The Wigglebutt Blog

Today was a Salsa kinda day Which meant prepping: 12#  tomatoes 6# peppers 3# onions and various other ingredients. After several hours I had 21 pints of salsa☺ Yay! Luckily my buddies came by to help  do some fall clean up in the raised beds  Need to try and finish what they started tomorrow if the weather cooperates☺  

Yes... I have been creating. Just not jewelry or beads or sculptures. Canned goods. Lots of canned goods.☺ 8 pints pizza sauce and 6 qts spaghetti sauce   YUM! Mostly tomato based canned goods cuz, well... this was a good tomato year☺ And a good jalapeno year, but I was too busy to get pics;( For the last two weeks I have had a heater going in the greenhouse at night to keep it warm enough for my babies to ripen up. Due to a late season attack of aphids and temps dipping into the low 30s at night, I decided it was time to harvest all of the tomatoes, red and green. I spent most of the day Saturday clearing out the greenhouse. About halfway done I picked all of the tomatoes and cleared out all of the plants. I will be very busy over the next few days ( weeks? ) Half of these became the pizza sauce in the pic up top, the other half is going to become another batch of spaghetti sauce So far I have made 22 pints of green tomato...

I HAVE been doing more than just blog hopping over the last week or so;~) I have made another batch of salsa. (My third since my canning addiction began) This one - I tweeked a few different recipes and came up with one I can actually call my own ~ and I like it☺ I have made (started) some cute (at least I think so) Owl beads  seen here amongst the paper beads still needing sealer☺  As soon as I started making these, I started obsessing about making them two sided, so there was a face on both sides, in case they should spin around. Well, I'm forming each of these by hand, so when I go to try and make a face on the backside, I smoosh everything on the front side,  Sheesh! I guess I could make a mold? Holy Cow! Just Shoot Me! Why do I obsess about everything? After about half a kit (which is actually ALOT) of  Amazing Mold Putty (which I love!!!) later, I realized using the mold made them look ... well.. .molded. And I totally prefer the more rustic look of the handm...

For your viewing pleasure~ ~ ~ ~ A super duper random post☺ Did I mention I got a rock tumbler this past Christmas? (Thanks Honey!) I. LOVE. MY. ROCK. TUMBLER. The colors are even more awesome in person. I'm thinking wire wrapping;~) An update on the liqueur ..... It's awesome!!! But only after I ~re-fruited~ with frozen fruit. I totally recommend using the frozen fruit! It has a much stronger fruit flavor. YUM! I did take the time to play with some copper wire. Since finishing up with the 'jam-fest' I have also canned two batches of salsa, 16 jars of "dilly beans" (pickled green beans☺) 20 jars of hot, pickled cauliflower (LOVE that stuff!) and so far, 6 jars of  "Mom's" pickled beets. (I am completely addicted to this canning thing) Oh, And the alien has hatched;~)  The Alien   Alien Hatchlings They are calling for rain this weekend and  I actually hope they are right this once. I really miss my clay and a rainy weekend wo...

I am 47 years old and have never 'successfully' canned anything in my life. Until now. In the last month I have canned over 100 jars of jam. I made Blackberry Jam, Strawberry Rhubarb (good strawberry flavor, a little sweet) ~~then after altering the recipe for my taste~~ Rhubarb Strawberry (more rhubarb than strawberry and not too sweet) Outside of strawberry rhubarb pie, I never really had any use for rhubarb until I found this recipe for rhubarb butter . (You may have guessed that I have an excess of rhubarb. When we bought the house, it came with rhubarb;~) Anyway until now I always considered rhubarb to be pretty much sour celery, but the rhubarb butter is AWESOME. I've made two batches...so far. (FYI:   If you try it, it calls for 4# of rhubarb, the research I did says that  1 pound equals approx. 3 cups, she says you'll end up with about 15 -16 cups. I settled on 14 cups and called it good.) Then after getting a case of apricots from these very sweet people ...