My happy pantry

Since We grow most all of our produce, and this year our freezer is already full of our grass fed meats, I had no choice but to can everything. Ive bever used a pressure canner before, so I took a  class at The University of Idaho, a series if 5 canning classes.  My harvests have been bountuful, and now....my pantry is happy. I have pumpjins, beets a variety of salsas, Apple sauce, stewed tomatoes, pickled peppers, jams, jellies, a few different  pickles... and . Soon to add marinara sauce.  I even grew and dried my own beans. Lots of work. Hot sweaty work, but.I know everything was grown organically, no gmo,  ..no preservative or unwanted additives. Thats why I work so hard... and.... its so pretty to look at.

Quading Fun, the search in Idaho's Hemingway Butes for wild Horses.

We love quading in our lovely state of Idaho's trails. Today we decided to adventure out to the Hemmingway Butes. We started off in a beautiful canyon and ended up so high on a mountain that we could hear the whispers of  angels. . At one point we were in a big area where wild horses are known to make their home. No horses today for us, but we saw evidence that they are there. We decided to  back to see if we can find the herd. I love photography and having the opportunity to photograph wild horses would be amazing.                                Thank  goodness for trail maps because there is so much wide open spaces with trails going everywhere we could have gotten lost without the maps.

A sink FULL of dirty dishes

Three or four times over my sink has been full if dirty canning pots, bowls  and utensils . I am getting a little batty here. Its 1:15 a.m. and I just pulled out of my canner my jars of apple sauce. It the past two days I've canned raspberry chocolate sauce, fruit salsa, fiesta salsa, grape jelly, pepper jelly, peach pie filling and apple sauce. I may take tomorrow off from canning and concentrate on dehydrating herbs. Although, everytime I walk by the pumpkins I just harvested... its like they are calling my name.... I told you I was getting batty. Im hoping the roosters go easy on me in the morning and let me sleep in. 

Its canning time.

Boxes of fruit,  vegetables galore from our garden pickings and no freezer space. Guess who's canning.

What a bountiful gift.

This is the first time in my life that I have ever gone to a event and was given such abundance for free. So, as any food saver,canner would do... I got to canning Jam. Tonite I made two batches of concord Grape Jelly and one batch (not pictured) of peach jam. Tomorrow will be cobbler making  for a BBQ that we are going to,  then I'll dehydrate some, can some.. and eat the rest fresh. Feeling Blessed.

University of Idaho Pomology Field Day

As a Master Gardener, I was invited to volunteer at our booth at the Pomology field Day today. It was spectacular.        Dr. Essie Fallahi and his team gave talks about growing fruits and irrigation as well as pest managment and disease control. There were tables and tables and tables of baskets full of many varieties of peaches, apples, plums,  nectarines,grapes, pears,as well as walnuts and almonds. After the presentations were over with there were tours of the growing fields. And in all Idaho generosity, the fruits were given away. People were liading cases after cases . The team handed out large garbadge bags ... with my having a heads up that fruits would be given away, I brought my own bags. I loaded up on enough concord grapes to make two batches of grape jelly, and a ton of peaches for preserves, jams and cobbler. Not to mention enough to nibble on while fresh. I was also lucky enough to grab sone juicy nectarines. By the time I got to the appkes, they were gone.... but then I was tokd the appkes were in cold storage fir a year... this seadons apples haven't been picked just yet. So itceas a beautiful day up on a idaho hilltop, with people thst love fresh fruit. Yummy...