Snow to Fire!

Just three days ago everything was covered in snow.

This evening the sky is on fire to the east.

It's the burning.

The air is filled with a luscious aroma of smoke, the sounds of eager leopard frogs, and Sandhill Cranes at a smorgasbord.

Two warm days and the fields are clear. Some snow remains in the woods and in shaded spots. But the dry grassland is on fire now.

It's time to be careful and watchful.

With my historical research into Christian Holy Days and Paganism I wonder if there was a similar experience in Britain and northern Europe during this season that might be part of the background of Beltane.

So, off to the books I go.

Scanner Repair

Northern Lights Bookstore was throwing out a broken scanner that was donated. (Donating broken things, hmmm.)
I asked if I could take it and what they'd want for it. Judy said, "Just take it, Pastor. It's garbage right now."

The scanner is a Microtek Scanmaker 3800. The glass bed had been pushed down into the scanner. Probably there were other things wrong as well.

However, all it required was epoxying the glass back to the plastic frame.

Laying the glass back into the frame.

 Epoxying the corners.

We have plenty of power supplies that work as well as USB cables.

The only real problem is that there are no SANE drivers for this model. The Microtek drivers work with our old iMac with OS9.2 and with Windows 98OSR2 through Win XP Pro. No problems there, we'll just dual boot back to the old OS when we want to use it. Not bad for free.

Roma Tomatoes Dehydration/Drying Foods

I picked up a food dehydrator a couple years ago at a 2nd Hand store for under $10. I've used it for Jerky, apples, tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers of different sorts, and leaves for herbal teas and such. I did have to do a bit of repair work on it, but it has more than paid for itself.

 Here's an example with Roma Tomatoes:

These are some of the washed Roma's that Pr. and Mrs. Mark Faugstad gave to us. The other box was already washed.

I quartered the tomatoes lengthwise. What follows is a series of photos of the change over 4 days.

Day2:

Day 3:

Day 4: The tomatoes no longer bend, they break. Now they're ready for the bins.

For larger round tomatoes I slice them between 3/8" and 1/2 inch, lay them on the rack and let them go 4-5 days--until crisp.

I cut apples between 3/8" and 1/2" thick for drying, dip them in a mix of apple cider vinegar and sugar, then dry for 4-5 days--until they are crisp.

Here's a shelf of green peppers. These were quartered from top to bottom and then dried for 3 days.

Canning Bear Meat

Why can bear meat? 

1) To free up space in the freezer for other things.
2) Canned food doesn't spoil when the power goes out.
3) Canned meats don't need to be cooked before they can be eaten.
4) To learn how to do it in practice.

What did I can?
The shoulders, the neck, the rump, and the lower legs. All in all about 40 lbs of frozen packaged meat. That weight is raw, frozen, bone-in.

I did cut off the nice slices from the rump for frying up over the last couple days. So, that's about 4 to 6 lbs we ate before canning.

I chose these parts because, for example, the neck is kind of awkward to trim for anything other than a roast, and that's hard to trim after it is cooked. The shoulders have a lot of tendons in them, as do the legs and the high rump.

How:

I did two batches in our 18x12x8 inch enameled roaster.

350F until the meat falls off the bone.

Then sterilize the jars and lids.

The meat gets pulled in chunks with a fork and knife and packed into the jars while still hot.

I put a bit of broth into each jar then topped with water until they were filled with 1 inch of head space. Wipe off the grease. I wanted as little grease as possible so that the seals would hold.

In my first batch there were 3 quarts of meat, in the second batch there were 6 quarts. I placed unpacked jars full of water in the spaces in the canner to keep jars from tipping over.

The canner needs to be above 10 lbs for 90 minutes to process quart jars. After the canner gets up to pressure, it really doesn't take much heat to do this. I kept the burner down to 2 or 3 for the whole time.

I left the fat and the trimmings in the roaster and let it warm up to 290F then strained the fat and put it into a couple pint jars. Below are what remains of the trimmings.

These I put into the crock pot with the bones to make broth.

So the results here are about 1.5 qt bear fat, about 1 qt concentrated broth, 9 qt canned bear meat, and a pile of soft bones good for cats, dogs, or garden.

Each quart of meat is 3 lbs + a few ounces, so that's 27 to 30-something pounds of meat in 9 jars.

Remove the rings, wash the greasy jars, wash the greasy canner, and get the jars stored.

Wow, it sure smelled great while roasting and in the crock pot.

Rendering the Bear Fat

We saved about 15 pounds or so of back/belly fat from the bear.

Rendering the fat is very easy.

I just took the large chunks, washed them, and put them in our large oven roaster.

Oven on 350F for 2 hours, then down to 270F for the rest of the afternoon.

Sterilize the jars and keep them warm so that the water evaporates out of them. Get the lids simmering, pour in the 270F fat through a strainer--leaving a little head space. Then get a seal, dry it, and put it on the jar with the ring. Tighten it down.

The jars seal as they cool down.

First run was 5 quarts. The fat is back in the oven to get the remnants, probably another pint at the most. With lard costing about $11 per gallon, this does well for saving us some money.

Smells great in the house--the combination of the fat and the cracklings. Donna came in from outside, sniffed, smiled, and asked if we were having pancakes.