chromedome

You betcha. I have a pressure canner that I intend to make more use of, but that in turn requires finally getting our cupboards organized so we have space for the Mason jars (I also had to replace the seal around the pressure valve, but I have that now).

I have a full-sized chest freezer, two apartment sized chest freezers, an smaller upright (14 cu IIRC) and the pull-out freezer drawer of our 36" French-door refrigerator, *all* of which are packed. We've been through the fridge freezer, the upright and one of the smaller chest freezers so far, still have the other small chest freezer and the big one to organize and purge. I barely fit my last batch of rabbits into the available space a couple of weeks ago, and I have a large quantity of bush beans and greens still to go into the freezer, so it's definitely time to streamline. Much of the process consists of eating up "made-ahead" meals and using containers of broth, though the big chest freezer is also where my stepdaughter keeps her kid-friendly convenience foods (the packaging takes up a lot of space).

Nice tip! I don't have a circulator myself, but at some point I'll find a way to work that into one of my articles.

I add my coffee grounds to my compost, rather than directly to the soil, but I do use 'em. Eggshells get lightly toasted (to make them brittle), then crushed and fed to the chickens and quail as a supplement, which they in turn use to produce more eggshells.

Forgive me if this has been covered somewhere along the way, but I've tried a few searches and come up dry. For reasons too tedious to delve into at this point, I'm in the unfortunate position of having to drink decaf coffee and tea. As a freelancer and longtime caffeine addict this was very challenging, though now that I'm being treated for ADHD it's less so: the frontline ADHD meds are all amphetamines, and when you start your day with an amphetamine your caffeine intake is more or less a non-factor. As I was hitting Costco the other day for a few things, I happened to notice that a) they do have a decaf among their Kirkland whole-bean coffee offerings; and b) the price is extremely competitive relative to the supermarket brands in my area. A bit of Googling tells me that their coffees have been roasted by Starbucks until just recently, which gives me pause (I'm not a fan), but I've also seen conflicting information saying that The Green Siren maybe isn't doing all of their roasting anymore? Pending further research, I thought I'd seek out the wisdom of the eG crowd. Does anyone here drink the stuff? What do you think of it? At my local supermarkets 10-12 oz bags of whole-bean decaf mostly run $10-$15 CAD, while the 3 lb bag from Costco is in the low $20s. It's an unquestionably good deal, but 3lbs of decaf is a whole lot to deal with if I don't care for it. I know they'll refund it on request, but returning it is a minimum 2-hour round trip and my time is always at a premium.

I expect it's an electric or mechanical issue; a failed switch or a bad solder joint or a failed capacitor or something like that. I wouldn't be buying a new Vitamix to use with the old SS jars unless I found one at the same kind of price point (ie, $25 CAD at Value Village) and that's pretty unlikely.

When you're preserving like it's 1999...

A few weeks ago my GF questioned why I was watering plants in my garden, because "it's supposed to rain all week." I explained to her that from a gardener's perspective, 4 of 5 days with "chance of showers" does not constitute raining all week. This past weekend provided a startlingly good illustration of that point. On Saturday we had lots of rain: the forecast called for 40-50 mm (call it 1 1/2 to 2 inches), and I'm sure we got every bit of that. On Sunday I made a late planting of carrots, and while the top cm/half-inch or so of soil was nicely soaked it was still dry and crumbly below that. My soil is pretty absorbent now, at least in the beds, after a couple of years' constant upgrading, so that was a sobering reminder of the need for consistent watering. No photos today, but since I'm here and posting I'll note that the cukes are slowing down, the bush beans are still producing though in diminished fashion, my late planting of bush beans is taking off now that their roots have reached the rabbit-manure layer, the tomatoes and pattypan squash are still going great guns, and I have lots of kale and chard with late plantings coming along. The late planting of peas is now beginning to yield, and my winter squashes (spaghetti and buttercup) have set plenty of fruit which are filling out nicely. In the case of the latter, I'm now pruning the ends of the vines to discourage vegetal growth and snipping any remaining buds. I want all of the plants' energy going into the squashes at this point, thank you very much. Also my late-planted broccoli have now surpassed the transplants I bought at the local nursery's end-of-spring clearout in size, and considerably in vigor. The late-planted spinach is yielding nicely, and the cauliflower plants are growing rapidly as well. I've never had much success with those latter two when I've planted them in spring; it seems our springs are just too short and erratic weather-wise. Henceforth I'm not even going to bother, I'll plant them both in mid-summer since that seems to be working.

That's such a power move by any manufacturer. I'm genuinely surprised more of them don't do that! I had a similar experience with Sun Blaster, a grow light manufacturer. At our apartment a few years ago I had a windowsill where I thought I might try a few herbs and lettuces. So I bought one of their T-50 fluorescent tubes, but after a year or so it started acting up. I dashed them off a testy email, and a rep responded within the hour asking for my shipping address. A replacement light arrived two days later, with no mention of a receipt or a warranty or anything else. I had a problem, they dealt with it. Happy customer.

I have two of those in my barn, which randomly stopped working for no readily apparent reason. One of them has subsequently had stuff spilled on it and may no longer be viable, but I hope to carve out time to dismantle and troubleshoot the other. Truthfully I seldom used it for anything except crushing ice (my GF's meds often give her dry mouth, and she really likes a cup of ice powder; basically a snow cone without the artificial flavors and colors), but it excelled at that and presumably at some point I'd have found other uses for it. That whole "make hot soup through friction" thing never appealed to me, I must say. It's bloody loud, so leaving it on for an extended period is a non-starter for me. I'd rather make my soup conventionally, and enjoy the peace and quiet as it simmers.

It's great when the little ones start to take a live interest in it. Right now our grandson (6) is hitting that phase. Asked what he wants at mealtime, he'll usually lead with "healthy stuff" or "veggibles from the garden,' instead of the convenience foods he used to ask for. My stepdaughter is just as mystified as us over this transition, as she hadn't been making any special effort to spur this fixation. Our best guess is that it's just the accumulation of everything he's overheard over the years. The practical outcomes have been interesting. For one thing, he has an unlikely fetish for kale. I've given him carte blanche to help himself to a few leaves straight from the bed, any time he feels like it. A couple of weeks ago he noticed my lacinato kale for the first time (it's a couple of rows away, near the cucumbers, and gasped "Papa! Blue kale!" in tones of awe and delight. Of course he wanted to try it, and was crestfallen that it tasted like the other kind. I explained that the blue kind is more delicate and flavorful when cooked, though there isn't much difference raw. The moment that really made my grandparental heart go pitter-pat was a few weeks ago when I was weeding my herb bed. The little guy asked what each herb was, starting with the mint that I was vigorously culling (I'd planted it in a sunken pot for containment, but had neglected to consider the pot's drainage holes). He tasted his way through two kinds of mint and then sage, cilantro, rosemary, summer savory, thyme, lovage and dill before we were through. That was a proud moment for me, but the highlight came after about the fourth herb. I don't recall exactly how he phrased it, but he said that he needed to take a moment and eat something else because the herbs were all starting to taste the same. So he helped himself to a leaf of kale and munched on that between samples. He didn't know the term "palate cleanser," but he recognized the necessity and attended to it. Papa was so proud...

I will never again leave the lid off of my jar of natural "just peanuts"-style peanut butter overnight. ... ... ... ...which, in turn, means I should never again wake up to find a very despondent and fatigued mouse trying to keep its head above the oily surface.