Long, long, overdue update!

    So I looked up today and life has raced by!  My girls are growing up way too fast.  Our lives have been busy.  I changed jobs and we are gearing up for a summer of floating, gardening, and building.  Our goal is to get our shop built in the next couple months. 

   The last couple months have been filled with work and some play.  January is birthdays for Super D and me.

The boys has fun target practicing on Levi's birthday.  It was a beautiful day and yes they are outside in January in t-shirts!  I love it! 

After one such fun night our buddy almost was ready to head home but needed a little more shut eye :) 

Who knew that at 12 years old you could still be very entertained by a box.  Sugar Bug spent many hours creating this box of inspiration.

We are just thankful around here that winter is over and warm weather is here.  It gets nicer everyday and we have a huge list of chores and projects for the summer. 

Jalapeno!

So we had a good jalapeno harvest this year.  That is one thing I usually grow well.  I love that it worked out perfect. When I started to can this year I looked and we were down to our last jar from last year!  Awesome... So here is how I do it.

 

First gather all your peppers.  Now I use this same recipe to pickle all my peppers.  I have jalapenos and some red sweet peppers this year and I just mixed them all together.  I like having jars with both spicy and not so spice peppers. 

I like mine to be in rings so I slice them up.  Or if you want whole peppers just cut a slit in each side.

Next sterilize all your jars and lids. 

For our pickling solution you will need to mix 10 cups white vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil and simmer about 10 minutes. 

 

Now that everything's ready fill your jars with peppers.  I use whatever size I feel like.  Usually pints and quarts as we go though peppers quite a bit. 

 

   Ok so I can't pour and take a steady picture at the same time but you get the idea.  Pour your hot pickling solution over the peppers leaving 1/4" head space. 

Run a spatula or knife around the jar to remove air bubbles.  Put the lids on and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. (or longer if you live above 1000 feet altitude. Click Here)

And Voila....

You now have canned jalapenos!

I've used this recipe for years and I've read more of them and had one that called for soaking the peppers in a salt brine for 12 hours first. This is supposed to keep the peppers crunchy and help retain the color.  I've done it both ways and I couldn't tell the difference between the jars that had been soaked and ones that weren't so I stopped doing this step altogether. 

Happy canning!!

 

 

Fall is here!

So No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! Yet. :)  We have been busy!  Most days I feel like I am just trying to stay above water.  I took on a second part time job at the end of summer here.  But it is seasonal and will end this month.  School is back in session at our house and that takes up a good portion of each day.   Super D got the Chevelle put together and it is in driving condition.

 

Super D has done an amazing job at getting this up and running.  It is a fun car.  That man didn't even make it through the first weekend of it running well before he bought the next project car. The next one will be neat so we will see how that works.  We have lots going on around here it seems.

 

The garden has pretty well this year.  I got a great pepper harvest and some tomatoes.  We had so much rain at the beginning of the season that tomatoes didn't do well.  They were just splitting and rotting before they could ripen. But as we have moved in to fall they are doing decent. I expect the first frost to shut down the rest of the garden any day now.  Next post will be how I canned my jalapenos. 

Happy 4th!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!  We celebrated with a BIG bang!

We set off all these Fireworks! And had fun doing it.  We had good food including pies from all those blackberries...

I tried to get pictures of our fireworks  but our camera didn't cooperate so I really only have this pictures of Sugar Bug with the biggest sparkler ever!

That is one cool sword!  We had a blast and hope our friends will come out next year for the bash!

Happy 4th everyone!

Blueberries!!!

Blueberries anyone? We went blueberry picking...

 We went and picked 12 gallons of blueberries at a local farm.  We gave away 1 gallon and I canned the rest. 
For those interested I followed this recipe...  Blueberry Jam and syrup.  

I loved that I was making jam and syrup at the same time pretty much.  In all I got 6 half pints syrup, 23 half pints jam, and 23 pints of just blueberries. 
The blueberries I didn't turn into jam I packed into sterilized jars and filled with a light syrup of 1 cup sugar to 3 cups water heated until the sugar dissolved. Then processed them in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. 
It all turned out great and now we are on to blackberries!

Party Animals!

So we had a crazy weekend with a birthday and wedding back to back...
First Sugar Bug turned 12...

Yes my daughter picked a X-box game theme for her cake. She had a rather quiet birthday as everyone was preparing for the wedding the next day.  But we still had some fun and checked out the river, which is way up with all the rain we've had lately.

And of course you have to have balloons! 



Sugar bug was excited to get an easel from her aunt for all her artistic flares...

My two girlies checking out the Nintendo DS Sassafras got her sister.

Next we have wedding!! Super D's little sis got married beside the river in a beautiful service.  Hot but pretty...

Congratulations you two!

My pretty girls.  They were both bridesmaids..

The Cake... All the kids thought it was super cool that the butterflies were edible.  I guess there was something fun about eating a butterfly. 

It was a fun and busy weekend! I'm glad everything went smoothly and no rain this weekend.  We are all recuperating this week! 

New Project

Super D has a new project...

This is after a bit of hard work by Super D and his buddies!  The car came in pieces.

Super D is like a kid a Christmas getting new things for the car...

Don't ask me why but, Yes he is smelling the wiring harness he got in the mail this morning.

He has been receiving packages for the last few weeks...

 Hopefully we have all we need to get it up and running in the next few weeks.