Tools on the Homestead

I’ll never be a candidate for a tiny house. I’m married to an artist, and many of our friends are artists. I need wall space. Then, there are the books and the piano. But the overriding reason may be that I need a big kitchen, canning pantries, root cellar, and deep freeze. Trying fitting all that into a tiny house.

I put up anywhere from 150 to 300 pints of produce every year. The walls in my house that don’t have paintings have enclosed pantry shelves. My handy husband built deep cabinets for my canning gear, including the big bowls and the pressure canner.

This week I canned four pints of pickled beets and 28 pints of whole kernel corn. And just in time for the season, I acquired two new tools, a Vremi collapsible dish drainer and a 12-quart stainless steel dishpan.

The drainer takes little of the precious counter space, and it’s especially handy when I’m washing jars. And while it’s collapsible, I’m thinking it may be a permanent occupant on the counter. It keeps the sink empty.

I have a single sink, and it’s hard to wash both the ears of corn and the jars you intend to fill. With its flat bottom, the new dishpan is more versatile than the large stainless steel bowls I was using before. Besides, those bowls are needed for other jobs.

A few years ago, I added the Ball Fresh Tech Canner. I use it when I have a small amount of produce from the garden. It’s perfect for pickles, jellies, salsas, and fruits. It handles six half pints, four pints, or three quarts at a time. And once you’ve sealed the jars into the canner and punched in the settings, you can walk away.

Last year’s tools were the electric water bath canner and a plucker. Two second grade teachers gave me their class projects–forty chicken hatchlings. Yep, more than half were roosters. The canner was to handle big jobs that my electric stove couldn’t handle, but it got drafted. It’s now used to scald chickens before they go into the plucker.

Next will be my cheese setup. I bought an instant-read thermometer, so I’m on my way. A farmer about five miles up the road has goat milk for sale. I’ll keep you posted.