching. Add peaches gently and stir well. Continue to simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Pack immediately into jars, leaving 1″ of headspace. Process for 30 minutes in a boiling water bath canner. If you live at an altitude over 1,000 feet consult your canning book for directions on increasing your processing time, if necessary. — Jackie

Making a living in a new community

My husband and I are planning on purchasing land and moving to another part of the state where there seems to be a nice self-reliant community. Organic farms, dairies, herb farms, and naturopathic doctors abound. I’m trying to think of a way that I can contribute to that kind of community and hopefully bring in a little extra income. I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do for the past few weeks, and finally I asked myself, what would Jackie Clay do? I know this isn’t exactly your area of expertise, but I wondered, for a self-sufficient woman such as yourself, is there ever a service you wish existed that you would gladly pay for just to make life on your homestead a little easier? Perhaps not now since you’ve got your routines more or less down, but maybe when you first started? Or something that you wish you had time to learn that would save you time and or money on your homestead but you just keep putting off because you’re too busy with all of your responsibilities? I find you to be an extremely reliable and delightful source for information on many things I am up to lately, I thought it couldn’t hurt to see what you had to say about this.

Erika Fey
Milwaukie, Oregon

The one thing I can think of right off the bat is a nice, cheerful, dependable person to help with “grunt work” on the homestead, whether it be fencing, gardening, painting buildings, carpentry, barn cleaning, helping with elder care, etc. Wow, what a bonus. Especially if it was at a reasonable rate. For instance, I had to have help with Mom after she got out of the nursing home after a bout with pneumonia weakened her. We were paying $30 an hour for someone to bathe, dress, and help care for her! (I was kind of “force fed” that service by helpful social workers.) Luckily she got strong enough that the help was no longer needed.

While now I have a helping partner, Will, on the homestead to help with “grunt work” around the place, it would have been nice to have someone come a couple of days a week to help out while things were hectic.

You’ll have to search your talents and likes for things you could offer. Everyone has them and it just takes a little creativity to get going. — Jackie

Making candles

I don’t know if you would think that this falls under the self reliance category or not, but I have a question on candles. Every time I go to make candles in a glass container the middle always sinks in. At first I thought that it was because I was cooling it off too quickly so I tried to cool it down slowly, but still does the same thing. Any advise on this?

Alissa Ray
Morganfield, Kentucky

I used to make candles to sell at art and craft fairs. This dip is called a well and as your candle cools and the well forms, simply reheat wax from the same batch and fill in the well. With less wax that is hot, it will make a nice flat surface. — Jackie

Canning olives

How do you re-can olives? We got a real good deal on some gallon cans, and want to put them in 1/2 pint jars.

Daryl Kaufman
Seymour, Missouri

I got a bunch of #10 cans of sliced black olives given to me by dear friends and I searched for two days to find canning directions! I finally did from the University of California. I canned up a can of them and they turned out great with no softening at all. I drained the olives and brought the brine up to a boil, then packed the olives into hot half pint jars, poured the boiling brine over them and processed them for 90 minutes at 11 pounds pressure. This is for pints or half pints. If you live at an altitude of 1,000 feet or lower, you can use the standard 10 pounds, as I live at 1,500 feet and need to boost my pressure up a bit to compensate for a little higher altitude. — Jackie

Corn relish

I just got the special on your new book with the older Recession-Proof Your Pantry book, and figured I’d start with the older one first. There’s a recipe in there for a corn relish that I can’t wait to try, but our fresh corn is all gone for the season, so I plan to try it with frozen whole kernels from the store. Think it’ll work?

Howard Tuckey
Lisle, New York

Yes, you can certainly make corn relish from frozen corn from the store, but of course it won’t be as good as when you use fresh corn from your garden! Enjoy it. — Jackie

Canning ground meat

I was watching a video on line where a guy canned ground beef/venison. He did a raw pack and processed it for 75 minutes at 10 lb pressure. I decided to try it his way with my venison. I opened a can and it was still reddish on the inside, like it was raw. Is it safe to use or do I have extra dog food?

