Post-carbon food preservation III

These chelan cherries were canned in the solar cooker in two batches, two jars each week. They are reputed to be good pie cherries, but this is all that I will bother with canning until the small, "true" sour pie cherries come out in June or July. This may be the Montmorency variety but I don't know for sure.

Actually the first sunday, May 13, was the most ambitious solar canning day. I had two quarts and a pint of cherries in there, each jar was covered with a black sock to maximize heat absorption inside the cooker. One of the quart jars caved in under the pressure of the sock, so I'm not using this method anymore. Too many precious cherries were lost on that maiden voyage.

So the second sunday, may 20, I only bothered putting two quarts in there. It took 4 hours to can these. This is more than enough time to get home from market, pit 'em, and can a couple of quarts in the sun while doing something else well before the sun sets.

Each quart will make one pie. A pint I figure can make some tarts or something. I put a cup of sugar in each quart jar and that may be too much for the chelan cherries. For the tart July cherries last year it was a good ratio.

The whole process takes 4-5 hours.

Sunshine and warm weather

A zucchini plant basks in the sun









Tomatoes are getting taller and producing lots of flowers. So far so good. We also have eggplant, basil, cucumbers and sunflowers going. So far so good.





In about 2 hours in the sun you can roast a pound of almonds. Just put them in black pans with the lids off in a solar oven. Here they are slow-roasting at about 225F. I drizzle oil on it and salt them generously before roasting. Seems to do the trick. Also try garlic powder.

The wonderful tiny laundry room

This laundry room has been a dream of mine for a couple of years. It's a tiny room that had a lot of potential. Taking out the tank water heater not only saved CO2 and energy, but allowed me to bring my conventional top-loader in from the garage. This washer is a fisher/paykel ecosmart which is a great washing machine. The thing saves an incredible amount of water by using only what you need. Other things I like are its direct-drive DC motor, and the fact that the whole thing is sensor driven. If you drop more clothes in the washer it automatically fills with water to incorporate the new clothes. After it rinses your clothes it spins them thoroughly at 1,000 RPM so they are almost dry when they come out of the washer.


Selling the stackable washer and dryer opened up this window, allowing more light into the room. I was then able to put a shelving unit up that i got from ikea. The drying rack can dry every little sock in a load of laundry when I put jeans and towels and tee shirts on the line. I can also use a box fan in the room and the clothes on the rack dry very quickly. So if I don't feel like using the dryer when it rains I have this option as well.

With use of the clothesline and a superefficient washer in cold water, almost all of the energy is removed from the clothes washing process. I find the line doesn't take much more time than using my electric clothes dryer. I use it as a sort of impromptu art project and a way to express myself. What I mean to do is show the outside world that I'm proud to hang my own laundry and maybe they will think it's an option they can use to practice conservation and self-reliance. I don't ever feel like I have to use the clothesline and sometimes I like just to dry jeans and towels on the line while putting socks and underwear in the electric dryer. Jeans feel great dried on the line, and everything smells wonderful when you put it on.

Another thing I love about line-drying my clothes is mrs. mockingbird likes to come visit and chat with me while i'm out there. Her favorite spot is on top of this chimney where she will chatter away.

It's a great excuse to be out enjoying the day and taking in things i had been missing and earning a feeling of satisfaction.

The fisher/paykel washer is supposed to use 1/4 the energy of comparable washers. In addition, using cold water detergents makes using heated water unnecessary in the laundry. On top of all that, if you use a clothesline to dry the clothes, you bypass the most energy-intensive part of the american laundry. I really like how this project turned out.