EST vs. DST

Our planet, the Earth, spins at a particular speed of about 66,660 miles per hour. (We're all doing zoomies, we just don't know it!) It takes the Earth approximately 24 hours to complete a rotation. The hours of daylight versus darkness depend upon the angle of the Earth's axis as it rotates. The number of hours of daylight we have every day is not dependent upon a manmade clock. 

We've "turned back the clocks" again this morning. Yeah, so I'm up and blogging a 5:41 a.m. and I know it's really 6:41 a.m. 

My DOG knows it's really 6:41 a.m., too. He knows when it's time to get up to go outside to do his morning activities. My dog is smarter than the average human. 

I'd prefer we stay on Daylight Saving Time all year, although now that I'm retired it hardly matters. When it's daylight and the outside temperature is conducive to whatever chores need to be done, I go do them. It was different and more difficult when I had to drive to a job five days a week.

I remember my grandfather saying he'd do *whatever* when it was time to do it. After he retired only two times on the clock mattered - what time did the Orioles baseball game come on, and was it time to go bowling? I thought he was crazy back in the day, but I understand it now. 

You can't harvest in the garden until the sun has dried the dew off the plants. You don't mow wet grass, either. You work in the woodyard in the daylight. You feed chickens in the daylight. You go fishing when the bugs are flying. On the homestead, you don't live by the clock but by the sun and moon. 

The clock on my computer now reads 6:02 a.m. It's still dark. That's okay. I can do my computer work before daylight. The time doesn't really matter. And there is time to enjoy a cup of coffee before daylight. 

Deuce has been outside, but when it's daylight we'll go for a stroll and I can keep an eye on him. A black dog disappears at night. The time on the clock won't matter. Later in the morning I'll go out to the woodyard and split another tractor bucket full of wood. The time on the clock won't matter, but the temperature will. 

Changing the time on the clock is a way to manipulate people and control when and how we do things. Is it really necessary? No one breezes through the bi-annual time changes. Everyone gets surly even if they manage not to show it.   

Changing time was likely a good and necessary wartime maneuver back in 1916, but one hundred and seven years later, it feels like government interference. Our modern lives don't need it. Farmers and country folk have never needed it. City dwellers depending on the grid don't actually need it either since their lives are spent more indoors than outdoors. 

Yes, everyone is adjusted to the "new time" within about a week, but I wonder how much longer humans will be able to adjust. On the whole, we're no longer a well-adjusted bunch. Something is sure as hell going on with humans and messing with our sleep patterns doesn't help. 

I have questions and concerns as to whether this time change nonsense is still a good option.

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, Daylight Saving Time, time management, government interference, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, black Labrador Retriever

The Mad Canner: Apple Pie Filling and Curried Apple Chutney

It's apple season! 

Forget those western Red Delicious apples you get at the supermarket. You know the ones - mealy and mushy and no crunch. Give me local apples from a fifth-generation orchard! Fresh, crisp, crunchy and delicious! It's worth the thirty minute drive to get there. 

This was the year I needed to make apple pie filling and curried apple chutney. There is enough applesauce, apple jelly, and apple butter in the pantry to see us through to next season, so I could concentrate on what we were out of. 

One half bushel of Cinnamon Crisp apples produced thirteen quart jars of apple pie filling and twelve half-pint jars of chutney. The peels and cores made the local deer pretty happy, too. 

Working with apples is labor-intensive. Apples need to be peeled and cored, sliced and diced, and blanched and/or cooked before being water-bath canned. I much prefer pressure canning because I believe it produces a more reliable, long-term seal, but it is what it is. I like to hear that instant "pop" of the seal setting when I lift a jar from the Presto canner, and it takes a bit longer when water-bath canning. All of the jars pictured did seal.

To make the job of peeling easier, I have a spiralizer attachment for the KitchenAid mixer. I can't say it does a perfect job, but man does it cut down on the time. A simple manual chopper diced up the peeled apples for the chutney. 

Both recipes are in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which is pretty much the canning bible. The National Center for Home Food Preservation uses pretty much the same recipes. 

