What perfect weather for canning! It has been COOL! Very cool! I never mind the heat, but this is a gift, since the kitchen is the warmest room of the house.
Today is a day I need to clean out both our refrigerator and the freezer in our garage. I will be eager to see what having that freezer plugged in again will do to our electric bill. The freezer is probably 30 years old by now. Mike and I purchased it used when we still lived in Grand Rapids. That was probably in 1994 or so. Possibly 1995… but I think we got it before. We were heavily into canning then, and we were enjoying stocking up on stuffs, especially meats, probably. Mike is a nester, really. So that freezer was probably ten years old when we purchased it and now it is 2012… So… it is pretty old.
Interestingly, when I began my crusade to find out exactly WHY our electric bill is so high every month, I emptied out that old freezer that EVERYONE was telling me was the culprit. The very next month my electric bill was $ 10.00 or $20.00 more! I left the freezer unplugged that summer, which was last summer and have not plugged it in since.
So it will be interesting to see what the bill looks like once I plug this thing back in.
Anyway, our garden has been so abundant this year, I have lots to put in that old freezer again. I am so excited! I have corn from the garden to freeze, excess green beans. Maybe I could even freeze some cucumbers (?). Not sure will have to look into that. Maybe I will try to freeze up some zucchini again, but I don’t like how sloppy it gets. I always end up thawing it out and being turned off from having to throw out all that liquid… There must be a better way. I MUST freeze lots of tomatoes… Once I am done putting them up. The blueberries are ready for the freezer as well, and I don’t have enough room right now in the other fridge/freezer downstairs.
It is FUN getting stocked up and eating from the garden. We have had virtually no grocery bill (very small ones, anyway) for the last month because we just pull stuff out of the garden and eat from that. LOVE LOVE LOVE this time of the year!
What more could a person ask for?
pulpfictionfan 