Apple Pie Filling Recipe

Apple pie filling recipe makes 6 to 7 quarts.
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup cornstarch
*1 teaspoon cinnamon
*1 teaspoon nutmeg

* We use 1 1/2 teaspoons.

Mix ingredients in a large 5 to 6 quart sauce pan.  Stir in 2 1/2 quarts of water.  Heat to boiling.  Cook until thickened then stir in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  Fill jars and leave 1/2 inch of head space.

Boil your canning lids for 10 minutes, wipe off the tops of canning jars to remove residue, attach lids and rings, then process in a steam canner or hot water bath for 25 minutes.  We use a steam canner.

Peeling and coring.

Filled jars.

Filling with sauce.

Steam canning.

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Our New Pigs

Raising pigs is a good addition to achieving food self-sufficiency.   They produce about one pound of weight to every 3-1/2 to 4 pounds of food that they eat.  The cost of the meat we raise is about 50 to 60 percent of what a butcher would charge, and then even much less than what a grocery store would charge at the meat counter.  We feed our pigs a hog grower feed, garden refuse and excess, moldy spoiled alfalfa hay, potatoes gleaned from farmer’s fields after the harvest, and less than desirable apples .  So, aside from the hog grower feed, the rest of their food is free.  The pork that we grow is much leaner, better tasting, and healthier for us than the pork grown in large commercial farms.  And, pigs are fairly easy to take care of, only requiring food, water, an enclosure, and a three-sided roofed shelter.

The spring is a good time to buy wiener pigs, which are baby pigs.  Buying them in the spring gives them time to reach butchering weight so we won’t have to feed them through the winter.  If we raise them through the winter much of the energy they would get from the feed will be used to keep them warm (we get down to negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit), and not used to put on weight.  So, it is not as cost effective as raising them in the spring.  We want them to be as big as possible at butchering time.  We give details in our e-book 'Food Self-Sufficiency: How We Do It In A Severe Climate.'

We had trouble finding pigs this spring, so we just got a couple three days ago.  It looks like we will be raising these through winter.  We put the larger one in an enclosed area where we are going to build another greenhouse.  The idea is that the pig will root around and eat all the grass and grass roots before we build it.  We hope it works, so the ground in the greenhouse will be weed and grass free.  Nick our 11 year old named them Pork-Etta and Chop-Chop.

 

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Our Broody Duck Scrooge

Our duck Scrooge has been sitting on a nest under a tarp which is over a straw bale, since about March.  She has been very protective of her eggs but they won't hatch, no boy duck.  So, my son Nick and I got a duckling and tried to get Scrooge to accept the duckling.  Nick took Scrooge away from the straw bale so she couldn't see me take her egg out, and put the duckling in the nest.  When he brought Scrooge back she kept kicking the duckling out.  But we persisted for about an hour and Scrooge finally accepted the duckling, and let is spend the night.  Today the duckling followed mom around, and mom was very protective.

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Putting Netting Over Our Raspberries

We have been meaning to put netting over our raspberries for three years or so, but could never get around to doing it.  Every year we watch the birds go after them and kick ourselves for not doing it again.  Two winters ago a snow drift about 6 feet deep plowed them down, so we didn't get many last year.  But this spring we put in a net over our raspberries on one row.  We have two other rows that are still suffering a little from being wiped out, so we only did the one.  We have been getting about three times the amount from the netted row as from the other two rows together.  So much for putting it off.  We will now be more diligent in getting the other two covered next season.  We had no idea the amount we were actually loosing to birds.  We use a lot of raspberries.
We used treated 2 x 4's at each end and one in the middle.  Over the top we have strung wire(hot wire, wire) in down the middle and at the ends.  Then we have three strands down the sides to hold the stalks in toward the center.  Then nettine is place over the top and down the sides.  At the ends we have little teacup holder hooks, to hook the netting to, to keep it closed.

Grape Cluster Problem

Grape Cluster Problem
This was previously posted and we came up with a good solution.

I was wondering if anyone had an idea of how to take care of this problem?

We have 15 grape vines with a lot of grape clusters on them.  And, we also have a lot of wasps and yellow jackets that eat them every year just as they are ripening, because they are next to our orchard(we don't have this problem with the grapes in the greenhouses).  We have lava rock walls half-way around them to protect them from the wind during the winter.
So, we are trying to come up with a way to protect the clusters from the wasps.

We thought of covering the whole plant with fabric like window screen to keep the wasps out.  But the lava rock walls have spaces between them and any wasps can get through.

If we covered the whole plant and rock wall with a 4x4x3 foot frame covered with screen fabric, that would work but consists of a lot of labor to make them, but we would re-use them every year.

The best idea and maybe the least amount of effort we can come up with is to loosely wrap each cluster (there are a lot of them) with window screen type of fabric to keep the wasps away from the grape clusters.

If birds were the only problem we could just cover each row with netting, like we do our raspberries.  But, wasps can get through the netting.  If we can get a large roll of window screen type of fabric netting and cover whole rows (we haven't looked for it yet) that would probably be the better.

Maybe some of you can see a solution which we don't see yet.  Thanks, Lee Garrett.

*We were given a solution to use yellow jacket traps.  We thought this would work because we use them in our fruit trees, but didn't want to have to buy so many more.

Our solution was to make net fabric socks/bag to go over the individual clusters.  It works really well and is cheap and easy to make.  We weren't sure if this was too much work for the return, but turned out to be a good idea.  We just make ten or so a day on the sewing machine ( one minute apiece tops) and add a tie with a needle and thread.  And  we can reuse them every year.

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Canning Raspberries/Blackberries/Blueberries

Rinse berries.  Fill quart jar 1/2 with berries.  Add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar depending on your taste.  Shake jar to let berries and sugar settle.  Fill the jar to 1/2 inch from the top with berries.  Shake jar to let berries settle.  Add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of sugar depending on your taste.  Add more berries if necessary to 1/2 inch of top.  Add boiling water, leave 1/2 inch head space.  Place processed lids (boiled) and screw top on. Process in a steamer or hot water bath for 20 minutes.

Half filled and filled jars, no water added yet.