Tomorrow, I’m flying to Aberdeen, South Dakota, for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture conference so today I’m madly packing (www.npsas.org/news-events/winter-conference.html. Click on the conference schedule button on the right of the page to see when I’m speaking). Will brought his wheeled travel bag downstairs for me to use to carry the books I’m bringing to (hopefully) sell. Mittens, our teen-kitten, thought it made a terrific playhouse. He spent more than an hour in and out of that bag, popping the flap open to ambush Spencer, then hiding back in the bag. What fun! I let him play until he was bored, then started loading it up, keeping the 50-pound checked baggage limit firmly in mind. I don’t mind flying a bit, but all the security and the fees for baggage DO make me cringe!

Hope to meet some of you at the conference! Please come over and say hi!

Oh, just an update: Several readers questioned our building a pig pen from used pallets, thinking the pigs would dig under, lift them up, or jump over them. Here’s a photo I took yesterday in the snow storm of our pigs IN the pallet pen.

We have yet to have an escapee. Pallets make great fences! And they’re free. — Jackie

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Compost freezing

We are in Colorado near the mountains. We have many bags of excess compost/steer manure from when we purchased and had trees planted this summer. If we leave the bags outside (where it freezes), will that affect the compost – killing off any live organisms? The next planting projects won’t start until late Spring again where we can get the compost in the ground to do its magic.

Cristine
Colorado

Freezing will not affect the compost. It will be just as good as it was in the fall, before freezing. — Jackie

Tattler lids

I have a question about the Tattler lids. I have an unusually high number of lid failures. I am following the directions on the box to slightly loosen the lid before canning and then to tighten it after processing. I bought hundreds of these lids and would like to use them more.

Dana Stine
Singer, Louisiana

I love my Tattlers. And I haven’t found I had any more failures with them than I do with single use lids. Two thoughts: maybe you’re either loosening the lids too much (or not enough) before processing or not tightening the rings soon enough after processing? I’d suggest calling the Tattler people; they’re very nice and helpful. You get instant one-on-one conversation to resolve your problem. They want you to succeed just as much as I do! — Jackie

Dirty windows

I heat with wood. Now the windows are covered with a dirty film. I tried the fancy store cleaners; vinegar, ammonia, and finally lye soap. Now they are worse than ever. Come spring I will try again. Do you have any suggestions for cleaning or any fail proof recipes for cleaner.

Shirley Adkins
McArthur, Ohio

I wash my windows first with dish soap/hot water, then use vinegar and crumpled up newspapers as a “finish.” They come out clean and streak-free. — Jackie

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Even though it’s snowing like mad, (five inches already) Will and I drove our car to the dump on Saturday, and found that a contractor had dumped a whole truck load of lumber from a remodeling job. There were 2x4s and a whole lot of knotty pine paneling. So this morning, while I worked at home, Will ran in to see if the stuff was still there. It was! He loaded the truck high with the lumber and brought it home.

Right now, he’s building shelves in the basement for more storage (junk and food), and nearly all that lumber has been recycled. What a good feeling that is! Especially when it didn’t cost us a dime. And what nice shelves, too. They are all built with 2×4 legs and 2×6 and 2×4 shelves, so they’ll be plenty serviceable and strong.

The basement’s been a catch-all for several years now and we’re trying to unravel it and sort out boxes and boxes of stuff. Some of it is ours from when we moved from the mobile home. Some of it is Mom and Dad’s. But it’s piled here and there, all over the place. It’s time to organize and reduce clutter! That new truckload of lumber will sure help and the knotty pine paneling will find a good use, here on our homestead.

So now we’re watching the snow pile up and throwing another log on the fire, getting warm before chore time again. — Jackie

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Although Will’s wood-fired stock tank heater worked pretty well, he knew it could do better. Roughly patterned after the “rocket stove,” the new one does burn hotter and keeps going even longer. The modifications included adding a 6-inch smoke pipe chimney, removing the square tube air intake (and welding a patch over the hole!), and removing the 6-inch diameter filling pipe and replacing it with a longer 6-inch pipe, inserted down into the tank about 18 inches. This gets air to the fire, making it burn much hotter. Before, the air came in the square tube, but it was not large enough. The new tube lets more air in and the larger chimney lets the smoke out faster. So, all in all, the whole thing works even better!

Lucky it does, too, because a cold front moved in from Canada, giving us a high today of -3 degrees! Last night and tonight it is going to be down to -26. This morning, the cow’s tank was frozen solid. After stoking up the cold tank heater and letting it cook for several hours, there was a foot of melted, steaming water in the tank (not steaming hot, you understand — after all it WAS only -6 degrees all morning!).

Will’s going to hunt around the dump and try to find another small water heater to build another heater for the horse tank; right now, we melt one tank, then haul the heater to the other. It works but requires a lot of monkeying around. We sure love our new heater! And so do our animals! — Jackie

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Rendering lard

I have searched your site and the internet, but cannot find an answer to my question. I have a side of pork belly I want to render for lard. It has quite a bit of meat interlaced through it (just like bacon, of course), so do I need to try to cut out the meat and only use the fat or do I cut the whole slab into 1-inch pieces and put it all in the pot? It is very difficult to try to cut the meat out, but I don’t want the lard to taste too porky for baking. I know how to do the process, but just don’t know if the meat in it is a problem.

Jo Riddle
Vienna, West Virginia

I think what I’d do is to grind the whole pork belly, put the meat in a roasting pan and set it in your oven at 250 degrees. This will melt the fat but not “cook” the meat so much that the lard tastes “porky.” — Jackie

Canning recipe for the fair

Just received both your books. I love to can; my grand is in first year 4H here in Texas. Next year she is going to enter some canning. In your opinion which of your canning recipes would you enter? No meat entries, she’ll just have to help Oma with those.

