Over the Fence Chat...My first time!!! Sept. 22 - 28, 2002

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Hey...this is my first time!!! I'm sooo nervous :-)! Probably someone else is posting this OTF chat at the same time.

What a hectic weekend here for us here in Maine!! Love having relatives visit...but they want to do EVERYTHING in two days! My older sis, who usually doesn't seem to have the "time" to visit with me, and her hubby arrived here Friday afternoon. We had homegrown roast pork, potatoes and green beans with onions for dinner. I'm so happy that she loved the meal!! After a wonderful evening of good food and conversation and then a good night's sleep...we took our boat out Sat. morning and enjoyed a very relaxing cruise around Penobscot Bay! I'm so glad that she enjoyed herself (and surprised!!). Today we spent most of the day antique hunting. Hope to have her visit again real soon!!

We'll be butchering the first of our turkeys tomorrow...if it doesn't rain! I have six all totalled, and two are getting rather large. The others can wait another 3 or 4 weeks. Love homegrown turkey!!

Our big expense for this month is going to be a new pump for our well. We've been using a shallow well pump with our drilled well for 23 yrs. now and the water table has just started to drop below the 15 ft. reach of that pump! Have to install a submersible pump to reach the drilled depth of our well which is about 200 ft. Scary...and I sure hope the water level doesn't drop too much more!! It's been such a dry year!!

Other than cabbages and Brussels sprouts, our garden is just about "pooched" for the year. Can't come soon enough for me!!! I'm getting tired of freezing and canning veggies!!! Now we have to clean the garden up and apply the sh** for the winter! Weather is very nice now for working outside. LOVE the fall!!

Also had the major expense of replacing our 8 inch black stovepipe with metalbestos pipe. Did I already tell you folks that?? It sound "familiar" to me...like I already told you all. If I did...soooo sorry!! Anyways, we sure do NOT want to relive the chimney fire that we had last spring!!

Has anyone heard from Alison?? I'm wondering how their new busines was going. And I sure do miss hearing from Kirk!!

Hope all is well with you all.....!!!!

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2002

Answers

I was trying to out wait SOMEONE on starting this thread. I was about to give up and start it. So THANKS! Marcia. (I fixed your "boo-boo")

ATTACK OF JULIET

That's Juliet, not Julie -- although it IS Julie's fault! ;-) Last year, I planted Juliet tomatoes. They did nothing -- got blossom end rot, produced little, tasted blah. Wasn't going to grow it again -- but sister Julie bought a four-pack, planted two, and gave me two. So, I planted them. I was less "fussy" about planting my tomatoes this year. I guess that's what they like, because most of them have done QUITE well. The Juliets, on the other hand, should probably be renamed "Bill Gates" since they've been SO successful. There are red Juliets EVERYWHERE. I have given them away like crazy, eaten as many as I can, and just this evening I picked another 2+ gallons. They keep very well just sitting out, and they're very sweet and delicious.

I will give some of them to the doctor I am seeing tomorrow, and probably to the neighbors (if they want them), since they gave me a quart of raspberries in the spring (yummy). Unfortunately, I have plenty of OTHER tomatoes as well, and many freezer containers full of chopped or pureed tomatoes from last year. I can't can them, because of this STUPID stove. It has solid ceramic burners, and not only does the canner not fit onto it (would touch the edges of the module, a no-no according to the manual), but the instructions for the canner say not to use it on a ceramic cooktop. This stupid stove came with the place. It's a Jenn-Aire. I used to think those were top of the line, highly desirable. NOT ANY MORE! I'd prefer gas, but even an electric stove with coil burners would be better. Unfortunately, replacing the stove would mean major kitchen remodelling, because it is a downdraft model, and it's in front of a window. Grrrrr!

Well, that's what's occupying my life right now. That, and I have an upset stomach. So I guess I'll go off and nurse that!

Oh, Alison did post something here this past week, so she's still alive. I'm wondering about her new business too, but I bet she's really busy. :-)

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2002


I found out that you can throw hay bales really far when you are mad. Freaked my son out that I was flinging them. Superhuman strength.

We put a metal roof on our woodpile shed. I orginally made it out of privacy panels. 8'x16' With a tarp over but the tarps always collected water and ice, then ripped so hopefully this roof will work out well. (Just hope it's not noisy in the rain)

Joy, I have a Jenn-Air but mine has what looks like round black rocks for the burners. It takes forever to heat up but it keeps things warm for a long time after you shut it off. So, I turn the burner on when I come in then turn it off once I get a boil. Anyway, maybe you could see if you can get those panels for your stove. Cheaper then replacing the whole stove. (My first Jenn-Air had panels like yours and I broke one because of the oversized pot) Have to admit that it's nice to barbeque in the house in any weather, right?

