From Theresa:
 
We recently got out the “new” pressure canner that had been sitting unused in our closet for several years, because I hadn’t had the time or energy to learn how to use it. Not that I was feeling guilty or anything about spending all that money on something that was gathering dust, but I am relieved to have finally put it to good use.  We have recently learned to make bone broth, which has opened up a whole new world of flavors for us. We were freezing the broth, though, which meant we had to take it out two days in advance to let it thaw enough to use it in recipes. If we pressure canned the broth instead, it would safely stay on the panty shelf and be ready at a moment’s notice whenever the urge to try a new recipe hit us. So we canned some turkey bone broth with the carcasses we had left over from Thanksgiving.

I had also bought the pressure canner so that we could can beans, so we decided that if we had the canner going, we might as well add beans to the weekend project. We buy our beans in 25 lb. bags at a discount from our local Co-op. In the past, this amount has lasted us for years, but now that we are canning them, I bet we will start to use them more. Just like the frozen bone broth, dried beans need a lot of prep time. They need to be soaked in water overnight, and sometimes cooked separately for hours before you can add them to your dish. Now, with canned beans, we just pull them off the shelf and they’re read to heat and eat.

Our Turkey Bone Broth:

Add turkey carcasses, onions, garlic, bay leaves, vinegar, and salt and pepper, to a large pot and cover with water:

Simmer for two days:

Strain and pressure can:

Water bath canners are inexpensive. They are basically a very large pot with a lid and a rack to hold jars. You can often buy them from garage sales. But they can only be used to can high-acid foods, which means mostly tomatoes and other fruits. A pressure canner cans everything else: meats, beans, soups, vegetables. But they are much more complicated machines with lots of safety features, so they are quite a bit more expensive.  After researching my options, I decided I really wanted an All-American cast aluminum pressure canner, which of course was one of the most expensive I found. We bought the 21.5 quart, which is big enough to let us do two layers of pint jars at time.

I wanted this higher-priced pressure canner because it seemed the most self-reliant:

• It didn’t have a rubber gasket around the rim that would need to be replaced periodically.
• Although it had a gauge dial for reference, it relied on the weighted gauge to measure the pressure. I didn't want one that only had a dial gauge, because it should be taken annually to your county extension agent for testing to see if it is still reading accurately.
  

The canner came with pretty good instructions and a helpful DVD that showed us the basics of how to use it. Once I took the time to pay attention, it wasn't at all hard to figure out how to make it work.

It’s about three weeks later, and as I thought, we only have 2 quarts of broth (out of 8) left, and only 3 pints of navy beans (out of 12) remaining. Having ingredients at our finger tips has made experimenting with recipes much easier, so our supplies are running out fast. We’ve been trying to challenge ourselves to cook from the pantry more, rather than buy food from the grocery store, because we need to save money, so learning to use the pressure canner has been very serendipitous timing (Bear here- good scrabble word, hon...).
 
This weekend we are canning beef bone broth. I like its flavor better than poultry broth, and the farmers we buy our bulk organic beef from recently decided to clean out their freezers and gifted us with almost 90 lbs. of bones! We will be making bone broth on weekends for the foreseeable future, since we don't have enough freezer space to store the bones long term. Actually, if we use 14 lbs. of bones per batch, that would be 5 more batches, so it would be good to figure out a way to get two batches going at a time. However, I don’t think we have space in our refrigerator to safely unthaw that many bones at a time.

Here's about half of the almost 90 lbs. of beef bones our friends gave us.

If you want to do more than drink it straight, though, it can be used in endless ways. If you are making a recipe that calls for any water, you can substitute bone broth instead, and it will add flavor. So don’t just think about adding it to your soups. For example, it is great when used to boil oatmeal. Add some bacon and parmesan cheese and you’ll have an amazing savory breakfast. We got this idea from Healing Bone Broth Recipes by Sharon Brown. It's a book about the Paleo diet, which we're not really into, but it's full of ideas for how to use your broth.

As part of our pantry challenge, we have cooked groats (whole oat kernels) in bone broth to create a pilaf, then added veggies and a little meat. It has been amazing. We are basing our oat experiments on recipes from The Scottish Oats Bible, by Nichola Fletcher, which Bear brought back from Scotland. We are sure that as we go on to experiment with barley, rice, and other grains, that cooking them in bone broth will also add incredible flavor.

Ingredients:

• 7 lbs of mixed beef bones  (Such as knuckle or neck bones, oxtail, short ribs, soup bones. Include at least one that has some meat on it.)
• 16 cups filtered water 
• 3 onions, roots removed, roughly chopped into quarters (Leave the skins on to add color to the broth.)
• Large head of garlic, roots removed, skin left on
  
• 2 bay leaves      
• 1 tbsp peppercorns, or more or less to taste
  
• 1 tbsp seasalt, or more or less to taste
  

Roast the bones:

• Preheat the oven to 350° F.
• Put all the bones in roasting pans (there’s no need to add any oil) and roast until very brown, for about an hour.

