no kids = makin' pickles

This is really apropos of nothing, but just a small example of how having free time, due to being CF, can lead to new fun things.

I have a neat old 1944 home-canning guide that I was reading this past weekend and I got interested in the extensive "pickling" chapter. Man, people pickled everything...it went on for pages and pages. So my sweet DH went out and got the cukes and sugar and stuff and we already have a zillion Mason jars around the house. I read up on the interesting and informative USDA guide for home canning and found out that (high-acid) pickled stuff can safely be made by the boiling-water-canning method (as opposed to the higher-temp "pressure canning" method for lower-acid foods). No botulism for us, thank you!

Anyways, I got all geeked about this project and canned some mixed pickles (USDA recipe) of carrots, onions, celery, and cukes and did the boiling-water-bath canning method. It took all of Saturday afternoon since it was a new unfamiliar thing and took a while. We ate the resulting pickled vegetables on Sunday and they were good!

They were a bit sweet for my taste, however, so now I have the fun prospect of looking for new recipes, trying some dill, &c. But it's a whole new food-geekery area for us both to enjoy and was a lot of fun. I love messing around with food like this and could never do a big, complicated, extended food project if I had kids around to mess it up/take up time/get in the way &c.

Just a small example of how the CF have the freedom to learn and try new things.

Congratulations of your new found interest.

I have taken up candle making and I love it.

Candle making is very cool. Strange to say, couple years ago I was a historical reenactor in an old log cabin in a historical park nearby and led candle-making with kids (dip method). They loved it and it was a hoot. Got some big turnip-y candles as a result. It was fun. Have some neat multicolored candles in living room wall sconces right now from that experience.

I make my own laundry soap and paint in acrylics. Neither of which I could probably do with small nosy fingers around...

"You can't slit the throat of every cocksucker whose character it would improve."
-Al Swearingen

I just bought a pressure-canner (used from eBay) to put up some of the carrots I grew this summer, but I haven't had the chance to do them yet.

I am hoping for a pressure canner for Xmas, having just learned about pressure-canning. We have a big garden, so I could pressure-can all those lovely peas, beans, &c.

I would love to know how RR makes her own laundry soap.

Rose Red Wrote:
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> I make my own laundry soap and paint in acrylics.
> Neither of which I could probably do with small
> nosy fingers around...



Rose Red - can you tell me how you make soap? I would love to give that a try.

Sounds like fun! I LOVE pickled vegetables.

My favourite hobby is quilling. It can be very fiddly, very time consuming, but very rewarding when I see the end results. There is NO way in hell I would be able to quill on a regular basis if I had a tunnel worm.

Are there any other crafters here? I love all crafts... Even scrapbooking, but the breeders have pretty much taken over that hobby so I've been put off it for a while now. I used to buy the magazines but stopped because every page had a fucking kid featured on it.

I'm sending the soap recipe to anyone who wants it tonight-

A little OT, but I remember oh-so-fondly when my grandmother would make a shitload of pickles using the cucumbers from the family garden. And I remember it because the whole house stunk of vinegar for days

And I totally hear you about the paint, Rose. I have a shit-ton of art stuff lying around my room...acrylics, oils, watercolors, Fixatif, various adhesives, alcohol markers which blatantly state they are made with carcinogenic chemicals and a few other things. I couldn't keep those under my bed with a brat underfoot. Course, knowing me, I'd let them chug-a-lug the Super 77 - I mean, if you call Poison Control, the kid won't learn nothin'. XD

Ooh, yeah, my gran did the same! And she made loads of jam, and preserved fruit, and you name it. Takes ages, but so worth it!

Rose Red, If it's OK with you, I'd love to know how to make soap, too! I'd always wondered...

Not a whole lot is going right in my life right now (I've been unemployed since I finished graduate school 6 months ago, no money, overdue bills, and so on...long story), but it's nice to be able to pursue adult hobbies. I work with polymer clay, rubber stamps, and pigment powders, to great effect. Here is a set of modern-looking refrigerator magnets I made over the weekend:
http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1117080045axs5.jpg

1 quart Water (boiling)
2 cups Bar soap (grated)
2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soda
· Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water and stir until soap is melted. You can keep on low heat until soap is melted.
· Pour the soap water into a large, clean pail and add the Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until all is dissolved.
· Add 3 gallons of water, stir until well mixed.
· Cover pail and use 1/2 cup for each load of laundry. Stir the soap each time you use it (will gel).


all this stuff can be found at your grocery store- I used a bar of Kirk's Castile!

Edited to say you can buy a clean, cheap contractor's bucket at Lowe's of HD and DON'T forget the lid like I did. hold the whole shebang.

Oh, I thought you MAKE the soap, like, with tallow and lye! You turn soap into laundry detergent! That's ok too. I love Kirk's castille soap; makes great lather, is very inexpensive, and environmentally-friendly. I use it when I bathe in rivers and lakes during the summer, and at home also.

