Where we thought we were busy before, it was nothing like right now. Holy cow, it seems like everything is coming in at once! The tomatoes are ripening like gang busters, the apple trees are loaded to the point they’re dropping off on the ground, the plums are nuts, and the sweet corn is starting to come in. Not to mention the dry beans in the Wolf Garden.
Add this to Will’s daughter, Jenna, coming for a visit and us getting a new wood stove for our living room. Whew! Will and I had driven to Lowe’s to get the stove I’d ordered and, due to the heavy-duty wood crate it came in, they could barely squeeze it into the back of our Escape. It took three guys and a lot of wiggling and shoving. The next day, Will set about getting it out and unwrapped, no small feat, let me tell you. Now it’s set up with new stove pipe, as the old was getting rusty. He needs one small section to finish up, but he had to order a stove pipe crimper to make a male end on the second end of the small section of pipe. We run the pipe “backwards” so any creosote runs inside the pipe, instead of down the outside.
Yesterday, Will and Jenna picked about half a bushel of nice Sweet Sixteen apples. I spent the afternoon peeling and slicing them and then canning. All totaled, I got 15 quarts of slices canned. That was about half of them, so today, after I can the small batch of sweet corn, I’ll get at peeling those leftover apples. There are three more trees with larger apples on them and two huge, sweet crab apple trees, drooping with thousands of apples.
Oh, yes, then there’s the plums. Yesterday, David and family stopped by for some canning jars and information as a neighbor had given Elizabeth a big bunch of apples. She wants to make apple butter. While here, we also picked a nice bag of plums. Granddaughters, Delilah and Melanie, loved seeing plums drop off of branches Dad gave a little shake. I’ve still got about a bushel of plums (conservative estimate) to make jelly and plum sauce with.
I love meals at this time of the year. Most come from the garden. Yesterday, for lunch, we had sweet corn, juicy Sweet Granite muskmelon and strawberry shortcake. Today, it’s BLTs. So much for the diet, huh? Tonight, it’s chicken pot pie with garden vegetables in it. Gee, isn’t homesteading tough? — Jackie
Jackie, Love the woodstove. I got a new one last year a hearthstone. What kind did you get?
Oh Jackie. Just watching you peel the apples makes my hands hurt. My hands are about like your knees. A mind of their own. There’s nothing like wood heat. We’ve always heated with wood.
Sorry about your hands. Mom had trouble with hers too, rheumatoid arthritis. I know it’s hard. We really love our wood heat. It seems to warm you so much better than other forms of heat.
We did 18 pints of beets Monday and 18 pints of rehydrated dry beans yesterday to have on the shelf for quick soups or baked beans since the canner. Was already out. Next picking of beets gets pickled. Two varieties of my onions, Alissa Craig and the dark red keepers are not ready to tip yet and time is getting short. The bluish onions and the yellow keepers are going on the drying rack tomorrow. I can heat the hoop and green houses past some more frosts but light is getting shorter as something like seven minutes a day! Not worth pushing past October 1. Lots of onions and peppers set, they just need ripening. Have fun with your harvest
For those unframiliar with us, we are in Copper Basin Alaska.
Sounds like you’re moving right along. I went out yesterday and checked our sweet corn. Holy cow, it’s ripe!! I just checked it a couple of days ago too. Now I’ve got more apples, the plums and sweet corn. Such a blessed problem, huh?
We heat our hoop houses too, in case of frost or very cold weather so the peppers will ripen and get protection. We need a couple more weeks, so we’re hoping.
You know, Jackie, it occurs to me that you probably only grow and can-up what you like to eat. Sometimes it takes a while to figure that out, as it has me and my husband. This is still my homesteading idea, and not his. So we manage to buy lots of chips, many different kinds, crackers, bread, and goodies, besides. He likes sugar, so lots of candy, and lots of different spices for cooking meat. I think a pantry would be very simple, if we just ate what we could grow. Costs at the store would be minimal, indeed: staples and coffee. And life would be simple, too. And we’d be much healthier.
But isn’t it a fact that all those foods that tempt us so much are not good for us??? Drat! We hit a happy medium. Yes, we do buy some store food, but we sure enjoy eating mostly what we grow. Last night we had chicken pot pie with leftover chicken, canned peas, carrots and potatoes, plus mushrooms and onions. Pretty darned good. Oh, and the first of our second sweet corn patch’s ripe corn on the cob.
Crazy busy time is productive. Unlike crazy time hurting far too many people.
Glut of tomatoes here and time for the cuke plants to become next year’s compost. Garlic should be arriving soon – seems like each year we plant it later and later. September 15 *used* to be our first frost date. Now it almost a month later!
We’re so happy that our first frost date is now in October instead of when school starts in September! It lets us grow many more things and have an easier time harvesting. Our cukes are going nuts right now. I make an easy salad with cukes and tomatoes in a vinegar, water, sugar dressing. We love it and it makes use of lots of garden produce too.
The cuke plants are dying off so time to pull them.
My apples haven’t done as well as yours but there be more than enough. We did the sweet corn on Labor Day and another 10 gallon crock of sauerkraut. Moving that wood stove would take 3 men and a mule. I’ve had that experience. I’ve never had any luck growing plums. We’re making meals for families that have experienced passing of loved ones and another recovering from a major surgery. Tonight I get to go to a local grain mill for a tour-Meadowlark Farm (all organic). They grow and grind all their own grains. Our grandkids have started their sporting events so many evenings are taken with that. No complaints just like you seems busy and we get older and I know slower. Everything seems to take us longer. It’s great to be thankful and enjoy each day. Back to “work “- I think of it as pleasure.
Yep, Will says he doesn’t work hard. He just plays with 22 hobbies. I think that’s the key, not groaning about the work but simply enjoying the ability to do it every day. Try those plums again! If I can grow them, anyone can. I love St. Lawrence Nursery’s motto; Plant until you’re planted!
Will and Drew moved the new stove in using a moving dolly. It was pretty easy and very quick. My daughter and I moved a kitchen range into the house using pipes as rollers. We rolled it across the front porch, into the living room, and then on into the kitchen. It went pretty easy at that. And no mule. Lol
Wills hobbies! That’s a good way to be! I too started my applesauce canning on Monday 6qts3pts. All for my daughter in law She canned up apple relish ,apple butter and 3 flavors of applesauce! With a toddler under foot! A welcome 50/60 degrees,rain storm over weekend and now back in the 90 to dry out the flour corn and hopefully induce tomatoes to ripen . Fall is definitely my favorite season Hopefully everyone gets a good harvest this year
Nothing like the whole meal is all you grew yourselves!!!
I absolutely love that. And knowing there are absolutely no chemicals or GMO’s involved. Not even micro plastics! Besides, it all tastes better by far. Even my dog, Spencer, spit out store tomatoes.