been one of those weeks....

this pretty much sums it up, it's been one of those weeks. last week, a wisdom tooth i should have had pulled 20 years ago was giving me fits. i have no dental insurance and called around for pricing on dental procedures. i finally found a dentist i could afford and made an appointment for last monday. we canceled our farm day on the 14th 'cause peter was sick and the pain in my tooth was almost unbearable.

good thing we canceled farm day, since the greatest windstorm in ohio history decided to strike that day. windstorm ike paid us a visit and assisted in the pruning of several trees in our yard, along with taking out power to over 2 million ohio residents.

we lost part of our mullberry tree, several large branches from our hard and silver maple trees and the rest of the largest weeping willow trees in our ditch. the rear door on our barn also blew off it's hinges. we knew it was going to cause problems sooner or later. i just wished it was later.

clean up started on monday. school was canceled due to no electricity (and so was my dentist appointment!), so cameron and peter got busy with the chain saws. cameron figures that we have about a cord of firewood as a result of the storm. the pear tree made it through, but lost many of it's pears.we were able to salvage a bunch for pear cider.

of course, we had no power after the storm like 2 million plus other ohio residents. we have a well as our water source. with no electric, no water. fortunately, this old house comes through for us again. our well was hand dug in the 1830's, so it's nice and wide. we were able to pull up water the old fashion way to water our animals, do the dishes and flush the toilet.

monday i rotated the sheep pasture and was leading the sheep to their new pasture when fiona-sheep jumped on my foot and broke my left pinkie toe. damn sheep!
i hate that ewe. her saving grace is that she's big, throws twins, nice wool and good milker. ding dong sheep. she's such a brat. now i'm walking with a cane at times. i've taped up the toe to the next toe to keep it somewhat stabilized. time for steel-toed work boots.

our power came back on tuesday morning at 6:15 am. i was grateful. fortunately i didn't loose any meat. we kept the freezers closed and ate what we had thawed. we got the board games out in the evenings and i was the big looser both nights! we coped well without electric. although i want to get a cooking grate for the fireplace....

with no power, i didn't can last week. but the tomatoes are ready again, so i'm off to pick and can tomatoes this evening.

and the canning season continues

i have pear sauce in the canner right now. it smells and tastes so yummy. that's something i don't see in the grocery stores. ah, the benefits of canning your own food.

our pears are doing very well this year. very few bug holes or bad looking pears considering we do nothing to those trees but pick their fruit. we will offer some pears in this week's csa shares. i made pear butter last week. i've always liked pears, i just don't think about eating them very often. i bought a jar of pear butter a few years ago because it sounded interesting. it sat in the cupboard for a few months until one evening when i wanted toast with a jam. i found the pear butter and spread it on. after i gobbled up the two pieces of toast, i returned to the kitchen, grabbed a spoon and the pear butter, and polished off the entire contents of the jar. it was sooo good! my first attempt at pear butter this year turned out good. not the "fantastic" that i tasted in that purchased jar, but definately edible! i'll be tweaking the recipe a bit and let you know how it goes.

this week i'm making pear sauce and canning tomatoes. to make pear sauce you follow the same steps as you would to make apple sauce. the pears are sweet enough that i don't need to add sugar.

Just took the pear sauce out of the canner. time to go hang out the laundry.

canning workshop tonight!

My canning buddy, Debbie, is here from indiana and we are ready to can. We are heading to the garden now to pick tomatoes, peppers and other goodies.

The workshop is tonight, starting at 5 PM at Moe's place in Upper Arlington. See the side bar for details and a map.

See you tonight!