The Virtues of Home Canning

This is the first in a series of articles about an “alternative” lifestyle. Life in the late 1800s and early 1900s was radically different from that of today. In many ways, our modern lifestyle is preferable, but in several other very important ways, we would be wise to take a page from our parents and grandparents. The economy is bad. Jobs are scarce. Money is tight. I offer you some food for thought and maybe a few memories.

I’ve been on a quest for canning jars. So far I’ve accumulated about 300 of them, but the goal is 1,000 jars. Why, you ask? Because that is how many jars of food it takes to sustain a family of eleven until the next harvest season.

Perhaps you’ve heard me mention from time to time that I have a sister who has nine children, home schools them all, sews their clothes, raises their own animals for meat and by-products, and grows and cans their own fruits and vegetables. She is not super-woman, but she is hard working, frugal and creative. She has chosen to live a lifestyle closer to that of the late 1800s than of the 21st century. Part of that lifestyle is to provide for her family in the most economical way possible, which includes 1,000 jars of canned food.

A lot of people I know can; I’ve done it myself a time or two. For what little I can, it’s not worth the effort or expense. However, my sister was sharing her food philosophy recently when someone piped up and stated that” home canning is a nice hobby, but you’re never going to save money doing it.” He went on to say he bought his canned goods by the case load from Save-A-Lot and $.40 per can was cheaper than any home canned goods could ever be.

Here is her reply: A typical 600 square foot garden will yield, on average, one pound of vegetables per square foot. If you take a cost of approximately $60 for seeds, plants, fertilizer and tools (hand tools that is, no mechanized tillers or tractors) and spread it over 5 years, that brings the cost of raising vegetables to about 10 cents a pound. If you buy direct from growers or at pick-your-own farms, the price is somewhat higher.

Canning jars purchased new cost about $8 per dozen, amortized over 20 years, brings their cost to 3 cents per jar per year. Add the cost of lids, which need to be replaced with each canning; the cost for jar, band and lid is 20 cents. Figuring two pounds of vegetables in each quart jar brings the grand total to 40 cents per jar.

So if you can buy caseloads of vegetables from the discount stores for the same price, why not do it? In one word – quality.

Home grown foods lack the preservatives, dyes and coatings added by mass producers. They haven’t gobbled up fossil fuels by flying 2000 miles across the country so they’re “fresh” from California, or worse, Mexico or Argentina. If homegrown items contain salmonella or E.coli, it’s your own quality control at issue, not Russian roulette from some field hundreds or thousands of miles away over which you have no control. In addition, the food you eat fresh or canned was, in all probability, picked just hours before it was eaten or processed.
I’m not a convert to home canning, yet. But it certainly makes me think twice about where my food comes from. It’s too late for a garden this year, but with local produce so reasonably priced, I think I’ll make it until next spring when I can plant a few of my own home-grown foods. Who knows, I may even drag out the old canner.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Do you ever wonder if Mother Earth is trying to get rid of us, kind of like a dog shaking fleas? With all the natural and man-made disasters in the world today, makes me wonder.

Man has used and abused this planet ever since his appearance several millennia ago. It may have finally caught up with us. Until the Industrial Revolution, humans caused relatively little damage to their environment; but with the advent of the machine and its inherent pollution and waste, the earth was doomed. We have polluted the skies with our carbon emissions to the point of destroying the ozone layer that protects us from the sun. We have polluted the earth with our land-fills full of plastic that will be there thousands of years from now. We have polluted virtually every body of water on earth with waste, chemicals, and now oil. What exactly will it take to wake us up that we are destroying our home?

I’m no expert, but sometimes I wonder if the earth has had enough of us. The number and severity of tornadoes in the Midwest have increased; hurricanes seem to come more often with more devastating results to the nations they hit; earthquakes are more prevalent and tidal waves more catastrophic. Add to all this the rampaging oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and I wonder that more of the world’s animal and plant species have not gone extinct.

The world is going “green.” You can’t help but read about it, or see it on television. It’s a relatively new term, dating back to the 1970s. It hadn’t really caught on worldwide until just a few years ago. But environmentalists have been around since ancient Greece and Rome, complaining even back then about air, water and noise pollution.

Individually most of us are aware that we need to “clean up our act.” We recycle plastic, glass, cans and papers. We conserve energy by turning off lights, use air conditioning less, and combine errands making one trip instead of several. The encouraging thing is that if we ALL did our part, it would have an effect on world pollution. The sad thing is, most of us don’t.

I don’t know if global warming is a fact or not. I suspect it is. But I do know my environment is changing and not for the better. One person cannot do much to reverse the effects of thousands of years of abuse of our planet, but collectively we can make a difference. Our children are learning the new 3 r’s: “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Sometimes it takes us older folk a bit longer to jump on the bandwagon. It’s not easy being green, as Kermit says, but we can be taught – hopefully before it’s too late.

By some lucky happenstance I discovered that my camera takes continuous pictures. How I ever got stop-action on a hummingbirds wings is beyond me, but oh so awesome!

Lazy, Hazy Daze

Roll ‘em out, those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. I’m not a big fan of summer. It’s hot and sticky and it drains me of energy. It’s the old stand-by: it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. That’s true I guess. I’ve been to Mexico in 110 degree heat and it didn’t affect me nearly as much as 80 and humid here.

