Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Molpet]

Here lots of glass is recycled but only standardised glass beer bottles are reused after cleaning. All the jars, wine bottles and other bottles are collected in glass containers in 3 colors. White, green and brown. Every supermarket has one on the parking lot and there are more in small recycle stations spread over town.

The recycle factory checks the glass, takes out the wrong glass melts it and makes new bottles/jars.

When I was a kid, everything was in glass instead of plastic and we took it back to the grocery store. Then we could take glass to the local township recycling center and drop it off. Then they said it was too expensive and quit .

 

[Shadrach]

Is that Tull on your lap?

No, it's Sylph and it's Sylph at the far end of the roost bar.

 

[Shadrach]

@Shadrach @Perris (and anyone else, for that matter) - do you ever can what you grow? “Can” meaning preserve in glass jars via heat or pressure canners, a linguistic contradiction that hurts my poor Asperger-y brain.

If you have access to full-flavor ripe non-gassed tomatoes, especially paste-type tomatoes like Romas and San Marzanos, you can cook up a few gallons of your own perfect sauce. There are some canned (tinned) tomatoes and sauces that I mostly like, but there always seems to be the slightest metallic taste. I’m guessing that the acid in the tomatoes reacts with the metal can, something that doesn’t happen with glass jars.

We started doing this during Covid and still do, although we mostly can (glass jars, grrr) tomato salsa, pickles, and chow chow, which I guess is sort of a Southern US veg chutney. It’s classically made with unripened tomatoes and other vegetables that need to be picked when the first fall frost hits.

I have in the past. I don't grow enough to make it worth the effort now. Course, buy me a proper canning machine and somewhere to put it and I would can not just for myself but for others as well. There was a small canning busines in Catalonia whose charges for canning produce was reasonable if one was canning a few tins and once past 50 tins it was pretty cheap.
Just to be clear, I'm talking about canning in sealed tin cans, not preserving in glass jars.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't know anyone in the UK who cans in the American style. More trad preservation methods seem to be the norm here, for the few who have the kitchen or other space for lots of jars.

Yes I make these, though using vinegar, salt and sugar as preservatives.


Lining tins with plastic coatings is supposed to stop any chemical reaction with the food therein, but that might turn out to be just another source of contamination of our food https://ift.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12976
I think it would be better from that perspective if the food industry used glass jars like home cooks. They are endlessly recyclable.

Tax for off topic chatter: matriarch coming to say hello, causing broody to inflate, with chicks in the hedge bottom (as viewed from the bank where I was snapping off bracken shoots ) with roo watching from the edge of the shade in the distance (another example of how the open grass is empty and all the chickens are round the edges, which is how it is for most of the day) View attachment 4105953

Is the rooster watching the dad?

 

[Shadrach]

Tax
The prize:
View attachment 4106236View attachment 4106237

Levitating chickens:
View attachment 4106234View attachment 4106235
View attachment 4106230View attachment 4106231View attachment 4106232

For bantams they get impressive air in pursuit of a tiny gooseberry

Great pictures yet again.

 

[Shadrach]

gorgeous chickens and fab photos!
I assume you are not fond of gooseberries...? or at least, prepared to sacrifice your pleasure for your flock's

That reminds me to protect at least one of my goosberry plants this year. Last year the pigeons stripped just not quite ripe fruit from every bush within a day!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I have in the past. I don't grow enough to make it worth the effort now. Course, buy me a proper canning machine and somewhere to put it and I would can not just for myself but for others as well. There was a small canning busines in Catalonia whose charges for canning produce was reasonable if one was canning a few tins and once past 50 tins it was pretty cheap.
Just to be clear, I'm talking about canning in sealed tin cans, not preserving in glass jars.

Oh, that’s interesting! I didn’t realize that there was even technology available to consumers to use actual cans! I suppose that’s how the US (maybe Canada?) wound up calling it canning instead of “glassing“!

I do really like using the glass jars. I replace the rings and lids, but the glass jars are reusable almost forever.

 

[Shadrach]

They look so pretty jumping for berries! Getting to look at everyone's chicken pictures is a great birthday present

Happy birthday. Do you party?

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Memo to self: do not offer frozen wild blueberries as a treat when yard ranging; otherwise, they won’t actually yard range :

 

[Shadrach]

would you make an exception for gooseberry fool?

I discovered quite late in life that there are things called red gooseberries and I like them; still not fond of green, unless it's in a crumble, or something with plenty to distract from the sharpness. But I would sacrifice for chickens as keen on them as yours obviously are!

Good grief! Not keen on gooseberries.I love gooseberries. There are red and green growing at the field.
Gooseberry fool is nice as are gooseberry sticky inside meringuies with gooseberry filling and filo pastry gooseberry pie.