Thomas Boyd
Mountain City, Tennessee

Canning ground meat this way is not recommended, especially if it is not heated first in open canning jars placed in a roasting pan containing the jars of meat and water to evenly distribute the heat. The meat needs to reach 170 degrees in the center of the jars BEFORE the lids are put on and the jars placed in the pressure canner. While your meat MAY be okay, I, personally, would be leery of it. If you have just canned it, I would open the jars and freeze the meat. (If you freeze it in the jars, the expansion of the jars with only 1″ of headroom, may crack the jars.) The same if you use it for dog food, which would be a shame. Next time, why don’t you lightly brown your meat or make meatballs out of it, then can it in broth. You’ll be much safer and have a nicer end product. — Jackie

Our beloved old 1010 John Deere crawler, nicknamed “Old Yeller,” is finally getting fixed. Because Will knew it would be a rough job, he kind of put it off. Parts were very hard to find because it’s a 1962 machine. We looked and looked, all across the country, only to find them, just this week, less than 100 miles from home! We drove down and two days later, Will has the whole right final drive and clutch pack out of the dozer and is now cleaning everything up and re-assembling things. Wow, what a lot of parts!

Because I’m not much help (usually), I’ve been putting screen around the trunks of all our fruit trees to keep voles, mice, and rabbits from girdling them in the winter. So far I’ve done more than thirty trees. Wow, I didn’t realize we had so many. Not complaining, though.

I also tarped the pile of hay in our new hay loft. Just in case. We’ll be getting more square bales of hay and a few of straw too, but for now, I wanted to be extra careful of our hay; a little moisture and it begins to mold real quick.

And we finished stacking the wood shed part of the storage barn. So far, we have 11 cords of dry, split wood on pallets in there. It looks SO great. We’ve also got two cords in the unheated enclosed porch next to the greenhouse, so we can bring in wood for the stoves, even when it’s night, raining, or snowing and nasty outdoors. What a great feeling!

No, we aren’t ready for winter yet, but we’re getting so much closer to being ready. The big truck’s snowplow is all fixed up and next to the storage building, ready to hook up, and we’ve been moving stuff out of the way in order to plow when we need to. This time of the year you never know when a foot of that white stuff might drop on our parade.

Readers’ Questions:

Kohlrabi

I am looking for kohlrabi recipes. I never knew they would get so big!

Kathy Vilseck
Coldwater, Mississippi

Neither did I. But then we usually eat them up when they are a lot smaller! I use them for a lot of different recipes. One of my favorites is to slice them raw into sticks and serve them with a dip. We really like them that way — nice and crispy sweet. I steam or boil them diced then serve with a cream or cheese sauce, use them in stews, casseroles, and any other mixed dishes; they fit into everything so nicely. I even grate raw ones into my salad and coleslaw. Such a versatile vegetable! — Jackie

Pantry inventory

I am currently wondering how to catalog all the stored goods in the pantry and root cellar. How do you do this? Do you keep a list of what you put up each year and then cross one off when you use a jar? Or just go take a look on the shelves to see what’s left? Or is there some other way to keep track? If there is a nice, simple way to do this, I’m sure you thought of it long ago. Please tell me your method.

Sandy Stone
Central Minnesota

No, I don’t keep track of things in my pantry. I probably should, but just don’t have the time. What I do is to keep things arranged in sections: beans, carrots, fruits, ham, chicken, etc. Then when I add new stuff, I move the old jars to the side and add the new food to the rear, sliding the older jars to the front to be used first…kind of like a kid’s puzzle. I do the same when I add new dry goods, like flour and sugar to a plastic garbage can they are stored in. That takes a little more work, but I don’t add new bags too often and in that way I keep the new foods down lower, using the older up first.

