{"id":4116,"date":"2014-07-09T03:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2014-07-09T03:00:20","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:00:20","slug":"q-and-a-feeding-birds-jelly-and-canning-peaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/2014\/07\/09\/q-and-a-feeding-birds-jelly-and-canning-peaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Q and A: feeding birds jelly and canning peaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feeding birds jelly<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not exactly a question but wanted to tell you about an oops that turned out ok. A couple of years ago I had way too many yellow tomatoes. I refuse to waste anything I can use so I made tomato marmalade with them. As you say, it was “blecyucky”. I started to throw it away but stingy me, there is a lot of sugar in it. This spring a whole flock of Hooded Orioles and Black Headed Grosbeaks showed up. They love sweets so I tried giving them some of the marmalade. They love it. So funny to watch them get their feet sticky and fuss getting them cleaned. I had chopped the tomatoes so there are chunks that they seem to like. One odd thing I’ve noticed, their colors are brighter every week. I used to have canaries and sometimes gave them special food to make their colors brighter. It seems that the tomatoes are brightening the colors on the birds too. One of the Orioles looks like he has a battery in his pocket, a brilliant burnt orange. So now I know what to do with the jelly\/jam I find I don’t care for. Thought you would find this interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Franci Osborne<\/em>
\nIgnacio, Colorado<\/em><\/p>\n

How cool! I’m still feeding Baltimore Orioles my grape jam and yesterday I found out why my jam was disappearing so fast; a red squirrel was lapping it up. Who’d have thought? Now that you’ve shared your experience I’m going to try some other jams as I really don’t have a lot of grape left. It’s interesting about the color in their feathers too. — Jackie<\/p>\n

Canning peaches<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s almost peach season again and I have a question for you. How do I keep my canned peaches from being soft\/mushy? I have tried canning several different varieties, canning them while hard, while still very firm, and just make jam from the ripe ones. I raw pack, water bath pints 25 minutes and get soft peaches. I generally cut each peach into 6 slices. I also use a very light syrup, as my hubby is diabetic. Can I add something to help keep the peaches firmer? I also have the same problem with pears and can them while they are still hard.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lee Galloway<\/em>
\nGrants Pass, Oregon<\/em><\/p>\n

Try hot packing your peaches as they tend to stay firmer. You wouldn’t think that but when you hot pack your peaches, you only heat them in syrup until they are thoroughly hot — you don’t boil them. Then working quickly, get them into hot jars and in the water bath canner while they are still hot. Doing it this way the peaches don’t have to stay in the hot water so long waiting to come to a boil — they don’t “cook” as much. You only process pints for 20 minutes when hot packing them too. Less cooking means firmer fruit. — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feeding birds jelly Not exactly a question but wanted to tell you about an oops that turned out ok. A couple of years ago I had way too many yellow tomatoes. I refuse to waste anything I can use so I made tomato marmalade with them. As you say, it was “blecyucky”. I started to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}