smitty55

So I just looked that up on Google Maps. How close to the Rockies are you? Looks like you're only 55km away.

That was really well done, kudos.

That does sound good Dougie. Unfortunately I had a brain cramp and forgot that I sold my pressure canner 6 or 7 years back as I was never using it. I do have a pressure cooker that I do use but it only has a weight and I don't know for sure what pressure it functions at, I assume it's at 10psi but without knowing for sure it's hard to know what cooking time I should use. Besides it's not very big and doesn't have anything I could rest jars on at the right height. Oh well.

Hmmm, I never considered canning smoked fish, it's pretty well cooked when it comes out of the smoker and pressure canning would cook them even more. I guess it would have to spend less time in the smoker. I do have a pressure canner but I think I'll stick to freezing and vacuum sealing my excess for now.

I used to do a lot more trout fishing and back in the day you used to be able to buy frozen whole Lake Trout, Pink Salmon and Whitefish in any grocery store so I used to do a lot of smoking fish. The best of the bunch though was the 13 years I worked at First Air where I could get fresh caught and frozen Char shipped for free from up north for crazy good prices, at the beginning I think it was like $3lb. In the winter they still had the guts in them as they froze so fast out on the ice after being caught or netted. Best smoked fish I've ever had by far. I would also cut nice thick steaks off the frozen fish and put them on the grill, they were so good. That Sockeye would be real good too if it was available, otherwise I did find some in BC but with shipping it was quite pricey. In the meantime I still really liked what I did up last week, no complaints at all even though it was farmed.

It's that time again to give my Big Chief smoker a good work out. A couple of weeks back both Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead trout were on sale at half price for $10/lb and it's been a too long time since I did fish so I couldn't resist, best birthday gift I could give myself. Around 7-8 lbs. Put them in the freezer as frozen fish smokes better and took them out a couple days back. Made a gallon of brine yesterday and they spent the night in the spare fridge in two pots. Took them out at noon, patted them dry and the 29 pieces completely filled the five racks. After running a fan on them for an hour they developed a nice shiny, sticky pellicle and then it's that time to go outside for a 6 hour smoke I figure, maybe a bit less for the thinner pieces. Wood chips of choice is Cherry. This is where the fixed 160 degree temp comes in perfect for smoking fish at low temps over a longer period. The last couple of hours I will be brushing them with maple syrup for an extra sweet treat. This is going to be oh so good. EDIT: I was way off on my time guess. Between a windy cool day and water in my drip tray which I don't normally do at six hours the fish was still mushy so I did the syrup brush, removed the drip tray and it took eleven hours total before the fish was nice and firm but still plenty moist. It was worth the wait, I had family over the next day and a everyone was raving about how good it was. Now the hardest part is having enough control to not pig out on it too much and freeze some for later. Cheers

Hopefully it was just time related stress that blew the fuse. The other question could be what high current draw caused the fuse to blow? I'd suggest doing a real good clean up inside the back of the dryer and a good washing of the filter screen, specially if you use dryer sheets that leave an invisible film on the screen that blocks airflow and causes over heating.

First thing to check is the thermostat on the wall, see if you can hear it click when you turn the temp up.

The latest In-Fisherman has a good article on Last Chance Muskie. One section is on casting to structure to target spawning Cisco and Whitefish. The next section is on the Art of Trolling where again they mention lures that mimic Cisco, Whitefish and Suckers. Next section is on Jigging up Fall Monsters and the last section is on Dragging Meat where they slowly move along ith a bow mount with large 15-22" suckers using quick strike rigs under large foam floats that release on the hook set. As usual the have their recommendations for lures and rod/reel combos with all rods in the 9-10ft lengths.

A lot of your pics the critters are staring right at the camera, I figure they can hear the shutter.