For my canned goods, I just look on the shelves and mentally keep track of what I have there…especially when I’m planning a garden. That way I am sure to plant plenty of the food I’m running lowest in…say sweet corn, carrots, or rutabagas.

Eventually, I would like to keep a little notebook down there and mark down how many jars of whatever I have, but my life will have to slow down a lot to have that much extra time! — Jackie

Breeding goats

I read your blog about Thor, your Boer buck, and was wondering why you would breed a meat-type goat with a dairy goat? My instincts tell me that there might be a decrease in your milk yields with the offspring as they are no longer pure dairy goats. He is a magnificent looking animal and I hope you have much success. How does one go about determining how to improve a herd?

Deborah Motylnski
Brecksville, Ohio

Although Boers are “meat” goats, I’ve seen many who came from real milkers. My old buck, Rocky, had a mother who I SAW milked and she gave two quarts at an afternoon milking. She also had a great udder…and I used to show dairy goats! The reason I am crossing my dairy goats with Boers (from good milkers) is that many dairy goats have light bone and not a whole lot of body substance. Therefore they don’t make kids with much meat and they don’t seem to have the subsistence to milk and survive for a long time.

I’ve had great success by crossing Boer with my Nubians. I still get the flashy colors, gorgeous ears, and lots of milk. But the resultant offspring have heavy bone and a large barrel (for eating more roughage and turning it into milk), as well as heavier shoulders, neck, and rump, where the meat is if you want to eat your extra wethers.

Rocky is a tall, great looking buck, but a little light in the rear. We bought Thor because he is from good milking lines and has a great, very thick rear and shoulder. He IS shorter than Rocky. So we figure that between the two…breeding Rocky’s daughters with Thor and Thor’s daughter (that we also bought) with Rocky, we just might get great offspring.

To improve your herd, always look at them with an impartial eye. Is your doe’s udder too long and dangly? Does she have weak legs? Could she give more milk than she does or milk strongly for a longer time? Breed your does to a buck who either has the traits your doe lacks or has a mother and female siblings who do. You’ll never get the perfect goat, but the harder you try to breed in better traits, the better your overall herd will be. — Jackie

Canning apple pie filling

I am going to can apple pie like grandma used to do. Since she is passed on, I am not sure of the time to process in the canner. I am thinking 15 min. at 10 pounds. How does that sound?

Viki Mowatt
Everett, Washington

Grandma probably used corn starch or flour to thicken her apple pie filling. Neither is recommended today, as both can make so dense a product that the heat can not reach the center of the jar, making safe processing unsure. Now it is recommended that you use a refined corn starch product, Clear Jel, which is safe to use in canning. To use this as a pie filling, use 1/4 cup Clear Jel to 6 quarts sliced apples, spices, 3/4 cup bottled lemon juice, 5 1/2 cups sugar, 5 cups apple juice, 2 1/2 cups cold water.

Peel the apples, slice them and drop in water containing ascorbic acid (powdered vitamin C) to prevent browning. Place 6 cups at a time in a gallon of boiling water in a large pot. Bring to boiling and boil 1 minute. Drain but cover in a bowl to keep warm. Repeat with other apple slices. Combine sugar, Clear Jel, apple juice, and water in large kettle. Bring to boil and boil until thickens, stirring to keep from scorching. Add lemon juice and boil 1 minute, stirring to keep from scorching. Add drained apple slices and immediately fill hot jars with mixture, leaving 1″ of headspace. Process in a boiling water bath canner for 25 minutes (pints and quarts). If you live at an altitude over 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on adjusting your time, if necessary.)

You’ll like your apple pie filling in a jar. — Jackie

Canning chicken gravy

I made way too much home made chicken gravy. It’s good and I will freeze it if that’s the only thing to do but, I was wondering if canning is an option. The gravy isn’t too thick, just a little flour and a lot of good broth. What do you think?

Liz Davey
Brighton, Michigan

The thickness of a gravy is the key to safe canning. If in doubt, add a little more broth to make it a light gravy, then thicken it upon use. — Jackie