I just noticed that you can change the subject heading and stay in the same thread.

cfhistorian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Not a whole lot is going right in my life right
> now (I've been unemployed since I finished
> graduate school 6 months ago, no money, overdue
> bills, and so on...long story), but it's nice to
> be able to pursue adult hobbies. I work with
> polymer clay, rubber stamps, and pigment powders,
> to great effect. Here is a set of modern-looking
> refrigerator magnets I made over the weekend:
> http://img253.imageshack.us/my.php?image=111708004
> 5axs5.jpg


Those are lovely! You should post them to http://www.craftster.org/

CherryBlossom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> My favourite hobby is quilling. It can be very
> fiddly, very time consuming, but very rewarding
> when I see the end results. There is NO way in
> hell I would be able to quill on a regular basis
> if I had a tunnel worm.
>

This is so cool...I have never met another quiller! While I haven't done much lately, I still have the supplies and occasionally make small projects. After doing invitation surrounds and flat pieces, I got hooked on making three dimensional flowers and plants. For gifts, I've bought domed glass pocket watch display cases and created a little floral scene inside. Lots of fun, and you certainly speak the truth when you say it's a time-consuming hobby!

Wow, what a lot of interesting skills. Never knew what quilling was--looks very pretty. And cfhistorian's magnets are very cool; I bet they'd sell on Etsy.

I rode a motorcycle from NH to AZ and thence to OH. Went to motorcycle mechanics school out there, not that I did much with it. I have a problem with feeling like I cannot do things that I do know. Crippling, but nevertheless, I've had an interesting life.
I drove a semi with my ex as a job. Tiring, fatigueing, but it was something I had always wanted to do.
I homebrew, have been doing so since 1994. Lovely hobby and I'm pretty good at it.

I would not have been able to do any of the above, or it would have been way more difficult dragging around some damn sex trophy. My ex used to annoy the hell out of me saying I should have had a kid. He already had a couple from priors, so why the devil he wanted to take on another one is beyond me. He got the snip so that was pretty much out of the question. (He did come up with the wild notion that he was going to wrest custody of his sons bastard child from the mother. I had a few choice words about that!!!)

I read some of the posts in the homebrew forum, and sometimes the friday night drunk chat (as they called it) and I watch the kiddy and moomy drama. Kids dropping their filthy crap into fermenting carboys, 'I can't do this because snotleigh got sick, etc'.
The funniest example (I didnt' say anything) was watching a couple of moos in the chat one night stating that they cou7ldn't wait until they cou7ld farm their 3 year olds out to pre-school. The thinly disguised hostility and anger toward their own spawn was appalling to me. All I cou7ld think was 'why the hell do you have them or wanted them and now all you can do is live for the day you send them to kiddie warehouse?'
moos are all alike. the duhs are bad enuf, but I think the moos are the worst. asshole moos

Rose Red Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1 quart Water (boiling)
> 2 cups Bar soap (grated)
> 2 cups Borax
> 2 cups Washing Soda
> · Add finely grated bar soap to the boiling water
> and stir until soap is melted. You can keep on low
> heat until soap is melted.
> · Pour the soap water into a large, clean pail and
> add the Borax and Washing Soda. Stir well until
> all is dissolved.
> · Add 3 gallons of water, stir until well mixed.
> · Cover pail and use 1/2 cup for each load of
> laundry. Stir the soap each time you use it (will
> gel).
>
>
> all this stuff can be found at your grocery store-
> I used a bar of Kirk's Castile!
>
> Edited to say you can buy a clean, cheap
> contractor's bucket at Lowe's of HD and DON'T
> forget the lid like I did. hold the whole
> shebang.

Thank-you!

I will e-mail later. I feel tired from this cold...

Clematis, would it work with a bit less sugar, but a touch more garlic and dill? My mum used to make some bitchin' pickles that were seriously garlicky, but great!

I paint when I have time. I've been doing it about forty years on and off and find it quite restful.

OOO! and traveling. Great fun.

Forgot to mention that I am also working on a novel, guys.

Tiquer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> CherryBlossom Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > My favourite hobby is quilling. It can be very
> > fiddly, very time consuming, but very rewarding
> > when I see the end results. There is NO way in
> > hell I would be able to quill on a regular
> basis
> > if I had a tunnel worm.
> >
>
> This is so cool...I have never met another
> quiller! While I haven't done much lately, I
> still have the supplies and occasionally make
> small projects. After doing invitation surrounds
> and flat pieces, I got hooked on making three
> dimensional flowers and plants. For gifts, I've
> bought domed glass pocket watch display cases and
> created a little floral scene inside. Lots of
> fun, and you certainly speak the truth when you
> say it's a time-consuming hobby!

It's rare to find another person who is interested in this delicate art form! Your gifts sound absolutely lovely... I'm still just doing flat pieces at the moment - mostly cards which I hope to sell on Etsy some day. I'm in the middle of doing a peacock on a bough theme that's slowly taking over my life, lol. It's not a card, just a picture that'll hopefully soon be ready to frame and hang on the wall. Heh.

The peacock sounds lovely. Hope you post a pic when it's done; I'd love to see it.

MerlynH., I do think I'll try that; I'm a garlic freak. I have a jar of garlic puree in the fridge right now from a local Arabic grocery and use a lot of it.

Is the peacock from a pattern book? Please post a photo when you're done.