Homesteaders

[JulesChicks]

Will someone please tell me your process for canning pumpkins safely? The master-canner lady I spoke to at our local university extension said you can't do it. The only thing that survived this first year in our unfenced garden were the little pumpkins and I would much rather can than take up freezer space. Thanks so much!

@lazy gardener Wonderful advice you posted! I still need to get comfortable using power tools. Waiting around for my busy husband to help is going to get me there though - it's driving me crazy and we have a coop to winterize!

@Beekissed if you ever make a video of you processing your chickens and canning them, I for one, would want to see it! I'm amazed at all you accomplish. My husband and I processed our first 2 cockerels about a month ago and it did not go well. We used a cone and he did the killing and plucked one, I did everything else (and it took forever). The cones were medium sized and I think too small for our boys - one actually backed out after being cut, and the first one he didn't cut enough the first time and it was bleeding too slow. It was horrible. My husband wanted to use the axe and I had said the cone was more humane and would let it bleed out better. Sigh. It was just not a good experience. I sooo wish we had had someone experienced like you there our first time. Now he really doesn't want to do it again and is convinced that eating cockerels they will taste bad. He literally wants to give away these birds that we have fed fermented organic food for roughly 6 months!

 

[Beekissed]

Will someone please tell me your process for canning pumpkins safely? The master-canner lady I spoke to at our local university extension said you can't do it. The only thing that survived this first year in our unfenced garden were the little pumpkins and I would much rather can than take up freezer space. Thanks so much!

@lazy gardener Wonderful advice you posted! I still need to get comfortable using power tools. Waiting around for my busy husband to help is going to get me there though - it's driving me crazy and we have a coop to winterize!

@Beekissed if you ever make a video of you processing your chickens and canning them, I for one, would want to see it! I'm amazed at all you accomplish. My husband and I processed our first 2 cockerels about a month ago and it did not go well. We used a cone and he did the killing and plucked one, I did everything else (and it took forever). The cones were medium sized and I think too small for our boys - one actually backed out after being cut, and the first one he didn't cut enough the first time and it was bleeding too slow. It was horrible. My husband wanted to use the axe and I had said the cone was more humane and would let it bleed out better. Sigh. It was just not a good experience. I sooo wish we had had someone experienced like you there our first time. Now he really doesn't want to do it again and is convinced that eating cockerels they will taste bad. He literally wants to give away these birds that we have fed fermented organic food for roughly 6 months!

Don't let him do that!!!!

Any chicken canned into a jar comes out a tender, flavorful delight...especially 6 mo. old cockerels, which is just the age I usually process mine. The first time you butcher chickens can be a huge fiasco and sometimes the 1000th time you butcher a chicken it can turn out a fiasco...it doesn't always go as planned and as a well oiled machine, so don't kick yourself about it. Don't give up!!!

The biggest mistake folks make when killing their own and eating them for the first time is comparing them to store bought chicken meat, which is basically baby chicks that are huge(only 8 wks old and raised entirely on grain feeds)...no texture, very little flavor that hasn't been injected into the meat, and so they are tender and mild compared to a real chicken. Real chicken is chewy, tastes like the actual animal especially if a retired hen or rooster....tastes entirely different than the store bought chick bird. When canned to tenderize, there truly is little comparison between commercially grown chicken and the real, home raised birds...and I prefer the latter.

I wish I could do such a video too, but I go much too slowly to do it with my camera, which only films up to 15 min. at a time and takes hours to download to my PC, then more hours to get up to YT. These folks here are much faster...they do things a tad different than I in parts, but mostly the same and gets the job done...they don't use a cone but pretty much turns out the same and they pluck theirs where I usually will skin a DP bird, which is faster and less involved than heating water and such. But, you get the drift...it's getting chickens dead in an efficient, no fuss manner and these folks do that well.

Part Deux.....the things she is doing here I usually reserve for when I get the birds into the house, do a final cleaning/picking of the carcass for bits of feathers and scruff while under running cool water, then chill in the fridge a bit...then I start to either debone or part up the carcass after the meat has stiffened up a tad from the chilling it got, which makes it easier to get off the bone. I don't remove the kidneys like she does, as I love that part.

Another great tutorial can be found right here on BYC for folks who want to pluck and such: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-process-a-chicken-at-home

No worries about messing up...we all do it and it still happens no matter how many chickens one kills. The 2 gal. bleach jugs work best for chickens of all sizes...the one gallon are just too shallow to hold a bigger bird. Even a vinegar jug would work better than those one gallon bleach jugs.

 

[Molpet]

Will someone please tell me your process for canning pumpkins safely? The master-canner lady I spoke to at our local university extension said you can't do it. The only thing that survived this first year in our unfenced garden were the little pumpkins and I would much rather can than take up freezer space. Thanks so much!

@lazy gardener Wonderful advice you posted! I still need to get comfortable using power tools. Waiting around for my busy husband to help is going to get me there though - it's driving me crazy and we have a coop to winterize!

