A new blog...

I have created a new blog via WordPress. I invite you to check it out. It is going to be my main blog from here on out.

I needed to go a new direction with my life...and my new blog is it.
Chequamegon Living

Drought on the river....

We went for a little trip to the Big Falls area here in northern Wisconsin recently. The drought was obvious as we came on down to the water. As you can see the water is very, very low. In spring, when the ice and snow are melting, you can't see any of these rocks at all. In fact, you wouldn't want to be anywhere near them as they can drag you under in the current. Right now, not so much. In fact, I felt perfectly safe letting my 2 year old daughter play amongst the rocks and bounce around them as we made our way across the river.

This is a picture taken from the road to the Falls. I am standing on the bridge. This is a great river (normally) to kayak down. Not much kayaking going to be done on it in it's current state.

Moon Gardening

Wondering how my Moon Gardening did this year?
Well, considering we were in a huge drought, we did alright!

I am not overly happy with some of the results…but what I did get is more than what most people got. Here are the numbers…as of right now.

Peas: Crap shoot harvest…my daughter ended up eating all these off the vine.

Carrots: Still in the ground…not sure yet on the harvest

Zucchini: Count at this time…. 5 harvested, with 3 more still coming (one plant)

Tomatoes: 8 pints of Salsa, 6 pints of pasta sauce, a bunch of dehydrated, still have more ripening on the vine (5 plants)

Acorn Squash: 3 total (2 plants) this one didn’t fare to well with the drought.

Peppers: outside factors harmed these….got enough for the salsa….

Corn: waiting to see what I end up with…this, like the peppers had an outside factor that harmed them.

Cucumbers: I ended up with 14 pints of pickles…sweet, dill and bread ~n~ butter…very happy with this result (2 plants)

If the weather would have been better, I am sure I would have had more. Most of my neighbors are not getting much of anything….I am living like a king with my harvest compared to the other gardens in the area….

So…Moon Gardening….success!

A bit of the bounty....

As I sit here this morning. I thought I would show you a picture of one of my shelves in the pantry. This is just a small portion of what I have been doing the last few weeks. I am slightly disappointed on the amount I got from my garden. The drought we are going through did not help...and since I am technically on city water...it is quite costly to water.

Now, I know someone is going to say..."Why didn't you have a rain barrel?" Well, I do...but with the water being so scarce...the barrel is dry as well. So anyway, I have a bit more to do in my garden. My zucchini are getting to the end, my tomatoes are just about done. I am happy with what I got from them. 8 pints of salsa, 6 pints of pasta sauce, and I will have 2 pints of dehydrated...not bad for a drought.

My corn suffered the most. It didn't do well at all this year, neither did my peas. Oh well, next year is a new year!

A morning post.....

Hello all…

I decided to stop on in and say hello this morning while waiting for my salsa that is in my canner to time out. I have been gone for a week, and folks, I miss ya! I had to check out the tags on my dashboard, and realized in the week I have been off, I have missed a lot.

I hit some of my favorite blogs….caught up on what they have been doing, but it still isn’t the same. With that being said though, the break was needed. I spent the entire week last week either canning or dehydrating…and one day, both! I am doing another batch of salsa this morning…and tomorrow, plan on hitting the butters….apple is in order for this week. I also have more dehydrating to do as well.

With that being said….I am going to leave all of you again. I am truly sorry that I am not posting like I was, but I will be back and all will be back to normal after the harvest is done. I want to thank all of you that are sticking with me while I am gone and holding out until I get back. I will not disappoint you! I have been jotting a lot of ideas down on paper, so when I get back, there is going to be quite a few posts from me! Stay tuned…and until I am done with my garden and harvest…many blessings to you and yours!

Preserving, preserving, preserving...

Today is Thursday August 9, 2012. This morning I am working on more of the preserving that I have been doing all week.

Monday, I attempted to make jelly...and well I thought I had failed. It turned out runny and more like syrup. So I labeled it as such and went about my merry way.

Tuesday, I made a killer batch of salsa that leaves you sweating and wanting to cool down the inside of your mouth which seems like it is on fire. (My husband is ecstatic about the salsa!)

Yesterday, Wednesday, I tried my hand at making more jelly. The top picture is from that excursion. I can successfully say, that this batch of jelly turned out wonderful, and it set up just like it was supposed to. As I was putting my jars down in storage yesterday afternoon...I discovered the "syrup" I had made on Monday set up, and is now jelly as well. So that turned out wonderful...it just took a bit longer.

Today is Thursday. Today I am dehydrating tomatoes. Now, you are probably asking why am I dehydrating tomatoes? Well, really the answer is quites simple. Less storage space. Instead of making tomato sauce, and tomato juice. I dehydrate the tomatoes down, once dry, run them through a blender and I will have tomato powder. The powder, depending on how much water you mix with it, can be juice, sauce, get my drift? I can cut out a lot of excess storage requirements for my tomato products if I dehydrate and powder.

As I go through the stages of dehydrating the tomatoes, I will keep posting so you can see just how easy it is. I have very little storage space in my cellar right now for a lot of extra jars of tomato products, and have a ton of tomatoes coming...this was what made the most sense to me!

SALSA

Today is salsa day. I have been busy canning all kinds of things...pickles, syrup, jelly, and today...salsa. 

 This years crop of vegetables is suffering a little bit from the dry weather we have had, but none the less....with vigilant watering, my garden is faring okay. My corn isn't doing very well....but that is another story to say the least.



All in all though, it has been an okay year. I did get 14 pints of pickles done...I have zucchini coming out of my ears, and my tomatoes are actually just starting to come. I have a lot of dehydrating to concentrate on once I get all of the canning done that I want.

 I still have plans on making a corn salsa if the corn does a major improvement...but I am thinking that is going to be something I will have to go and buy at the farmer's market in the next town over.