 
Simmer stock:

• Add the bones and all other ingredients to a large stock pot. Add additional water if needed to cover everything. Put on the lid and bring to a boil. Continue boiling for 10 minutes, then lower heat and simmer for at least 2 days, ideally 4.

 
After about 12 hours:

• Around this time, if you used any meaty bones, you should notice that the meat is very tender and falling off the bones.
• If you want, you can remove the meat and use it in other recipes, returning the bones to the broth.
• We like to start our broth in the evening, then remove the meat when we get up in the morning. It makes great sandwiches, or add it to soup or a grain pilaf.

 
To finish the stock:

• Pour everything through a large strainer.
• The resulting broth can be used right away, frozen, or pressure canned.
• Once the broth cools, it will have a solid layer of fat on top, which you can discard before using the broth.
  

Unthawing 14 lbs. of beef bones:

The bones after roasting:

Removing the meat from the bones
after 12 hours:

ME IN 2015

ME IN 2018

 Theresa here...

Solstice Blessings to everyone! Today (June 21st) is the longest day of the year, when we celebrate the life-giving heat of the Sun.

Today Bear & I try to be outside the whole day, staying in touch with the Sun and watching how it travels slowly across the sky. 

Sometimes we go places where it's easier to see the sunrise and sunset, but this year we are staying at our tiny homestead, to see what it's like to connect with the Sun in our own yarden. We watched the sunrise and marked where it happens in our stone circle.

I am trying to spend the day relaxing (which means not working in the garden). I am wondering about the yard, trying to stay in the moment. There is so much life, even in our less than 1/8 of an acre yard. I celebrate all the plant and animals that we've welcomed into our yarden (If you look closely, you might see some bugs on some of the flowers...):

We started small with a couple of hanging bird feeders and a ground feeder. The ground feeder was small and needed cleaning after it rained, so was no fun to take care of. We replaced it with stumps, which are pretty self cleaning in a hard rain and created a lot of room for more birds.

Theresa also put small tree limbs out the top of the post so there were more safe landing areas. As you can see, some birds had to wait in line to get to the food.

We feed the birds fine sunflower seeds with the shells removed. It's expensive, but there's less waste and less mess. The birds don't throw out the less attractive seeds to get to the ones they like.

To attract woodpeckers we added suet. Theresa heard that Baltimore orioles like grape jelly, so we added bowl for that. And yes, Theresa buys jelly without high fructose corn syrup for the birds.

You also need water for the birds. Theresa went out every other day to fill a small birdbath so the birds could drink and sometimes take baths. That changed in 2012...

​
... The Major upgrade! We built a pond! No more pitchers of water to carry outside.

We also added a fence for more privacy and bird perches. The fence and tall sunchokes we planted nearby also help block the wind. Doesn't mean much in the Summer but in Winter it really helps...

Yep, in the winter. We feed the birds all year round. In Winter, on really cold or snowy days we use twice as much food, the birds need it. We also have a heater for the pond. It keeps an area open so the birds can drink. 

We use the Birds of Wisconsin Field Guide to identify the different types of birds. 

Here are photos of some of the 30+ types of birds that have visited the bird feeders in our yarden...

A robin, goldfinches, and scarlet tanagers seem to get along well.

Mr. and Mrs. Scarlet Tanager. The male is on the jelly. Scarlet tanagers and Baltimore orioles really like the grape jelly.

And here are the baltimore orioles. We thought the were just spring and early summer birds, but found out they will keep coming to the feeders if we keep putting out jelly.

Here we have a rare fur feathered waddler... Nah, that's Phil the woodchuck, he likes seeds too.

We have the rat tailed short feathered tree huger. Nah.. that's Wobbles the opossum. He eats thousands of ticks in the Summer so we like having him around.

Can't blame Wobbles. The OTH bird feeder is where the cool birds hang out in the winter, or at least a lot of cold gold finches.

Grossbeaks (left) are my favorite. The other bird is a red winged black bird.  They usually don't hang out at bird feeders. These two seem to get along.

Indigo buntings are rare and cool. They look like bluebirds, but their blue color is brighter, and the bluebirds have orange breasts.

It's a little stressful for the bird community when a hawk moves in. I thought he was a lousy hunter so I called him Mr. MaGoo. Then I realized he was still alive after stopping in our yard for over a month, so he had to be good enough to survive. He is now known as McGee.

We leave a large brush pile in (aka the birdie condo) in the back yard to provide shelter for birds close to the food.

W even get mourning doves. Here are two babies waiting on the path for their parents.

On some days the birds like to take baths in the pond.