I won't need to make the chutney again for probably three years. Yes, if the seals are intact, the product can last more than the eighteen months Ball states. You need to be more diligent in listening for the seal break when opening,  and remember - when in doubt, throw it out. Never consume anything you're not one hundred percent sure about. Unlike me, Himself isn't a lover of the chutney so it doesn't get served frequently so it's in the pantry for a longer time. Now that I'm retired, the apple pie filling may or may not be enough for an entire year. We'll see. 

I've been reading more apple recipes in the Ball book. Apple season isn't over here, and the Cinnamon Crisp apples have become my new favorite. Yum! Himself has requested apple dumplings (a freezer item) and I think I'd like to make some apple jam for on pancakes. We need to be out and about later this afternoon, so maybe we can take a bit of an extra drive for another peck of apples. Probably for sure. 

Canning may seem like an old-fashioned activity, but it's really food science. And it's time management. An afternoon spent canning apples netted twelve side dishes for twelve dinners, and made baking pies quick and easy. And you know what? When I walk into my pantry, all the pretty jars put a smile on my face. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, apples, home food preservation, canning food, pantry preparedness, time management, rural living, country lifestyle orchards, Ball book, Presto canners, pressure canning, water bath canning, chutney, a writer's life

Throw those plans out

My plan for today didn't include rain, so of course it's raining. It's not that I don't have myriad things I can do, because I do. They just weren't what I wanted to do.  

Gardening season is effectively over. I sliced the last of the green Bell peppers and put them in the freezer yesterday. The butternut squash is harvested and resting on the counter on the patio. The only things left to do is to freeze-dry the basil and collect a few seeds for next year. 

With the garden over, it is now firewood season, and I wanted to start on that today. I have a rank of poplar that needs to be brought over to the house to begin with this year. Poplar burns fast and is sort of a pain in the ass when it's really cold, but it's great for smaller burns to warm up the house to take the chill off. I'll burn maple, oak, and cherry when it's really cold outside. 

There are a few of the large maple rounds from last year that still need to be split, and a pile of oak and cherry from last year to finish and stack. The log splitter is not sitting where I want it, but it's out of the way of the tree trimmer for when he shows up to take down the leaning maple. It's all about prioritizing the work so it can be done in an order that doesn't make more work for yourself. 

But it will have to wait for another day. I tell myself that on a rainy day, I need to relax. Maybe I should bake cookies or work on a book. Sumner's Garden is the current work-in-progress. I know how it ends so I should get there and finish everything up so I can publish it. No, I don't lack for things to fill my day even if I didn't plan to do them today. 

The Lady of The Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, rainy day, firewood, rural living, country lifestyle, time management, homestead living, end of season, gardening, a writer's life

Rainy days and prep cooking

Rainy days are good days to do some cooking and stock the freezer. It's definitely helpful to have meals made ahead for those days when I've been working outside and I'm tired. Who wants to cook if you've just spent three hours on a lawnmower? Or a couple of hours on the John Deere 1023 using the snowblower? Not me, that's for sure.

I used to hate leftovers. I guess that was a holdover from my formative years when my mother and grandmother shoved even the smallest amount of leftover food into the fridge and God alone only knew how long it would be in there until they pulled it out and ultimately had to throw it in the garbage. I learned to FEAR the leftover.

Things are different now. Managing the manor means managing food resources the same as managing how we spend our time. Sound a bit hokey? It's really not. Wise use of food is wise use of money. That's what all those science projects my grandmother and mother created were about - saving money. It didn't work for them because they didn't take the time to THINK about meal planning. They just cooked. That's all they had time for. They didn't have the tools we have today.

Homemade ricotta

My life is a little different. I have a computer and the Internet. Those two things are as big game changers as Gutenberg's printing press. I don't have to reinvent the meal planning wheel. I can pick and choose from hundreds of plans developed by others. Saves money and saves time.

So taking a rainy and cooking a few freezer meals is a no-brainer for me. One of my favorite things to fix is lasagna. I generally have everything on hand on except ricotta cheese, so I make my own. Instructions on how I make it are found here.  A gallon of whole milk makes enough ricotta for one 13x9 pan of lasagna. 

I don't just cook meals on my cooking-binge days. I brown burger, bake cookies, make French toast casserole, make homemade crackers - anything I have ingredients for. A couple of hours spent prepping makes life a lot easier when I come home from work so it's well worth doing. 

Of all the things we have in life, time is the most precious. I do my best to use mine wisely. How I spend my time UN-wisely is for another blog. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor