It's been a while...well all summer!

This summer has been a whirl wind of things and stuff and other things and stuff.

So I'll talk about today, which was a good day.

Hubby left this am with the older 3 kids to pick up a lamb from a local farm going out of business...yes $100 dollar pedigree lamb 2 years old. Not kidding. He went with two of my friends was the best sheep wrangler ever, helped them kill and gut and chunk then brought those home. He finished getting all the cuts packaged and into the fridge at 1am. Hooray!

He said this means he won't go hunting this year which I'm bummed about. I love caribou and moose and I love having a ton of it. But we still have a little meat goat to butcher in a few more weeks, so we'll be fine.

I made my biggest stock pot yesterday full of my "yummy lentil soup" as we call it. Full of fresh veggies and lentils. After organizing my freezer last night and finding WAY more salmon than I realized we had I thought, wow, we just don't have enough room for a lamb and 3 gallons of soup. So I started canning it today. It changes the flavor a bit and steals good nutrients out of it too, but we just don't have the room and how nice to open a jar of soup. I did two batches mostly those 3cup jars that spaghetti sauce comes in full. Then I just stuck the rest into 6 more quart size yogurt containers and made a tall stack in the chest freezer, those fit ok.

I got out all of last years salmon and put a bunch into jars and processed some of that and 7 pints of my husbands salmon that he just smoked. I'm using my new Tattler lids and so far they're doing ok. At least one out of every batch fails, sometimes 2 or 3. I know I just need to figure out the trick (or quit using oil in all my canning which you're not supposed to do, so can't blame the lids).

My sister and I picked blueberries on Thursday and I decided not to take the time to pull the stems off of each and every one, so I threw 4 cups of those into the freezer (to sweeten them up) and then into the pot to boil and mashed them up well. Strained the juice. Then took my 2008 blueberries which were still fairly pretty out of the freezer and 11 cups of rhubarb and threw those into the pot for a big batch of bluebarb jam. I'm using my new Pamona's Pectin which so far I ADORE! Works like a charm and you don't have to sell your child to afford the sugar you need for the jam.

Made some brine for the rest of the salmon and put about 8 fillets into the brine and I'll smoke that tomorrow then can about 1/2 of it. We like the top part canned 'cause it softens the bones then we freeze the tails which are boneless and pull them out for snacks. Salmon and farmers goat cheese on a cracker are my all time favorite midnight snacks now. Mostly because we made most of it and it tastes good too.

I have 7 more 1/2 pints of plain salmon in the fridge to process for tomorrow.

I was tickled at one point a local "goat lady" I know makes really great soaps and was asking around for fresh produce. So I made out like a bandit getting 6 bars of soap for emptying out my fridge of my produce and a box full of turnips out of the garden. Less work for me tomorrow, woo hoo! I was going to have to make zucchini bread and blanch the veggies that were already picked AND make more sauerkraut. And turnips are not my favorite veggie I'm finding...so it worked out great for me.

Well it's 1:30am and I'm hallucinating and probably slurring my speech...so I'm going to bed.

Country Jane, Glad to be back