It lets us get so much more done easily. This morning, Will and I split up another load of wood with our cat, Mittens, and dog, Hondo’s help, of course. They always keep a close eye on us. When Will hauled the load to the woodshed, I headed for the Main Garden and pulled a row of Crawford dry beans to shell out.
Yesterday, my main focus was canning up some of the hundreds of jalapeños into Cowboy Candy. I always double or triple the syrup recipe so I can also can some of that up to use later to make Cowgirl Candy (sweet peppers) or Gaucho Relish, from our Striped Sugar Rush Peach hot peppers. Then, the syrup left over from that is used in a wide variety of ways, nearly daily. I put it in stir-fries, drizzle it over baked chicken breasts, pork roasts and even ham. I always put a bit on my pizza toppings too. Wow, so very good! And, as I still have a crate full of jalapeños left, I’m making a lot of Cowboy Candy this fall.
We’ve been asked why we put up so much food in our pantry, when there’s just the two of us. Well, there are a lot of reasons. No, we aren’t hoarders or hard-core “preppers.” We have family and friends, who, if the SHTF, might need to come or at least receive some food. (Will’s been in the Marine Corps, so anybody would be kind of stupid to come to steal from us!) Then there’s emergencies like COVID. Hey, it could have gotten worse and lasted much longer, causing who knows what to happen. Or kids losing a job, going through hard times or illness. Or us experiencing illness, such as cancer (been there/done that), heart attack, surgeries, etc., where canning wouldn’t be possible. But we still would have food to eat. Add to all that and there’s the fact we’re getting older. Hey, I’m 80 this year and realize that there may come a time I cannot can as much as I do now. Those emergencies could still be looming and I’m not waiting around on my butt, waiting for help. So, yes, we do put up as much food as possible, every year we can.
Today, I’m going down to the barn and pulling out a couple of our biggest watermelons to make watermelon rind sweet pickles. We really love them and the store-bought ones are full of chemicals and don’t taste nearly as good — like everything else from the store. Now I see they’re producing and selling printed fake beef. OMG, what will they come up with next? We like ours in white packages, in the freezer or on the hoof, in the pasture thank you. — Jackie
