Workbench top progress & odds and ends

I picked up some of my deer from the butcher!

I got a call from the butcher Thursday telling me that the bulk of my deer was ready for pickup!  I stopped by the butcher on Friday afternoon and got my meat!  The bologna will take a bit longer he said.  Processing was $55 which seemed a bit high compared to what my neighbors told me, but they might get discounts and I don't know if how I had mine processed was the same as what neighbors had done.

Doesn't look like much

I had a lot of it ground up - since that's how I use it most often.

"cubed" or "canning" type - good for canning (duh) and for stews I figure!

I got a few steaks done too

Closeup of canning 

I repacked the canning meat into vacuum sealed 2 lbs packs for convience

Of course, I had to do a taste test!  Delicious!

Moonshine recipe

A friend of mine at work gave me a sample of his friends "Apple Pie Moonshine" drink.  It was so good!  I decided to make my own!  I found a recipe that got good ratings on Allrecipies "apple pie moonshine "  I had to go buy the ingredients Friday night because they were calling for bad weather overnight at the farm.   They didn't have any cloves and I only had ground cloves - so that would have to do.  I brought all the stuff to a boil and found that the cider had enough solids in it that I would have to filter through a cheesecloth anyway, so the cheesecloth caught all the clove powder as well.

Its good stuff, but it doesnt have the buttery flavor of my friends blend

Winter is here

Well, its been cold for a while - on and off, but the typical wintery "ugh" is here now.  

Workbench top progress

The weather was bad fr doing stuff outside, but it was ok to be doing stuff in the shop!  So I got around to jointing the hickory slats that I cut last weekend.  Once jointed I then thickness planed them.    I measured their thickness and marked the pieces, but I did not get a chance to do the "final" planing for glue up purposes.  When i plane for the glue-up I match the thickness of all the slats in a row and mark them so that I know to glue matched slats in the same row.  I could see that I need more slats - there is not enough to make an 11 inch wide glue-up.  I am scrounging around for more hickory.

I also got some oak slats ready for the center oak bench top glue-up.  I examined the slats and found many were infested with "powderpost beetles".  I was going to toss those slats but there were so many and I don't want to waste all of that wood!  So I thought about whether the finish for the workbench may kill the bugs.  I looked it up and there is some indication that it will!  So I am going to use the buggy oak boards anyway.  I will be sure to soak the finish into the wood good and deep to kill the bugs!.  Technically i could have done this with the buggy hickory too, however, the bugs in the hickory made much bigger holes - like .25-.5 inch in diameter, whereas the powderpost beetles only drill about 0.03125-.125 inches.  I still may have to toss some of the oak if the infestation is too bad.  I didn't get around to jointing the oak yet.  In fact i know I will need more oak slats so I might as well wait until I am on vacation and can dedicate some time to it.

Another buck?

While I was looking at the game camera collection for the week I saw some interesting things!

7!  Seven deer right there where I got my buck just 4 days earlier!  I can't discern a buck in this group but...

This one sure looks like it has antlers!  I compared it to other pictures and that is NOT a tree branch!  Also, the timing is just about right.  Bucks usually come out a bit earlier (or later - depending how you look at it).

More greenbeans, squash and cuc's. Canned pork

I picked some of the larger squash when I got to the farm as well as more cuc's.  

I brought some pork that I bought at Safeway for $2/lb.  I want to PC it - I have never done pork before.

I spent some time and set up the dehydrator (a Cabela's purchase earlier this year) then I used a mandolin to slice the squash thin (about 1/8th inch) and then placed the slices on the racks and put them in the dehydrator.  I set the dehydrator to 115F and set the time to 24 hr.  While those were dehydrating I set to work on the pork.  I cut it into 1 inch cubes (and cut some of the fat off while doing so) and raw-packed it into 5 pint jars (along with 1 tsp of salt per pint). I left about an inch space at the top - maybe a little more in some.  I was super concerned about the fat melting and screwing up the seal at the top.  I cleaned the tops of the jars very carefully before I put the lids on to make sure there was no grease between the lid an the jar.  I tightened the lids up and placed in them in the PC. Cooked them for 75 mins after pressure came up.

While the pork was canning I sliced a bunch of cuc's up readying them for bread and butter pickles (I found a Mrs Wages mix in the back room so I decided to use it).  I got a bit scared when I couldn't find enough jar and lids - but then I realized i actually had some brand new jars in a case from last year so I was ok.  I put the cucumber slices in the jars and then covered them with the hot mix.  cleaned the jar tops and put on the lids as usual an then loaded 7 quart jars into the water bath canner.  I was just putting the canner lid on to help the water come back up to boil when I heard a "crack".  Sigh.  I little investigation turned up that one of the older jars broke a bottom out.   I took the broken jar out an removed as much of the cuc's as I could grab safely.  I added some hot water (carefully, not wanting to do any more damage from thermal shock!) to bring the water level back up and brought the water to boil.  Processed the remaining quarts for 10 mins.

I still had to wait for the pork to finish canning after all of the pickle shenanigans - was up until almost 2 am!  Good news was that all of the jars sealed and look pretty good.  Of course, the pickle jars needed to be washed and I gave the pork jars a good washing too to make sure the grease was off as best I could.

The next day I checked the squash in the dehydrator - they had turned into paper thin slices.  The weren't crisp though.  BTW, I did use some salt (salt flour from Zimmerman's) on the slices.  They really aren't that good to eat straight.  Maybe I will try toasting some to see if they crisp up...

Anyway,  before I left I picked (and continued to de-weed) the green beans in the big patch.  Maybe got 1 1/2 quarts.  I picked some more squash an cuc's as well.  Also picked a couple beets and 5 Kohlrabi.   Also stopped by mom's place (she needed gasoline for mower) and picked a couple of handful's of green beans there.  There are lots of beans there but they arent quite reay yet.  Next weekend I will have a good harvest there!

Here are some pics:

The 6 surviving quarts of bread and butter pickles

Canned pork!  5 pints. Cold/raw-packed works fine for pork.  Lean meats should be hot packed.

The squash in the dehydrator.

Miscellaneous goings on.. chipping, canning, snowing..

Following on the last post... I did get the chipping done for the debris from the bush trimming.   I didn't take pictures since it just looks the same but with wood chips around the bushes feet!

I finally got around to pressure canning some meat!  I chose venison, since I had a bunch in the freezer that I haven't used as quickly as I thought I would.  The recipe is simple: clean and cook the venison in water, add salt, hot pack in jars, cover with water or broth from cooking (I used both since I ran out of broth), pressure can at 10 lbs pressure for 75 min!  Here are pictures of the results:

I haven't tried any yet because I have plenty of meat already cooked in the fridge.  However, I am curious!  One of these might get opened before too much longer!  I may do more of these if I like them since I have lots of venison in the freezer that I would prefer being in jars on the shelf - especially if we loose power.

Oh, and now this is happening:

My backyard this afternoon, in Silver Spring, Maryland.

See my greenhouse frame on the right?  By this time last year, I had that covered with plants in it getting ready to be put  out in the garden!  ARggggh