CHALLENGES OF THE SELF RELIANT

While we are down to one car and that car being a sedan, there are times when I need a little more room. My first challenge of the day was to try and fit 4 bales of lucerne hay and 2 kids into the car without hay getting spread everywhere. It was a tight fit but I did it and after a little bit of car cleaning the hay is happily under a tarp ready to be used as mulch.

Something I've been struggling with is freezer space especially now that I have given up the bottom shelf to Darren to keep his bait and ice for fishing in (he re-uses 2 litre milk containers by filling them with water to freeze.) He was using a small old fridge up in the shed and his Waeco to freeze the ice and bait. Do you know how much power that wastes!!!! So the fridge and Waeco are now turned off and we are down to one appliance. One of the main reasons for buying my canner last month was to reduce the amount of food I have to put in the freezer like my chicken stock I make. I was gifted about 6 dozen fowlers jars by a lovely lady and a lot of them are the smaller size 20 jars. They are perfect for stocks and soups as they hold about 3 cups. I used my pressure canner for the first time today to preserve my stock. So quick and easy and now they will go into the pantry. The colour is really intense, when I freeze stock the colour is nearly clear yet by pressure canning this is the colour of the stock.

Does anyone else have a pressure canner? Have you noticed a change in colour? What about flavour? I would love to hear from those who have.

Out in the patch, my tomatoes, basil and capsicums are happily growing in the hot-house.

We are picking beetroot this week and the onions and leeks are going strong.

I will leave you with a photo of Heidi. Awwww look how she likes to rest her head on her paws on her favourite toy.