Pam Evetts
Gatesville, Texas

I’m so glad you liked the books! Wow…which recipes to can for the fair? My oh my, what a decision. I’d pick some that are pretty colored, such as salsa; one of the pretty colored jellies, jams, or preserves, such as raspberry or prickly pear preserves; dill spears (just a tip — don’t water bath them, just pack hot brine into hot jars and seal; the pickles will be SO crisp that way, they’ll be sure to win. Don’t tell folks I told you to do that!); mixed vegetables; watermelon rind pickles; or little pickled apples. There are a ton more, too, but these are a few that would be very attractive and easy to do. Let us know how your granddaughter does! — Jackie

Canning hominy

I know you have said you can home can anything that comes in a #10 can. I just recently received a #10 can of hominy, can I recan this and at what pound pressure and time?

Margaret (Peg) Koontz
Social Circle, Georgia

Yes, you can. I’ve done it many times! You’ll be dumping out the liquid, heating it to boiling, then packing the hominy into hot jars, leaving 1 inch of headspace. Pour the boiling liquid over the hominy, leaving 1 inch of headspace. You’ll process at 10 pounds pressure for 55 minutes (pints) or 85 minutes (quarts). If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary. — Jackie

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Making corned beef

We are butchering our beef in a few weeks and I would like to make corned beef from the brisket using your recipe from the book Recession Proof Your Pantry. My question is, can I use a plastic bucket with an airtight lid instead of a crock? (I don’t have a crock.) And can you tell me what the purpose of the cloth over the top is?

Gayle Rush
Eugene, Missouri

A food-grade plastic bucket should work fine; I use one for kraut. And I DO have a crock. The bucket is lighter and easier to carry around! The cloth is to keep debris and insects out of the bucket and hold the dampness in the crock. Be sure to place a sterilized plate over the beef and a weight on top of that to keep the meat totally covered by the brine. You also might consider having the brisket or part of it smoked. Our friend, Andy Gunderson, smoked our last brisket and it was SO good! — Jackie

Preserving potatoes

We have an abundance of red potatoes and would like to freeze and can some of them for later use. We want to freeze things like french fries, sliced potatoes, and hash browns and then home can anything we can for long term.

Charlie
Bronson, Michigan

To freeze French fries, first fry them in hot grease, in a deep fryer, at 370 degrees until just light brown. Drain, cool and pack. It works well to spread them out first on a cookie sheet to freeze singly, then package them up for storage. This way they won’t clump together.

To freeze potato slices or other raw potato products, first blanch them for 5 minutes in boiling water, then chill in cold water, drain, and package.

Canning potatoes is a good use of smaller potatoes. I often just scrub and can my little baby potatoes whole with the skins on. Then, later if you want to take the skins off, you just need to squeeze and twist them and the skin slides right off. You can also can up potato chunks or dices. They can up quite nicely. Don’t over-boil them before canning them up or they’ll get mushy. You can either boil whole potatoes for 10 minutes before packing into hot jars or pack dices/slices raw in the jars, then add boiling water and process. Potatoes are processed at 10 pounds pressure for 35 minutes (pints) or 40 minutes (quarts). If you live at an altitude above 1,000 feet, consult your canning book for directions on increasing your pressure to suit your altitude, if necessary. Enjoy your bounty of potatoes! Great feeling, isn’t it? — Jackie

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This great event will be held at Aberdeen, South Dakota, January 27th and 28th at the Ramkota Inn. On Friday, I’ll be speaking on backyard fruit production. Saturday will be a full one for me, as I’ll be speaking on canning meat, meals-in-a-jars, and then, later on, herbs. I’d love to meet you there! Here’s the link: www.npsas.org — if you think you might like to come. Of course, there are lots of other speakers as well for you to enjoy and learn from.

I’d also like to remind you that there are a few spaces left for our May homesteading seminar here at the homestead. We are more than half full, so if you’d like to come, please get in your reservations to avoid disappointment. (Remember that we can only take 20 people!) — Jackie

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Highbush cranberries

Have you ever experimented with ‘Highbush’ cranberries? I have several of these large shrubs in my yard and every autumn, they are loaded with gorgeous clusters of berries. Even though they don’t smell very nice, there must be some use for this fruit other than feeding the birds. If they are high in pectin, perhaps they could be used for thickening jams, etc.? Thank you in advance for any ideas you might have.

Also, Congratulations on the birth of your new granddaughter. She’s a lucky little girl to have you for her grandma.

Julie C.
Bay City, Michigan

We have highbush cranberries growing wild around here. YES! I make lots of great tasting, pretty red jelly from these berries. I know they don’t smell the best, but the jelly does not keep that smell. My grandmother dumped a big batch she’d picked because she said they smelled like cat pee! (Not THAT bad, though, in my opinion.) I just use the “berry” recipe for jelly: 3½ cups juice, 5 cups sugar, 1 pkg. powdered pectin. Highbush cranberries make a very tasty and pretty red jelly.

We’re really enjoying our new granddaughter! Such a pretty, tiny thing! And she’s SO good, too. — Jackie

Butchering a goat

When butchering a goat do you let it hang for while like you do a beef, for how long, and does it really make a difference in the taste?

Shawn and Karen Moore
Ada, Ohio

No, you don’t have to hang a goat to age after butchering. The taste is fine, as is, and you can get right to processing. Goat meat is very seldom tough, so it doesn’t have to age to become tender. — Jackie

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