Enough food for a feast

Last week, Don and I offered to bring food for our after-church fellowship. We, um, went a little overboard. Don made homemade sourdough bread and a fabulous soup (creamy Italian sausage and Parmesan, which simmered all night). I made blueberry tarts, and some homemade Caesar dressing to go along with the huge amount of raw veggies I cut up. We worked all day long on Saturday to prepare. This is what we ended up bringing to church, including the ingredients necessary to add to the soup last-minute.

Essentially we made enough food to feed 40 people. "Next time," Don remarked, "slap me if I suggest getting this fancy." We agreed that a salami-and-cheese tray would have been just as welcomed.

Everyone raved about the spread, but we have to remind ourselves this is supposed to just be a snack to tide everyone over until after the Bible study ... not to provide enough food for a feast.

Water project ... done!

A couple months ago, after Don finished a large project (the new woodshed), I remember he came inside, sat down, and asked, "What should I work on next?"

There is never a shortage of projects, of course, and he could have gone in any number of directions. But I had an instant reply: "The water tank."

Let me back up. Since moving rural in 1993, we've never had a secure source of water. What I mean by this is our wells have always had electric pumps. During power outages, those pumps don't work and we have no water. We've compensated by storing water in anything from one-gallon jugs to 50-gallon barrels, but it's still a limited resource. Water (or a lack thereof) has always been my biggest rural insecurity.

Our last home was particularly challenging because our well was 610 feet deep (with a static water level of 450 feet), far beyond the capacity of hand pumps and far beyond our financial ability to construct a deep-well windmill or other options. (We compensated by building a pond.)

The well here in our new place is much more shallow, about 120 deep with a static water level of 40 feet. This puts it within reach of a hand pump. (In fact, we purchased a hand pump but haven't yet installed it because the well is inconveniently located inside a shed, which means we have to dismantle the shed before installing the pump. Yes, it's complicated.)

So, in the spirit of "three is two, two is one, one is none," we wanted to install a water tank fed by roof runoff as a backup source of water.

To this end, we purchased a water tank. There were a number of factors to consider in this decision: price, size, location, shipping, etc. After examining all possibilities, we selected a vendor in southern Idaho and purchased a 1500-gallon vertical above-ground tank which was on sale. Additionally – highly important – they could deliver.

So in April of 2023, they delivered the tank. We parked it next to the woodshed, covered up all the port holes (so critters wouldn't get inside), and there it sat for 15 months.

But we had a tank! It's hard to describe how excited I was by the prospect of a secure water source.

While Don worked on other projects and the water tank sat next to the woodshed, the Big Question was where we should put it. We had several options: Under the deck on the north side of the house; off the kitchen on the south side of the house; nearer to the garden; or even next to the barn (to supply the livestock).

After weighing the pros and cons of each location, we decided to place the tank under the deck on the north side of the house. The clearance was adequate, and this space wasn't being used for anything else anyway. Additionally, it's convenient for both fire suppression (a fire truck has the room to back up to the tank and hook into it) and livestock (the underside of the house is fenced off to keep the cows out, but it would be easy-peasey to put a water tank just outside the fence).

This decision was just the first step in a loooong process of installing the tank, beginning with cutting a level pad into the slope below the house

Don framed in the pad, then laid down weed cloth. Then he backfilled it with gravel (at the botton) and sand (on top) to provide a solid foundation for the tank that wouldn't have any sharp rocks that could poke a hole in it.

The next step was to move the tank from the driveway to the new pad below the house.

This was an exceptionally delicate procedure. We knew the tank had adequate clearance under the deck ... barely. The difficulty was getting the tractor to climb the slope below the deck, clear the lip of the pad, and place the tank in location without the tank bumping into the deck in the process.

It took slow and careful work to get the tank in place. It also showed Don's mastery of his machine.

That's the clearance between the top of the tank and the underside of the deck. Don had this engineered to the nth degree.

He was also forced to lay down hardware cloth around the tank over the sand...

...after some neighborhood cats started using it as a giant litter box.

With the tank in place, the hard work began. Don had to design and implement an entire customized plumbing system to direct roof runoff into the tank. This included intake valves, overflow valves, guttering, drain pipes, etc.

I'm glossing over weeks of work here, folks. I can't emphasize enough my clever husband's success in plumbing this monster in.

Mr. Darcy was always interested in the procedure.

But finally the bulk of the work was done. He had installed split downspouts in the gutters from both sides of the deck. By flipping a lever, water can either be diverted into the tank, or allowed to flow down the gutters.

He also installed filters that would sift out gravel and other debris before the water could enter the tank.

You can see how one of the gutter splits looks from this angle.

Plumber's tape supports the pipes on the underside of the deck.

What we lacked, at this point, was rain to test the system. Finally the weather predicted some incoming precipitation, and Don pushed through to finish everything before it came in.

This included cleaning out the gutters.

Because our roof is shingle, debris gets washed into the gutters (not to mention all kinds of other detritus). Here's a "before" photo...

..and the "after" pic.

The rain actually moved in before getting the hand pump installed. We let the rain wash the roof for about half an hour, then moved the levers to divert water into the tank. What a gratifying sound as the tank began to fill!

But we didn't know how much water we'd gotten. Don put together a chart that gave an estimate:

• Average yearly precipitation – 24.89 inches
• Highest ave month – 3.94 inches, May
• Lowest ave month – 0.87 inch, August
• Average monthly precipitation – 2 inches

Area served by gutters and downspouts to tank: 1,425 square feet.