Lucky kids. I made up two 1 gallon batches of brine last evening that spent the night in the fridge. 1 cup of coarse salt, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 tsp #1 cure, black and red peppercorns, bay leaves and rosemary from my own plants, cumin, dried thyme, one garlic bulb and 3 tbs of pickling spice in each batch. Bring to boil and then cool overnight. Today I spent too long having to trim and cut up two large pork loins as I cursed the meat cutters who did them up. Couldn't turn them down though at $1.99lb. All loaded into 4 large ziplocks and in the fridge for4-5 days before rinsing and drying overnight and then into the Big Chief smoker till 130° or so, likely around 5 hours. I'll be set up with back bacon for the year I figure. Taking a break now and then I'll be into cutting up tomatoes and putting them through the hand crank press, it works real good, no skin or seeds in the sauce. Not sure if I posted a pic of it here before.

Yea I still have quite a few jars still left from a couple of years back. Had two different people tell me it was the best salsa they'd ever had. I told them it wasn't so much the recipe as it was the tomatoes. My own fresh garlic helps too.

Yea I'm still getting lot's of huge tomatoes this season but for some reason I'm getting some with black spots that definitely aren't blossom end rot, not sure why. The stem ends aren't as clean as normal either. I'm wondering if its because my watering schedule isn't as consistent as it should be or possibly an excess of nitrogen ferts from the chicken manure and alfalfa tea I was using. I thought I would have a water supply where I have them planted this year but that didn't work out due to plumbing issues in the farm house basement so I've been trucking water over to water 24 plants. Truck is down atm too with a blown power steering line so I'm using the car now. These ones are from my latest pick, the front 3 are over 2lbs and all the rest well over a pound. Time to start making tomato sauce.

It certainly pays to shop smart and pay attention to your receipts and the cash while they're scanning. I just came across this receipt from a couple weeks back while cleaning out my plastic grocery bags before putting them back in the car. I have bins full of them as I never used to throw them out. So this was from Freshco, I bought 18 items and every single one was on sale. Total sale was $63.69, total savings was $50.52 and I also earned $8.50 in points. Bottom line is that I saved just over 51% on the regular price of 114.21. I always stock up on items I regularly use when they go on sale.

You must be a Snoopy fan lol.

For a vehicle there is a certain procedure to follow to check for parasitic drain and the same practice should work for your boat. Make sure everything in the boat is hooked up but turned off. Disconnect your main negative battery connection and put multimeter leads set on mA between the battery and the cable. For a vehicle normally what would be normal current draw is in the area of 25 milliamps (.025A) Again, in a vehicle if the draw is much higher than that then what you do is start pulling fuses one by one until hopefully the current draw drops down to normal when you pull a specific one which will isolate the faulty circuit. In your case on a boat I would think that current draw should basically be zero or very close to it and if not it will be much simpler as there are much fewer circuits for you to isolate, so if you read 100mA for example disconnect your different units one at a time until the current draw drops back to zero or close to it and that will tell you which circuit is causing the problem, whether its bad wiring or an internal issue with one unit or even a switch for that matter. Good luck.

Much of it is the variety but I do make sure to pinch every sucker (indeterminate) so that the only flower clusters are ones that grow off the main stem. Plus I plant them around 18" deep so that stem develops a lot more roots to help feed those large tomatoes. If I were to let suckers grow it would suck up energy to produce tomatoes and they would just break off from the weight anyway. I also provide as good a growing condition as possible with plenty of nutrients and organic matter, never any chemical ferts. I don't really do any flower pruning so I'll get 4-5 clusters per plant depending on when we get first frost. I've had them up to 10 ft tall some seasons.

Those are huge for sure. When that happens it's usually a result of fused blossoms where a genetic glitch results in two ovaries in one blossom. That's a huge amount of canning, I generally do a couple dozen at most each year of sauce seeing as I'm on my own now.

