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- #3,481
Ridgetop
Herd Master
Surfside Beach, Texas, just south of Houston. He still owns two rental properties in Palm Springs, CA.
I absolutely love love love my electric canner. I can put the jars in and don't have to constantly monitor the pressure regulator. My regular canners have to be monitored to keep the pressure constant, possibly because I use them on a gas stove. Canning on an electric stove might not need the constant pressure checks. With the electric canner, it only does 5 quarts at a time but beeps when it needs attention to change cycles. At the end of the timed period, it automatically cools down. If I start to do a lot of canning in Texas (with a pest free garden) I will buy another one. I will still do water bath canning for fruits, tomatoes, and jams but this electric pressure canner is wonderful. My DDIL1 has one but has never used it. She also has an Instapot and has never used it either. She is afraid of pressure cooking. I told her that the electric canner will take away all her fears. Hopefully she will use it now.
Total so far - 15 lbs. of beef is now 9 quarts of meat. It took 5 hours to remove fat and cut it up for the jars. I ran short to finish the last jars so had to run down and get some chuck steaks to finish the last jars. I partially thawed them and found that it was easier to cut up the eat and remove the fat if they were partially frozen. Then a zap on thaw in the microwave before putting in jars and into the canner and done. Next on the agenda is 7 lbs. of chicken breast on the bone. I have to remove the bones and cut up the breast meat. My lower freezer is getting emptier and I will be able to empty and move it to Texas next trip. I also did 2 quarts of spaghetti sauce I found in the freezer. I thought I had gotten it all but missed 2 Ziploc bags. When I have fresh tomatoes, I make the seasoned tomato sauce without meat and then just add it to the meat when cooking the spaghetti. Much easier and faster but I needed to empty the freezer. I have about 12 quarts of fresh frozen goat milk in the freezer still along with some colostrum. I won't do anything with the colostrum, but I am considering canning the goat milk in pints. It is for bummer lambs, and I mix it with replacer. I am not sure if canning it would remove some of the nutrients and make it less effective in feeding to newborns. I used to can lots of goat milk for the dairy calves, but that was because we got about 15 gallons of milk daily and even with 3 freezers I didn't have enough space to store that much frozen milk! LOL
Anyway, tomorrow is laundry, canning chicken, boxing files, and packing shoes, towels, etc. We need to start loading the trailers in another week. Now that Sage is gone, we can take apart a lot more corral panels, the hanging metal horse feeders, some of the other panels, etc. Also, will load the 3 large trunks of horse blankets, tack, equipment, saddles, and saddle racks. Need to pack the livestock equipment and medical supplies although they should not go until the last trip along with the sheep.
This trip I hope we can get the 3 cabinets installed in the tool shed. I plan to retrofit it with heat barrier though so maybe I should wait until the barrier is up before installing the cabinets.
I absolutely love love love my electric canner. I can put the jars in and don't have to constantly monitor the pressure regulator. My regular canners have to be monitored to keep the pressure constant, possibly because I use them on a gas stove. Canning on an electric stove might not need the constant pressure checks. With the electric canner, it only does 5 quarts at a time but beeps when it needs attention to change cycles. At the end of the timed period, it automatically cools down. If I start to do a lot of canning in Texas (with a pest free garden) I will buy another one. I will still do water bath canning for fruits, tomatoes, and jams but this electric pressure canner is wonderful. My DDIL1 has one but has never used it. She also has an Instapot and has never used it either. She is afraid of pressure cooking. I told her that the electric canner will take away all her fears. Hopefully she will use it now.
Total so far - 15 lbs. of beef is now 9 quarts of meat. It took 5 hours to remove fat and cut it up for the jars. I ran short to finish the last jars so had to run down and get some chuck steaks to finish the last jars. I partially thawed them and found that it was easier to cut up the eat and remove the fat if they were partially frozen. Then a zap on thaw in the microwave before putting in jars and into the canner and done. Next on the agenda is 7 lbs. of chicken breast on the bone. I have to remove the bones and cut up the breast meat. My lower freezer is getting emptier and I will be able to empty and move it to Texas next trip. I also did 2 quarts of spaghetti sauce I found in the freezer. I thought I had gotten it all but missed 2 Ziploc bags. When I have fresh tomatoes, I make the seasoned tomato sauce without meat and then just add it to the meat when cooking the spaghetti. Much easier and faster but I needed to empty the freezer. I have about 12 quarts of fresh frozen goat milk in the freezer still along with some colostrum. I won't do anything with the colostrum, but I am considering canning the goat milk in pints. It is for bummer lambs, and I mix it with replacer. I am not sure if canning it would remove some of the nutrients and make it less effective in feeding to newborns. I used to can lots of goat milk for the dairy calves, but that was because we got about 15 gallons of milk daily and even with 3 freezers I didn't have enough space to store that much frozen milk! LOL
Anyway, tomorrow is laundry, canning chicken, boxing files, and packing shoes, towels, etc. We need to start loading the trailers in another week. Now that Sage is gone, we can take apart a lot more corral panels, the hanging metal horse feeders, some of the other panels, etc. Also, will load the 3 large trunks of horse blankets, tack, equipment, saddles, and saddle racks. Need to pack the livestock equipment and medical supplies although they should not go until the last trip along with the sheep.
This trip I hope we can get the 3 cabinets installed in the tool shed. I plan to retrofit it with heat barrier though so maybe I should wait until the barrier is up before installing the cabinets.
Will need to tarp everything well against the rain. DH is talking about renting a U-Haul trailer for the furniture. U-Haul only rents 12' trailers though. Hope we can get al the furniture into it. It=f necessary the freezer can ride in the gooseneck. DH says that the gooseneck's fully enclosed portion (over the truck area) is about 6' x 5' so will hold a lot of boxes. DS2's truck that will haul the regular trailer has a tonneau cover which helps to protect cargo in the bed. We will put all the plastic containers in the bed and any cardboard boxes up in the gooseneck enclosed portion.
Hopefully, we can get a lot of our stuff back this time. If necessary until we get a Connex, we can rent a storage unit for some of our stuff that we don't want getting damp or wet until we can get the shelving up in the shed (and the heat barrier) and the closets. This is the best time of year to put up the heat barrier though since it won't be 500 degrees in the attic! Probably 40 below instead. LOL