@Beekissed if you ever make a video of you processing your chickens and canning them, I for one, would want to see it! I'm amazed at all you accomplish. My husband and I processed our first 2 cockerels about a month ago and it did not go well. We used a cone and he did the killing and plucked one, I did everything else (and it took forever). The cones were medium sized and I think too small for our boys - one actually backed out after being cut, and the first one he didn't cut enough the first time and it was bleeding too slow. It was horrible. My husband wanted to use the axe and I had said the cone was more humane and would let it bleed out better. Sigh. It was just not a good experience. I sooo wish we had had someone experienced like you there our first time. Now he really doesn't want to do it again and is convinced that eating cockerels they will taste bad. He literally wants to give away these birds that we have fed fermented organic food for roughly 6 months!

they say not to can puree .. they say you can can chunks
To can pumpkin or squash, Cut the flesh into one-inch cubes. Boil the cubes in water for two minutes. Fill the jars with cubes and cooking liquid, leaving one-inch of headspace. Pumpkin and squash are low-acid vegetables and must be pressure canned.
Pints 55 min 10 lb
http://nchfp.uga.edu/tips/fall/pumpkins.html

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
Master canner lady has to say that to keep her job or position as teacher of a master canning class but she's wrong. You can safely can pumpkin just fine and there are many people doing that very thing. Most will can them in chunks so they can be pureed for recipes later on.

Here's a group on FB you may like if you do FB...it's called "no canning police" and I love it for that....can't STAND the canning police folks, especially those who claim they took a "master class" at the extension office, like that's the be all end all in canning knowledge...I know folks who have canned for 60 yrs who don't claim to be a master at it, but have a newbie take one little class and all the sudden they turn into the canning police.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1657095577911241/

 

[Chicken girl 15]

The only part of Homesteading or farming I have mastered is the "well crap, what did I just do" look. I have a few seasons of experience in processing both birds and vegetables, however with everything I read every day I will never be anything more than a beginner. I won't pay to take a class taught by some 25 year old who had only been living the life for 2 years. However!!! I could spend years with people like @Beekissed and never get bored. Not because she knows all and is perfect but because she teaches as she learns as she advances. Hope I didn't confuse anyone. My point? Ask experience for answers don't ask books (or the arrogant @$$ who memorized them).

 

[Beekissed]

The only part of Homesteading or farming I have mastered is the "well crap, what did I just do" look. I have a few seasons of experience in processing both birds and vegetables, however with everything I read every day I will never be anything more than a beginner. I won't pay to take a class taught by some 25 year old who had only been living the life for 2 years. However!!! I could spend years with people like @Beekissed and never get bored. Not because she knows all and is perfect but because she teaches as she learns as she advances. Hope I didn't confuse anyone. My point? Ask experience for answers don't ask books (or the arrogant @$$ who memorized them).

That's the same thing I've mastered!!!!

I've only learned one solid thing all these years...and that's the fact that I don't know everything and every single day is an opportunity to learn more. If one goes into it accepting the fact they can't ever learn it all, they most likely won't reach that point where they feel like they have.

I'm with you....anyone quoting from books all the time, especially books from folks who claim to be an expert, aren't the kind of folks I'll listen to either....I want to learn from people who are out there actually doing things, not just reading and expostulating about them.

One thing I like to do is to tell folks about the mistakes I've made...I learn a lot from them and I figure others will too. But...on the flip side, I also don't like to learn from folks who make the SAME mistakes over and over...this tells me they aren't learning and are stuck in a holding pattern of repeating the same thing over and over, each time expecting different results~the definition of madness.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

I can give 4 demonstrations of how not to process a chicken because that's how many poor birds suffered horrible deaths before my 9 year old helped and it went smooth. The difference in what she did to what I did was all mental. She was not nervous and I was. Neither of us have ever processed a bird by the books though, its more of a "fit by the seat" sort of ordeal. Maybe in spring I will get a video of her and a chicken. Its beautiful to watch. She looks like she was ment for a farm.

 

[Beekissed]

It sounds like it!!!! She sounds like me! I was 10 the first time I killed a chicken and I wasn't nervous either....that's the bliss of not knowing all the things that could go wrong.

 

[Beer can]

@JulesChicks I had some 'walking' out of the cone first time I tried using one. Forgot to tape the legs. Little electrical tape on the legs works wonders. Used to chop heads off with hatchet then using tree loupers. I find it easier on me now actually to just use a razor sharp filet knife and slice the jugulars and walk away for a few minutes.
Wish I had pics of it but now I use a 55gal plastic barrel double garbage bagged. Cone sheet rock screwed to the top of the inside. BBQ grill with side burner next to it with scalding water going. Soak the bird down first with garden hose helps clean them up/keeps scalding water cleaner, helps being they're already soaked the scalding water is a quicker dip. Have a cutting board from cutting out a double sink from a counter top, fits perfect on the barrel to pluck and gut and everything goes in barrel. When done take the bags out and hose barrel and cone off for next time.
The more you do and the easier you make it the quicker you get.
I did a dozen this last time and think it was easier and quicker than my first couple.
I pluck the younger birds we roast or grill and skin the older or tougher one's I know I'm just going to pressure cook anyway.

 

[Beer can]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1657095577911241/ 

Hmmm, closed group...
What's the story on pressure canning eggs? I've heard no, you can't safely do it...
But fish and meat can be canned...
Is no eggs more 'canning police' speak?
Don't know how they'd hold up though. Ever tried it?