More jam and some ramblings
Got the new screen for the food mill during the week. It’s well made, although hard to see if it’s welded any better. Obviously not made by the same company, but it does fit and the spirals turn inside of it.
I used the old screen yesterday when I made more blackberry jam. Only took out 1 gallon bag and one pint bag from the freezer. Cooked them up, ran the stuff through the food mill twice just like before. Ended up with WAY too much juice/pulp for the amount of jam I wanted to deal with, so I put the extra into a labeled container in the freezer.
This time around I made sugar-free jam. I have a friend who is diabetic and so I said I’d make some jam for her, too. I couldn’t do sweetener free… that would be too tart… so I opted to go with Splenda. The recipe calls for 1.5 cups of Splenda if using. (you can also use sugar with the “no sugar needed” pectin, up to 3 cups, which is WAY less than a normal batch would use)
It gelled quite nicely, but is slightly on the tart side. Tastes great, though, and that’s what is important, right? I got 4 full jars (1/2 pint size) and an almost full jar that I will put in the fridge until my friend comes to visit.
Instead of throwing the seed stuff out in the field… this time I put it on a cookie sheet covered in foil and stuck it in the oven to dry. I’m thinking that it would make a good addition to homemade suet cakes. I don’t usually feed the birds here, but I can see finding some places for suet cakes when it’s all snowy or icy. When it’s totally dry I’ll break it up and store it until I can get some suet or lard to mix up with birdseed and stuff and form into cakes for the birds. (there are tons of recipes online if you feed birds)
Made labels again, too. Probably forgot to mention that I spent about 2 hours fixing a photo of a berry until I could use it on a label, lol! I have a really ancient program that I use to make stickers/labels. It doesn’t really like to run in Vista but it does…. and I can import art, but only if it is in bitmap form! I keep using the program, though, because I can move things =exactly= where I want them. I’ve tried to make good labels with other programs but this old program that came with my first Canon printer is the one I use. I use it for my return address labels, stamping swap labels… anytime I need a label or need to tweak things better than I can do with other programs I own. Only bad thing is that it doesn’t do barcodes for shipping labels. Oh well, can’t have everything, right? I even do baggie headers with this program, as a custom sheet.
On to other stuff. Friday I bought a carpet cleaner machine. Mid-range priced Bissell. My little dog Rita is on medication now for congestive heart failure and it makes her pee more. She’s not hitting the potty pads all the time and I was starting to smell it. Can’t really do anything about how much time she’s outside, as I’m gone for over 12 hours a day. I hate wall to wall carpeting… it’s just a big dirt suck and needs constant vacuuming and cleaning, especially if you have pets. I’m not big on house cleaning anyhow… but the carpets here are a disaster. Not all my fault…. gosh knows how old the carpeting is here and no one ever took care of it. But I can’t have the smell of dog pee, so I have to clean the carpeting where Rita has “missed” her pads.
I vacuumed first of course, and we do have a decent vacuum… so good that you can’t get through one room without having to empty it. Like I said, the carpets are dirt sponges. Then I ran the carpet cleaner 3 times over the area I was doing… twice with cleaning solution and once with plain water. It still stinks… and the carpet isn’t really clean yet. But I was worried about putting too much water into it in one day.
I will be doing over probably next weekend… and until I get the smell out… which may be never! But I’ll try, that room is the one designated as the guest room. Oh, and I blocked Rita from going in there, moved her potty pads and put them where she HAS to hit them in a small area blocked around.
More other stuff…. :)
Early today Ron went out to feed the cats and take Rita out. No cats were on the porch, but when they heard the food hit the dishes they came running…. including Wild Thing who came running from the barn with a giant RAT in his mouth! Silly cat! He sets it down so he can eat kibble, and another cat takes it to play. The rat is still very much alive. They kept taking it from each other and Rita finally came up into the area and got very excited. She IS a rat terrier, you know! Ron made her come in the house… she got her treat, and then she kept jumping up to the window to watch the cats and going to the door and whining. So, Ron let her back outside. She ran out and attacked the rat, gave it a shake, dropped it and let the cats have it again. Ron said she yelped, too, so she might have got nipped by the rat and that’s why she dropped it… but she was done, she had her turn at it and came back in the house all proud of herself. As many rats as these cats get down in the barn, well, the barn must be seriously infested. (oh, and Wild Thing is a BOY cat, not usually the best hunters, but all the boys we have now seem to be)
It’s Superbowl Sunday, and I have no plans on watching… I never do. Always miss all the good commercials, lol! Today is also what I think of as the anniversary for Ron and I. We took each other to meet our Mom’s on Superbowl Sunday. Things were great when I met his Mom… Beulah told lots of stories and told me how much happier Ron seemed since he met me. Then we went to my Mom’s house and she had a house full of people drinking and talking politics. When we left there I was thinking… OMG, he’s gonna run away screaming and never want to see me again. But all he said was… “No Bush fans in that house, were there?” And here we are, all these years later… a gazillion cats that I’ve named, a very prolific blackberry bush, the adoption of 3 dogs and the moving of one here, and kids moving in and out. I cook, Ron cleans it up most of the time… and we work different shifts and miss each other a lot. We take time to have fun together… and manage to talk every day. I’m still his computer guru and he’s still my mechanical guy. Long live Ron and Vyx together! :)
This is all for now…
Hugs,
Vyx
