easy emergency lamp

Howdy,

Lets make an emergency candle in case the lights go out for a bit.

You will need a Ball jar plus an extra used lid, short half pint.  a Coleman lamp wick, liquid paraffin or mineral oil, a 1/2 wood chisel, and a lamp cover. 

I'm using the ball short half pint jars.  As of yet Congress hasn't repealed the law of gravity.  If you get the regular half pint jars the oil will not be drawn up all the way to the top of the wick as the fuel is used up.  Your flame will get smaller until it goes out with about half the fuel left.  I bought everything but the fuel from Walmart.  Walmart doesn't have paraffin oil.  They have mineral oil which is really pure kerosene.  The paraffin oil produces very little, if any smoke, the mineral oil much more.  The glass covers are lamp shades for a ceiling fan and are used to defuse the light some and protect the flame from drafts and inadvertent touching.  WARNING all part may get hot, the lamp cover very hot!

First, cut the wick in half as there is enough for two lamps.  Then get out a 1/2 to 3/4 inch wood chisel.  You will need a small block of wood too.

Using the chisel knock a slit into the jar top to make a slit just big enough to pass the wick in.  Make it a little tight.  Too loose and the wick might fall in and oil will leak out if the jar is tipped.






Pass the wick in until only about 1/8 of an inch shows through, that's all the hard part!








Now fill your jar with oil, screw on the top, let it sit for a few minuets to let the oil rise up and light!

When you want to extinguish the flame use a top from an old jar to cover the flame. 












When it's cool place the second top lid over the lid with the wick cut into it and you seal the jar for further use!

A word on the Paraffin oil.  It's expensive when you can find it.  Lehman's and other stores like them have it.  I found mine from a catholic church store for several bucks less per gallon.  The large one even comes with a pump!  So shop around.  Yes, by the way, you can use citronella oil for those outside!

Cost:  Pack of four jars, 3.97 so a buck each.  wicks .97 cents, makes 2 so 50 cents each.  mineral oil 5.97 a quart.  Paraffin oil 7.50 a quart. and 17.50 a gallon. The lamp shade was 5.97.  Lowe's and Home Depot had some pretty ones if you want to spend the bucks.  So each one is about 3 bucks plus the lamp shade if you want one, and the burn time was about 10 hours.

Enjoy, Ken

Harvesting time

Howdy all!

The harvesting and canning has begun and this week has been busy.  We've canned pickles, salsa, stewed tomato's, and frozen fresh picked blue berries and black berries. 

First up salsa.  Fresh made with Roma tomato's, green peppers and hot red peppers from the garden.  Add some onion, cilantro, garlic, salt and pepper and there you go! 

Here it is cooking in the pot!

 And here is the finished product after Lori canned it, 10 pints total!  spicy and delish!

Next we picked a peck of pickles.  Ok, i'm not sure how much a peck is but it came to 8 quarts of whole dill pickles and 12 pints of sliced ones.

Here they are in the pickling brine.

and here's some of the finished product.

Lets do some stewed tomato's!  All except the onions are from my garden.  I used some of my Roma's as well as red and yellow pear tomato's.

In the pot simmering.

Cooling on the table, 12 quarts total.

They all look so good,

The Green peppers will be done next week.  In addition to what we have used we froze 10 quart bags of chopped green peppers.  4 gallon bags of blackberries from the pick your own farm as well as 2 gallons from my own bushes.  Today we hit the pick your own Blueberry farm.  We have picked 4 Gallon bags worth of blueberries for goop and jams or syrup. That was 12 pounds worth.  We will go get more in a couple of weeks as well as some peaches!

TTFN

ken

Blueberry goop

Ok, Its officially called a crisp.  Lori couldn't give me a name for it when she first made it for me, so we have called it goop ever since.  We also make it with all kinds of fruit, but we just finished picking 12 pounds of blueberries.  Lets get started then!

 First the recipe!

4 Cups of fruit!
1 cup of flour
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
Place the delicious fruit in the bottom of 8 x 8 baking pan.
Stir the dry ingredients to gather and mix well.  Add mayonnaise until the mixture resembles course crumbs.  Sprinkle over the fruit.
Bake for 40 minutes or until browned at 400 degrees.

ENJOY!

Growing Your Own Food Not Allowed

Growing Your Own Food Not Allowed

And the government having this authority is good why?

Garden update.

Howdy all,

Time for a garden update.  Mostly good and a little bad.  First the bad.  All my corn is gone.  A fierce rain storm knocked it all flat!  I guess I didn't have the Texas rainstorm variety planted.  Come on three inches of rain in a storm is normal here!  So out it came and I replanted the beans that I had mixed in.  The rest of my garden did great!  Here's the pics of my garden as well as some of the other plants around my house.

First the black berries.

Getting ripe now as I picked about twenty yesterday!  Sorry birds, but those are mine!  The birds get the blue berries and the wild black berries.

Speaking of blueberries!

They are ripening nicely after the rain.  I'm still letting them just grow for a couple of years before I net them in.  Its off to the pick your own farm next week for me.  The same for peaches as I don't have any of those trees.

I expect some bananas this year as the frost wasn't bad enough to knock them back.  These herbs are over twelve feet tall.  This will also be their last year here.  I plan to redo my garden this fall and winter and they will be in the way.  Sacrificed for progress!  I just don't have the room for them and they don't produce that much so out they will go!

Next up?  Peppers!  Both my sweet green and my hot peppers are being harvested.  I have two beds of sweet peppers and a small bed with Hungarian hot wax peppers and hot red peppers. 

OMG!  Have my Tomato's gone crazy!  Three crowded beds of roma's and one with cherry, pear, and tomatillos!  Its a crush and will be difficult to harvest, but i will enjoy doing it!

My strawberry patch has recovered nicely too!  Big and sweet.

 What?

And lastly, for the edibles, a nice cucumber plant full of future pickles.

 Now lets look at some of the other plants around my house that I use to block the hot Texas sun.  I have a major south exposure.  If I did nothing it would look like my neighbors with a nice high cooling bill. 

First I planted Chaste trees mixed with Knockout roses under the window.  The thorns on the roses will deter thieves!

On the back half I have Star Jasmine growing, but no picture, sorry.  I do have a couple of trees!   A nice mesquite that shades my quail coop and a chinese elm.

In the front I have two nice mesquites to replace the trees knocked over by hurricane Ike.

Lastly the front.  Its covered with a couple of nice Cape Honeysuckles!  When they bloom the hummingbirds are in heaven.

Thanks for viewing

Ken

UPDATE of update!  Here's today's harvest.  A whole bunch of large green peppers, two big handfuls of hot peppers and tomato's  and enough cucumbers for about three quarts of dill pickles!

ken ;-)