I've never seen them for sale anywhere Terry. I was given ripe tomatoes from Greek immigrants back in the 80s that were part of the night cleaning staff where I worked and have been saving seeds ever since. I can't even find a variety name for them online, when I asked John Damianakos what kind they were all he said was Greek. After all these years of keeping them to myself and giving the odd plants to friends and neighbours I'm thinking I might start selling seeds. I traded some this past spring to an organic seeds seller for some heirloom German Pink seeds and while they weren't bad they still couldn't compare to the Greeks both in flavour and growth so I won't be growing them again. The tomatoes themselves aren't really marketable, they have very thin skins and don't take kindly to a lot of handling. A buddy I gave some plants to gave some to his sister a few years back who had a stand at a farmers market and she told me she sold some for $3 each. They're a high maintenance plant that need to be grown a certain way for best results but it's certainly worth it in the long run.

I know there's a good number of gardeners here. So I've been growing these heirloom Greek tomatoes for over 30 years now and saving seeds. Best tomatoes I've ever had and that includes for canning as they are so meaty and full of flavour. They are a large tomato, over a pound is common. So I went to water them yesterday evening and found a huge one. It wasn't quite ripe yet but it was starting to look funny around the stem so I picked it. Biggest one I've had in a couple of years at 2lb 4oz. and 6" across, looks like my feeding regime this season is working well. Also included a pic of what the inside looks like.

Most of my life I have always fried them in tons of butter and some spices. The one thing though was that they soak up so much of it that at times the inside would almost get a bit mushy with all the extra moisture. Last night I did them again with the schnitzel method and fried with a butter and bacon fat mix and I will never do them any other way again. The outside dark brown coating was nice and crunchy while the inside was light and almost fluffy without any excess moisture. The smoked bread crumbs add a great touch of flavour. Definitely recommend that method, panko bread crumbs would work well I'm sure and could be spiced up as well. I'm a bit surprised how many neighbours aren't mushrooms fans, the one guy that always will take one is up at his cottage for another week. Looks like the dehydrator will be getting a good workout.

So I figured I better do a little trip on some local country roads I've seen puffballs on before. Near the end of my tour I see this white spot in a pasture I had got some in before. Grass was a bit long so I couldn't get an good idea of size but it looked wide and I didn't think it was a rock. So I hop the fence as it was much closer than using the gate up the road. With all the grass I didn't spot it until I was fairly close and it was OMG that's massive. So I do the bongo drum test with the flat of my fingers and it sounds good so I pick it. Damn thing must be around ten pounds I figure. Lots of fun I tell you trying to climb and cross a page wire fence with one arm but I finally make it without wiping out or dropping it. So I make the rounds of some neighbours to see who wants some if it turns out good. Being a long weekend 3 of them aren't home yet, 2 aren't interested, 2 say sure they'll try it and another buddy can't make it today. So it's in the basement fridge till tomorrow when I'll slice it and know for sure if it's good but I figure it will be nice and white. Pretty sure it's the biggest I've ever picked, 16" across, 13" tall and 9 lbs. Just amazing.

I guess the cool nights and rain have been enough to set off the puffball season. My daughter showed up with a puffball she found while walking the unmaintained road, unfortunately it was past it's due date and getting soft. Undaunted I popped by a neighbour's place that I know usually has the odd one and sure enough there were two of them on his lawn that had just popped up this past week. One was a bit misshapen and will need some trimming but still in decent shape and the other was nice and round. So after checking with him I grabbed the odd shaped one and I'm sure looking forward to having that with a nice steak tonight. I use the schnitzel method to cook them, a nice thick slice dipped in spiced flour, then in egg wash and finally in my own smoked bread crumbs and fried over medium heat in a mix of oil and butter. It's the best way I've ever had them. So this one was 8 1/2" across and just over two pounds. When I tap it with finger tips it makes a nice boomp boomp sound so I know it will be great and pure white inside. So if you're a fan it could be worth a little drive around checking out ditches, fields and fence lines, they grow very fast and quickly get over ripe. They can also be cut in chunks, dehydrated and then powdered to use in thickening stews and gravies. Cheers

Obviously desperately shilling for indigenous votes considering voter turnout in 2022 was 43% and she won by less than 200 votes. So much for canvassing on homelessness, affordability and housing. Sure, lets give an entity legal voter status, yea that makes sense. SMH

Yellow Garden Spider