I forgot to pick my broccolli and they flowered out. What a waste.

Hope everyone else is doing well.

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2002


Greetings from tornado alley! We had 4 tornados touch down in Indianapolis alone on Friday and I don't know how many more in the surrounding areas. We're fine and all our friends are fine, but our county and a few others have been declared disaster areas. The majority of the damage is on the south and east sides of the city and we live on the west side. Keith was home at the time and he said all he saw was heavy rain and high winds. I was at work; they evacuated us to the storm shelter for part of the afternoon but fortunately the closest touchdown was about 4 miles to the south. All of the touchdowns were in heavily populated areas; it's amazing that no one was killed and there are just a few serious injuries.

By Saturday the weather was fine and we were able to continue with our planned group outing to the Ohio Renaissance Festival. There were 9 of us on the trip, all in garb. We had a great time, some of the other visitors asked if they could take our pictures because they thought we worked there! I was good and resisted the shopping urge. Keith found a wakizashi that was a perfect match for the katana I bought for him two years ago so that ended up being his birthday present. I keep asking him what a Celt is doing carrying Japanese swords and he says that if it's good enough for Connor and Duncan MacLeod then it's good enough for him! :)

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2002


Yikes! Tornadoes....

It's been wonderful weather here: yesterday it was nearly 80. Mr. S. started school again today, so we've been busy getting everything done (I wish) that we missed while we were on vacation. He built a new ram shelter for me, so I tore down the hay bale version that I built last year (it survived pretty well, I'm proud to report). I'm using the spent straw to mix with topsoil (over layers of newspaper) in an attempt to create new flower beds for perennials next year (yeah, I know...seed regeneration potential from the straw, but)... We've finished painting odds and ends, etc. It's lovely this time of year, I agree. Just still so much to do!

Now that I've been back from vacation for a week, I don't have quite the energy and enthusiasm to write much about it. We did have a great time, of course. We spent two days driving to AZ, camping in E. Idaho the first night, and at Jacob Lake, AZ the second. We got a campsite at the North Rim (G.C. Nat'l Park) on Labor Day...no problem with no reservation. We spent a day at the North Rim, which I now vastly prefer to the S. Rim (better canyon vistas, less people, etc). We hung out in Page AZ for a couple of days and then started our river trip mid-week.

The weather was comfortable (started in the 90s when we put in) and continued warm except for that weird thunderstorm day when the temps on the river must have plunged to the 50s or maybe 60s. (we actually had some serious hypothermia concerns during the storm, with the wind howling at us, and being utterly drenched, and in our summer clothes). My jaw hurt from contantly shivering. I mentioned the storm...it was utterly unbelievable. The canyon walls were close around us, and the sky was dark above, even though it was mid-day. The lightening was nearly constant, or so it seemed, as the thunder continually rolled and reverberated off the canyon walls. The walls had thousands of waterfalls pouring over the top, most of which were red from all the silt and debris. It was so cold that several women on our boat (myself included) mashed our bodies together and covered up under a tarp to conserve body heat. The rain was coming down like needles, actually stinging our faces. There was so much activity going on (for example, Mr. S. always wondered when/if any of the rocks fell in the canyon, and was astonished to see a huge chunk (truck-sized or bigger) peel off a wall, bounce twice on the way down (causing huge buff-colored explosions of dust each time it hit, etc.), that we couldn't pull the rafts over. We had to ride out the rising river (and debris) for something like three hours (although it seemed like forever). Our boatmen said that the river went from 8,000 cfs to 23,000 cfs (cubic feet/sec) in those few hours...whatever it was, it was huge...

Anyway, it was quite an event, best described as "Biblical" but you kind of had to be there.

The rest of the trip was rainy, the river incredibly muddy (which made filtering water tricky), and many of the hikes up the side canyons (which we have loved in the past) were too dangerous to undertake (flash flood conditions). Nevertheless, we had a great time, mostly just hanging out with the folks that we met. We had a quiet moment on 9/11...rather different in that location, but very moving.

There's more that I'll no doubt bore you with from time to time...we did camp on the way home, stopping short of Moab, UT the first night, Snowville, UT the second, and south of Pendleton, OR the last...we took our time coming home, as we were rather crashed out from all the vacation activity. I'm still adjusting to a schedule that doesn't mean going to bed at dusk and getting up before daylight.

Our neighbors watched our critters, and kept the vegetation off the critical list, which was no mean feat as it's been so dry here for weeks.

