Day: January 6, 2012

So a while back I asked for some opinions and suggestions as to Dehydrators folks were using.  And a couple of you were kind enough to reply.  In the end my sister-in-law said that she’d buy it herself as a joint gift for the two of us if it wasn’t to expensive.  And since she’s got reasonable taste and is good at picking good quality items I left the choice in her hands.

We ended up with a Nesco American Harvest that is probly very like what DaddyBear and Zercool said they have.  First thing I did was hit Amazon and order the fruit leather trays (and clean screens) that weren’t included in the basic package.  They arrived yesterday, and since husband wants cranberry fruit leather I’ve a bag of cranberries thawing in the fridge.  I expect to get that started tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it works.  I also ordered (we got a bunch of Amazon Gift Certificates from family that don’t live close) The Busy Person’s Guide to Preserving Food by Janet Chadwick.  And I’m reasonably pleased with the book (which arrived today).  It looks like a nice basic guide to various techniques including, but not limited to, dehydrating things.  It doesn’t have some of the fancier recipes you can find, but if I want those then I’ll head online.  I wanted a basic reference for concepts and basics and at first look through it looks like I picked well.

Normally by this time of the year our average temperatures are in the 20’s and teens, with drops into the single digits, and we’ve got several feet of snow already fallen and more coming.

As of the morning of Wed Dec 28th 2011 we’d had barely trace amounts of snow and temps were staying nice and warm so the water was coming down as rain instead.  However by evening of that same day we’d had several inches of snow fall.  I was thrilled, everything froze, no more mud.  Winter was finally here.

Yah, I jinxed it.

By Friday evening the yard was a swamp again, all traces of snow gone except for the excess of water on the ground.  Sunday temps hit 52f.

Monday temps crashed hard and it snowed again.  About 3 inches or so though I never heard an official count.  Temps were in the single digits all day Tuesday.

Today the only snow on the ground is in the areas that are fully shaded or where the plows left a ridge.  Temps hit the upper 40’s.  Since this is central NY state that means everyone’s running around without coats talking about the heat wave.  My yard is headed for swamp land again.  The mud’s ankle deep, but my boots are damn near clean by the time I come in because there’s so much standing water on top of it.

Can we just have a normal winter now?