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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

It Won't Win the County Fair

As the title of this post implies, my newly canned pickled asparagus will not be winning any County Fair prizes. Which is fine as the County Fair is two months away. I have plenty of time to pickle some prettier stuff. There is tons of this stuff grown semi-locally that can be picked up on the day it is cut. This particular harvest was "Starting At $.75/ lb". I should have known there was a reason it was so cheap and not just because they cut out the middle man. When I arrived at the packing plant, this was the stuff they couldn't sell to the stores. Still nice looking but not completely uniform. I had planned to can 75 lbs and a friend was to help us and split the bounty. After I saw the "sale" stuff, I settled on 30 lbs. and will do more later. My husband can't stand the idea of tossing out so much good stuff and used the tender stems too. I don't eat a ton of pickled asparagus but he does. If he is willing to eat the stems too, then stems it is. I have to agree, there is an amazing amount of waste if you only go for the pretty tops. We added lots of sliced jalepeno and fresh garlic cloves to the bottom of each jar before we filled them with asparagus spears (and stems). I obviously wasn't the one filling the jars with brine or the one on the right would be full to the proper level. I think my husband was on that duty. It took 3 of us about 2.5 hours to can 18 quarts of this stuff. I sure hope it tastes good.


CHICKEN HOUSE UPDATE


Our chicken house is coming along. Not as quickly as I would like but then nothing ever does. We put up the siding last weekend and still need to trim it out and build the attached enclosed and roofed run. That will be the length of this side you see now. The roof for it will begin below the window at the top. This side faces the south and should get some extra sunlight in the morning. Chickens need 14 hours of sunlight per day to lay in the winter. I will need to augment this as our days are short in the winter. The third pop door on the left will not be used initially as it opens to the ante room where I will store the food and supplies. I just wanted to plan for the possibility of a brooder if we ever hatch out our own chicks. Pre-planning for things makes implementing them easier later. We will add batons and trim, then paint it. I haven't fully figured out the color yet but something will come to me. I would like it to blend in so maybe the same color as the house. We will see, I just figured the lighter the color... the cooler it will stay in the summer. My brother will be wiring it for electricity this next weekend. I love my brother he always does this kind of nice stuff for us.

14 comments:

  1. I think the asparagus looks great. I would give it a blue ribbon if I were the judge!
    The chicken house has come a long way. It looks like it's pretty close to being finished.

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  2. The way I see it, anything pickled with garlic and jalapeno has to taste good. :-)

    Your chicken house is looking great!

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  3. I think the asparagus looks great too. What a lot of hard work - I hope you all will enjoy it very much.
    Love the way the chicken house is coming along too. You and I are both blessed with good brothers!

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  4. Wow! So impressed. Great idea to plan ahead for expansion!

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  5. Well I think your asparagus looks great! And the chicken house, wow!

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  6. I'm so impressed! I can't imagine canning 1 lb of anything let alone 30 lbs. I hope to learn how to can some day though. The chicken house is looking really good! Great progress. -Jackie

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  7. The Avian Ritz! I'm impressed! Well done.

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  8. I love to see canned veggies sitting around and can't wait to put some stuff up myself. Good going on the chicken house!!

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  9. You have some lucky chickens. That's a fine looking chicken house. And you know what? I didn't even know you could pickle asparagus! But I expect I'll learn a few things now that my new Blue Book has arrived! Woo-hoo! Thanks so much Heather!

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  10. I would go with a lighter for that exact reason of keeping it cooler in summer. We were originally going to paint our chicken tractor barn-red for nostalgia's sake, but decided that would be pretty much like painting it black. So we went with buttercup yellow and it's just lovely.

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  11. I LOVE pickled asparagus!!!! Do you think your brother can come to my house and do kind things for me?

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  12. Heather, the chicken house looks like a 5-star hotel for your chickens!

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  13. I've never tried pickled asparagus. Sounds interesting! The chicken house looks great.

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  14. The chicken house looks fantastic! I've never tried pickled asparagus either, but I like anything pickled. We are down to our last jar of beets and I am holding on to them like gold. Note to self: can more beets this year. I am new to canning and wasn't sure how they would do last year. Totally in to it now. I could use a canning "internship" though.. : )

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Thank you for your ideas, suggestions or greetings. I love to hear from you and read them all.
-Heather

About This Blog

We started this blog in Feb. of 2009 to help us stay motivated and to track our progess in the garden. We live on 5 acres surrounded by Idaho farmland. We have wildlife galore and are attempting to attract more in the bird catagory. This is our journal. Welcome!

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