Oops, I'm going to be late for work if I don't move away from this desk. Y'all have a good week.

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2002


Wow, Sherri!! Tornadoes are one of my worst nightmares...right up there with volcanoes!! I can deal with snowstorms and hurricanes without too much stress. Thank goodness all is well now. Living in Tornado Alley, you really should get yourself a little "Toto" dog :-)!!

Thanks for fixing my "boo-boo", Joy. You mentioned your ceramic cooktop stove...I have an Amana and I use an over-sized pressure canner and a water bath canner on it with no problems. I've been doing it for almost 5 yrs. now. The only pots and pans I'm careful not to over-size with are my cast iron. Mine heats up almost immediately and, like Dee, I do most of my cooking after I turn off the burners!! Oh, BTW, what is a "downdraft" model?? Mine sits in front of one of my kitchen windows also. My only beef about it is that the largest burner is in the back...but the medium-sized burner in front works well with my larger canners.

Pouring rain today!! No turkey butchering, I guess. No problem...I'm still cleaning after the onslaught of company all weekend!

Dee...Thanks for the email concerning my buck. Haven't had a chance to get back to you. He actually seems to be doing better...and I have been practically ignoring him with everything else that's been going on around here :-)!! I'm thinking that maybe the constant activity of being on his feet during breeding season, plus the fact I don't put all the hay in the feeder anymore (I spread it around a little and make them work for it!), has MADE him walk around and maybe brought a better flow of blood to his feet to promote healing. Does that sound feasible?? Or am I making excuses for myself 'cause I've been ignoring him!

Well, my "break" is over! Back to the laundry....

-- Anonymous, September 23, 2002



Maybe "down draft" isn't the right term. The ventilation system pulls the air down to floor level and shoots it out at that level, rather than the conventional stove hood that sucks the air up and out. The top is not one solid ceramic area, it's two "cartridges" with two burners apiece. The downdraft (or whatever) is in the center, so the burner cartridges are rather narrow. The pot would have to partially sit on the aluminum "border" around the unit, and according to the directions, this is BAD. I'm not going against the directions, especially when those for the canner say not to use it on a ceramic cooktop.

I should look into a cartridge with coil burners, but I didn't really want to spend more money on it. They're usually very, very expensive.

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002


Oh...now I can envision the type of stovetop that you have, Joy. My cooktop is solid ceramic with no downdraft (I have no hood fan either). It would seem to me that you would have to be very careful of your surface cooking area!! I had to replace my entire cooktop once about four years ago. I had bought the stove in 1996 and the cooktop had an unconditional guarantee for two years. About a month after it expired, one of my cats knocked a glass pitcher off one of the cabinets next to the stove....shattered the ceramic surface!! But the Amana guy came down and replaced it free of charge...no questions asked!! I was lucky. Nowadays, it's cheaper just to buy a brand new ceramic stove than to replace the cooktop :-)!!

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002

I have a Jenn-Air too; I'm quite certain it was original equipment in this house.(1978) Doesn't have the ceramic top though, just regular burners, and also the grill cartridge. First one I've had, although my mother has had several (they move a lot) and always liked em.

I like mine fine; the downdraft sucks down the smoke and grease before it gets into the air. It does, however, also take away some of the heat, so I cant really use the fan when canning.....doesnt keep the water boiling well. We had bought a new Maytag ceramic top range a year before we sold the farm, so I got some experience with those. Dang thing cost over $1200. It was ok, but the main reason I tried one was cuz I thought they would be easier to keep clean but I didnt find it so......seemed like I was always gently scrubbing baked on stuff, worrying I was gonna scratch it....I wouldnt get another myself. But it WAS cool the way it heated up immediately.

I looked at the electric burner cartridges and most places online are asking about $250, but one place us appliance is way cheaper ($169). It says they also have available a big-pot-canning burner one can plug in. I think I might get me one of those so I can do canning on it.

Sheepish, your vacation sounds a bit too exciting for me! Appears you were lucky to make it back alive! Wow, what a memory eh?

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002


E.M...I clean my ceramic top with Bon Ami cleanser. Works really well! Also, when I bought my stove, they gave me a scraper with a single-sided razor blade in it for scraping the burnt spills off. Those don't scratch at all!!

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002

Yes, I've used the single-edge razor trick, and I use Bon Ami when needed. Another disadvantage of the ceramic top (at least according to the instructions with this one) is that if anything spills over, you're supposed to remove the cooking pot (now what do you do with your not-finished-cooking food?), let the burner cool COMPLETELY, then you can try to get the spilled food off. And with my cooking style, which is to go off and do something else while waiting for something to reach a boil, something is ALWAYS spilling over. With the coil or solid metal burners, you can just let the spill burn off.

