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<\/p>\nWe’re having more typical fall weather.\u00a0 Finally!\u00a0 It only rains every other day now, but the temps are falling with the leaves.\u00a0 And because it’s been cooler in the new greenhouse, the tomatoes slowed down in their ripening.\u00a0 But now we’ve got the insulation in and most of the log siding, so it’s quickly warmed up out there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And BANG!\u00a0 Boy do I ever have ripe tomatoes.\u00a0 Yesterday, I spent two hours peeling and quartering a five gallon bucket of ripe tomatoes.\u00a0 My last batch of chili turned out so good I just had to make more.\u00a0 It’s so handy to just dump out a jar and have a tasty lunch.\u00a0 I know the chili was good because one jar didn’t seal and I had to refrigerate it.\u00a0 So we just HAD to eat it up.\u00a0 Gee whiz.<\/p>\n
I simmered the tomatoes in my big roasting pan, plus another smaller one, all night in the oven to cook it down some.\u00a0 Those tomatoes were really juicy for picked-green ones.<\/p>\n
I also set five cups of red kidney beans on to soak for the night.<\/p>\n
This morning, I dumped the tomatoes into my second largest stew kettle, diced some green peppers, onions and a couple medium hot chiles into the mix, drained the beans and added them, then some brown sugar to taste, a few more spices and let it simmer until it was just right.\u00a0 I taste as I go; if it needs this or that, I just add it.\u00a0 I am NOT a recipe cook.\u00a0 It drives my mother nuts because everything she used to make was by the book.\u00a0\u00a0 I see her cringe every time I make something, dumping in this and that.\u00a0 Oh well, I’ve always been her wild child.<\/p>\n
When it was well cooked together and as tasty as it should be, I ladled it up into quart jars and canned it at 11 pounds (we’re at 1,400 feet above sea level and I need to increase my pressure to match the altitude) for 90 minutes.\u00a0 I had a nice canner full and they all canned up nicely.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow I’ll check the seals again, wash the jars (which usually get a little gooky during processing), remove the rings and store them down in my lovely getting-full pantry.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 it’s so good to have so many things down there to choose from.<\/p>\n
Now, on to the apples!\u00a0 Isn’t life great this time of the year????\u00a0 We love the colors, the crisp wind and the FOOD!!<\/p>\n
Readers’ questions:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Goat milk lotion<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Dear Jackie, Donna Leach<\/p>\n <\/em>I don’t make lotion; it seems that there’s never enough time.\u00a0 I do have a recipe for you to try.\u00a0 Let me know how you like it.\u00a0 No.\u00a0 You don’t need to freeze the milk first.<\/p>\n 1\/8 tsp borax Bring borax and milk to scalding.\u00a0 Remove from heat.\u00a0 Melt coconut oil and beeswax together and slowly add to the borax\/milk and mix with a whisk.\u00a0 Add vitamin E oil and cool to room temperature.\u00a0 Add aloe vera to the cooled lotion and whiskll one final time. — Jackie<\/p>\n Clearing land<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Hi Jackie; Matt Treusch I hear you Matt; we want to do so much and sometimes it IS a struggle when we have so little time.\u00a0 I think the thing that’s the most important is to realize that it’s going to be\u00a0 process, not something that happens right away.\u00a0 What we did was to first clear off a building site with enough room around it to make it easier to get equipment and supplies in.\u00a0 We didn’t clear cut it but still made enough of a “hole” for ease of working.<\/p>\n We did this with a truck, chain, chainsaw and axe.\u00a0 Later on, we used my son and his father in-law’s help with their bulldozers to grade and backfill the basement.<\/p>\n Yes, a bulldozer will be a lot of help, but there are a few disadvantages, too, as there is with anything.\u00a0 First, they tend to leave heaps of roots\/dirt\/rock\/logs if you aren’t real careful.\u00a0 We work any clearing carefully, back and forth, knocking out the dirt, crushing the rotten wood into the ground and leaving only dry stumps, brush and rotten logs in smaller piles in the open to burn when it’s safe to do so.\u00a0 A good operator will do this for you, but a poor one will only shove dirt and all into huge piles that will not burn entirely and you[‘ll be left with “ugly” for a long time.<\/p>\n We pull a lot of smaller trees with the tractor, truck or the dozer we just bought.\u00a0 Then there isn’t a stump to contend with or roots left to send up suckers later on.<\/p>\n What we have done is to clear small areas completely, then run trails here and there to make hauling logs and firewood easier as we can get in with the pickup then.\u00a0 And from the trails, we gradually widen them and in the future, they’ll meet up.<\/p>\n I want toleave the big woods a big woods, only making a few small trails to get in and cut dead and down trees.\u00a0 We are careful to leave a few dead standing trees as wildlife habitat; the small critters and birds need homes too.<\/p>\n My son, David, and I are in the process of clearing the small poppler out of our 10 acre horse pasture so the grass will fill in.\u00a0 they need the grazing and the grass doesn’t do well in the shade.\u00a0 As we pull\/cut trees, we take out everything that can be used for firewood and cut that up.\u00a0 When we work in the big woods, we cut first the sizeable saw logs, then make firewood of the rest of the tree.\u00a0 The logs, we’ll be stacking up to cut for lumber later on; it’s amazing how much of your own lumber you can have in that small stand of woods!<\/p>\n We have a lot of blow-down that’s uprooted and is still very good for lumber, so that’s actually a bonus on our homestead with very few outbuildings (yet!).<\/p>\n It’ taken us 3 years to get a little bit cleared but we’re not working at it all the time; there are other priorities.\u00a0 But it’s better all the time and I’m always amazed at how far we’ve come.<\/p>\n Keep pecking away at it; it’ll get better when you can spend some concentrated time on your land.\u00a0 Good luck with your homestead! — Jackie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re having more typical fall weather.\u00a0 Finally!\u00a0 It only rains every other day now, but the temps are falling with the leaves.\u00a0 And because it’s been cooler in the new greenhouse, the tomatoes slowed down in their ripening.\u00a0 But now we’ve got the insulation in and most of the log siding, so it’s quickly warmed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5086"}],"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=5086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWe make most of the soap we use for ourselves and laundry from goat’s milk. I was wondering if you had a recipe for goat milk lotion? Also, do you need to freeze the milk for that as you do for soap? Thanks. <\/em><\/p>\n
\n1\/4 cup cold goat’s milk
\n1\/2 cup coconut oil
\n1 Tbsp beeswax
\n1\/2 cup aloe vera gel
\n1 tsp vitamin E oil<\/p>\n
\nI recently paid off 50 acres of property in North East Itasca county MN. I am planning to move there. Im 53 and a pipefitter, so I work in different states frequently. Not being able to get there as often as i would like, its a never ending battle to try and get it cleared. Im using a chain saw and a bush axe. I dont really want Blandin paper coming in and tearing everything up. Was wondering if you thought a bulldozier would be best or if you know a way I could do this myself? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks,<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWalkerton, IN<\/em><\/p>\n