But I’m not so old that I can’t remember when I enjoyed summer. It was before the days of air-conditioning, when you got a tall glass of Kool-Aid with ice and sat under the nearest tree to cool off. I usually had a book in hand. My mind’s eye sees me sitting there; balancing the glass of Kool-Aid in a tuft of grass, and feeling a slight breeze ruffle the pages of my book. It was a lazy time, when the cares of the world had yet to descend.

I can remember looking up, through the leaves, watching them sway and being fascinated by the patterns they made against the deep blue sky. I remember the sky being a darker blue when I was a kid. I don’t think that’s my imagination; I think there is a constant haze of pollution we’re looking through now, even on the clearest days. When you lay on the grass back then, looking straight up, the sky seemed almost black it was so intensely blue. I miss those days.

Cloud sculptures were a popular pastime when I was younger. Remember looking up at the cumulus clouds (the big puffy kind) and seeing dragons, rabbits and faces in them? Then right before your eyes they would morph into something completely different. Why don’t we take time to fanaticize with the clouds anymore?

The lake was always a welcome relief to the summer heat. That was back in the days when you could actually, legally, get down to Ripley Beach. What did we know of sandy beaches and clear waters when we were kids? The beach was mostly shale rock, like it is today. Finding a spot to build a sand castle was a real treat. The lake was occasionally clear, allowing us to see the rocks below; but more often than not, it was a murky brown, hiding it’s booby-traps of boulders to stumble on and mucky, slimy patches of seaweed to step into. The lake also had a goodly supply of dead fish floating around, back in the days when industrial waste and sewers were freely dumped in the Great Lakes. We wouldn’t dream of entering such waters now, with E. coli and such; but back then, we simple splashed the dead fish out of the way and continued on. “Them was the good ol’ days.”

I don’t care much about swimming in the lake these days, and I’m more apt to sit in the air-conditioned house with my book than under a tree. But I haven’t given up on summer entirely. My goal now is to have an old fashioned swing hung from an accommodating tree branch, so I can leisurely sway with the breeze, watching the clouds go by.

The Community Block Party was a success - although I had my doubts for the first three hours. Not nearly as many people came as I had hoped, but enough that we made a good bit of change for our efforts.

I'm exhausted, my feet are screaming, my back is aching and my legs are throbbing. On my feet on a cement floor for 10 hours is not a good thing. I'm gonna go have a long soak in the tub, drink a long cold something and do absolutely nothing for the rest of the night.

Night' all

Oh, by the way, Happy 4th of July!

The weather here has gone from hot and sticky to cool and dry - heavenly! I could take an entire summer of this - high 60s to mid 70s and low humidity. It'll only last until Saturday though, just in time to get really hot for the Block Party.

The sweet peas are in full bloom along all the roadsides and ditches. They're so pretty. I'd like to dig some up and put them in our creek bank, but first I'd have to napalm the bank to get rid of all the weeds and sumac growing there. Maybe a project for the fall.

The folk's kitchen is painted, most of the ceiling fixtures are up, now just waiting for the baseboard to be installed. Then I get to get up on the ladder and paint flowers and stuff along the ceiling. I dunno, seems like every time I get on a ladder I get injured. It's either falling off and hitting furniture on the way down, or hitting some part of my anatomy on corners of countertops and getting BIG bruises. But hey, I'm keeping my chiropractor in business.

Speaking of artwork on the walls, I'll try to take some photos when I get things painted and post them here. No promises though.

If I don't get back here before the weekend, Happy 4th of July to all you colonists out there.

John Near 1795-1882

Independence Day Thoughts

Having several British friends, it pleases me no end to point out to them whenever possible that we, a bunch of back-woods, unsophisticated country bumpkins defeated them not once, but twice, in wars for our freedom from the tyranny of taxation by England. Not having learned their lesson during the Revolutionary War, starting in 1776, they tried to defeat us once again in the War of 1812.

Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for England, once a great empire with tentacles spreading worldwide. But then again, I guess I don’t. Think about it though. England is a very small country, about the size of Alabama. How came they to conquer the world? A bit of a Napoleonic complex if you ask me, although Napoleon came a bit after England’s conquests of the New World, Australia, India and other various and sundry nations around the world. Perhaps Napoleon got his delusions of grandeur from England.

This being the weekend we celebrate our break from the Mother country, I’d like to share with you a little of my family history in this regard. One of my ancestors, Conrad Near, emigrated to the United States from Germany sometime in the mid to late 1700s. He married and had a son, also named Conrad, born in 1773. During the War of Independence, Conrad Sr. was killed in the Battle of Klock’s Field, near St. Johnsville, New York. The boy Conrad, who was about 7 years old at the time, was captured by “Indians,” most likely the Iroquois led by Chief Cornplanter. Little Conrad and his uncle, Philip Empie were taken to Montreal, 225 miles away, and placed in a British prison. A British officer, taking pity on Conrad, ordered him released to the custody of a widow woman in Montreal, where he remained until the close of the war.

On his way back to his home in central New York State, in the company of several adults, Conrad was robbed of his shoes and a small amount of money during the night and awoke to find himself abandoned. What a grown man would want with a pair of shoes from a 10 year old boy is beyond me. But that’s how the story goes.

Happily, Conrad found his way back to Palatine, New York where he married and presumably lived happily ever after. So, to my ancestors, Conrad Sr, Conrad, Jr, John, Lafayette, Hercules, Winfred and William, a toast to you all and the freedom you fought for so bravely, from the War of Independence through World War II and Korea. Happy 4th of July – and thank you.