The oven doesn't bake evenly either. On the "conventional bake" setting, this is true, but it's even WORSE with the "convection bake" setting! Convection is supposed to circulate the air for faster, more even baking. I use that a lot when baking in the summer, because the heat build-up in the kitchen isn't so bad, but I have to rotate the pans in the midst of baking. :-( And when I want to oven broil, I'm supposed to leave the oven door cracked open 3". Not only does this put heat into the kitchen and allow some food splatter onto the surrounding area, but the door refuses to stay that way -- either it has to be open about 6" or it slams shut. I have the grill insert, used it once. It was such a pain to clean up, I haven't used it since. The ONE thing I like about it is the downdraft ventilation.

Hey, didn't I tell you last summer how the cat turned the stove on and almost burned down the house? With the stove integrated into the counter, and a window behind it, they seem to have no qualms about walking right over the stove (unless there are bubbling pots on it). They don't seem to try when the burners are still radiating heat -- maybe they're smarter than I think. Anyway, the cat must have stepped on the knob and twisted her foot. That's how you turn them on. I'd just gone to bed 20 minutes before, when the smoke detector started blatting. She'd also knocked a plastic lid onto the burner -- that was no fun trying to remove! Now all the knobs are off the stove except when it's in use -- just throw them in the utensil drawer in-between use.

Well, it's been valuable for the education in what I DON'T want. I want a gas stove! That's what I grew up with, but I haven't had one my entire adult life. Every place was a rental or came with electric already installed. Someday, I'll be cooking with gas . . . . ;-)

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002



Geesh, Joy. That stove of yours sounds like a pain in the you-know-where :-)!! Don't blame ya for wanting to get rid of it! When anything boils over or spills on mine, I just pick up the pot, wipe up the spill with a damp dishcloth as best as I can and put the pot back on to finish cooking. Afterwards, I clean up a little more thoroughly.

Between your cats and mine, Joy...guess them and ceramic stoves don't mix :-)!!! I have learned that heavy objects have no place above my stove!

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002


I agree, Joy......sounds like you need a new range; its not worth the frustration! I don't have a Jennaire oven, just the cooktop; the double oven is a brand name I never heard of before:Hardwick. And that thing about the cat turning on the stove! Would be hilarious if if wernt so dangerous! Having to hide the knobs in a drawer.......man, its a bad as havin toddlers in the house!

-- Anonymous, September 24, 2002

Grr! Some a**hole just gave me a negative feedback rating on ebay and ruined my perfect score. I didn't even do anything wrong, he did it in retaliation for the negative feedback I left for him. I bought a T- shirt from him last week and he keeps sending me bills for it even though I've already paid for it and have the PayPal transaction number to prove it. I did put a response to his feedback on my account but it's hard to state your case in 80 characters or less.

I guess I should have known better when I looked at his other auctions and they were all for salvia divinitorium and other drug- related items. I think he's too stoned to remember who's paid for what. At least the shirt is nice. :)

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002


That sucks, Sherri. That is exactly why I have never given anyone bad feedback on ebay! I've tried to work out the problems behind the scenes, although I've had few of them. Once I had to contact ebay about a crooked person, but I still didnt put anything at all on their feedback page for fear of something like this happening. I think folks will understand though, since you explained yourself, and he'll get his due eventually.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

Gee Joy, I really love my JennAir. Okay, I admit that I don't have to deal with the ceramic top but that was why I suggested you looking into the kind of top I have. AND I always use my grill. Since I use it so much, I don't clean the bottom all the time, just the grill part (I bought a cover just for the grill and keep it in all the time) that cleans up with a little soaking (oiling before starting helps) I used to forget and close my door for broiling but kept popping the light bulbs in the oven that way.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002


Same here, Dee, about the grill; I just clean the grill too, and the rest of it maybe every couple of months. We use ours alot too, and have a cover. People clean things too much! :) Which brings to mind folks who spend time/energy cleaning barbeque grills! There is absolutely no need to ever clean them; if you light the coals, put the grill on for awhile before adding food, the heat of the coals sanitizes/burns off the previous bits on the grill.

-- Anonymous, September 25, 2002

That's just how we clean our grill, E.M.!! It's not a gas grill, and we just throw in some cedar kindling for a really hot "cleaning" fire. We use ash and maple for a "cooking" fire!!

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2002

Maybe Joy's cat was just trying to clean her stove by burning something on it! :)

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2002

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