Making Vanilla Extract!

Vanilla Beans from Amazon, Vodka made from grapes (not grain or potatoes), sharp knife, instructions from Surviving the Stores.

Slice vanilla bean lengthwise.

Make sure to open up the pod a bit.

Pour out some of the vodka, and begin placing cut beans into bottle.

New vanilla compared with 4 month old vanilla.


Place in a dark corner of your pantry. Shake every few days.

When ready (from 3 to 6 months) pour into old vanilla bottles. :)
Top off the bottle with more vodka. Some cooks have been topping their vanilla extract off with vodka for 10 years or more. We shall see.

Canning madness

Making Apple Butter


Strawberry Jam


Canning


Dehyrdating


Blueberries


Mangos


Ice chest and totes full of frozen fruit!

Happy Independance Day Folks!

Enjoy the weekend, take time to learn more about it's meaning! Wake up and Remember!

As John Adams said in a letter to his dear wife Abigail dated July 3rd, 1776:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not. (The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784, Harvard University Press, 1975, 142).