1,425 sq ft x 1/12th of a square foot (1 inch of rain or .08333 feet ) over 1,425 sq ft = 118.8 cu ft = 888 gallons 

With a roof of such-and-such size and the amount of rain, we anticipated we got about 200 gallons from that one rainstorm.

But to access the water, he needed to install the hand pump. So he cut a hole in the deck to reach the access hatch on top of the tank.

He drilled a hole and sank a pipe next to the access hatch to plumb in the hand pump.

Don had ordered the hand pump several weeks earlier, so with the plumbing in place, he was able to install the pump itself.

He built a sturdy and permanent table heavily coated with a clear epoxy, and fastened the pump to the top.

A new pump must be primed to let the leathers soak before using it.

But then we were able to pump ... and it worked!

Sort of. As is typical of any plumbing project, stuff happens. Don found there was a leak from a valve at the bottom of the tank. So he opened the tank and flushed out as much water as he could.

Then he fixed the valve and we waited for the next rainstorm.  This came in a few days ago, and the valve is not leaking. Right now we estimate we have about 300 gallons in the tank ... far, far outstripping the amount of stored water we previously had on hand.

We're entering a wet period and anticipate we'll have the tank full to capacity within a month, after which we can switch the gutters back to divert water down the downspout, as before.

While we will add chlorine to the tank once it's full, we have no plans to drink the water directly from the tank without filtering (or boiling) it first. However the water has endless other uses during a power outage: Showering (using shower bags), washing dishes, flushing toilets, watering livestock, fire protection, etc.

The next step is to insulate the tank. We're planning on making an insulated wrap to keep things from freezing in winter. That will be a whole blog post unto itself.

The sense of security this new project gives us is impossible to underestimate! I've always keenly felt our vulnerability as far as water during an extended power outage. This tank cures that concern.

It also underscores the need to tackle such complicated projects sooner rather than later. While obtaining the tank almost a year and a half ago was a major step in the right direction, we didn't realize how many specialized parts would be needed to plumb it in. Don took many trips to the hardware store as well as ordered many parts online (including the hand pump) to complete the project.

Water project ... done!

An issue of contentment

I had a short but amazing experience a few days ago. Let me tell you about it.

It was a sparkling clear October day. The oak tree next to the house was sporting extravagantly beautiful leaves. The air was crisp and just warm enough to have the windows open.

I was engaged in a canning project, probably the last one of the year. I was standing at the kitchen sink washing canning jars and watching the occasional leaf drop from the oak tree through the kitchen window.

Meanwhile Don was engaged in an outdoor project on the back porch, just off the kitchen. Through the screen door, I could hear him sawing boards and using the cordless screwdriver to fasten things together.

And I had a powerful flash-like realization: I was content. Honestly, that moment just rocketed through me. The feeling lingered for days.

I started thinking about one of my favorite historical novels, Avalon by Anya Seton. It takes place in early Medieval England, late 900s to early 1000s AD, when Viking raids were common.

Brief synopsis of the last quarter of the book: The main character, Merowyn, is kidnapped by Vikings and taken to Iceland, where she weds an Icelandic man and has a son. After a period of difficult adjustment, she grows to dearly love both her husband and her new home. Later she and a group of other Icelanders colonize Greenland, where she bears a mentally-handicapped daughter. When her husband dies twenty years later, Merowyn returns at last to England, that gentler country she missed during the cold bleak years on an ice-swept land. As a widow, she must make do as best she can and ends up marrying a man she respects but doesn't love. She thinks back to the silvery-gold early days of her first marriage and realizes she was happy then and didn't know it.

For some reason that phrase – she was happy then and didn't know it – stayed with me. And it made me wonder: how many of us are happy but don't appreciate it, know it, or realize it?

"Happiness" is such a loaded and multi-faceted word that no one can really define what it means for them. It's different for everyone. Happiness can be found even in places and circumstances you may not like; but it's often there, buried among the less enjoyable parts. Facets of happiness (contentment, satisfaction, pride of achievement, etc.) can all contribute to the overall qualities of the emotion.

I think what haunts me about the notion of being happy and not realizing it, is how many of us let overall happiness slide through our fingers because we're too concerned with little things we don't like. Anyone who takes their health for granted and then loses it, for example, will appreciate how much happier they were when their health was good.

That's why this moment of contentment was so powerful.

I recall another moment about ten years ago. It was late June. I was sitting in the barn (of our old home) working on my laptop, working on a magazine article that was due shortly. (In nice weather, I did a lot of work in the barn.) I was keeping an eye on a cow who was due to give birth at any moment. Chickens were all around me. The daisies and ocean spray were in full bloom. Later that afternoon I had plans to do dishes and laundry. That moment of contentment, again, was strong enough to be remembered.

A couple of my favorite Bible verses underscore this topic. FirstTimothy 6:6-9 says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction."

And the verse that has become my motto, 1Thessalonians 4:11-12: "...make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."

If washing canning jars while watching autumn leaves through the kitchen window while Don works on a project on the back porch qualifies ... count me in.

The blueberries are done

Ever since we planted the blueberry bushes here in our new home, they've been growing like mad.

Their production is increasing, too. The first year, I harvested one pound of berries – not surprising, since the bushes were just ramping up. Last year, they produced sixteen pounds.

This was on the order of what our bushes in our last home produced every summer, so to be honest I would have been perfectly satisfied with that.

But this year, the bushes produced and produced and produced. I picked and picked and picked. I filled gallon bags with fruit and popped them in the chest freezer, and I kinda lost count of how much I had. All I knew was it was a lot.

Finally I got tired of having to burrow past endless bags of blueberries in the freezer whenever I needed something, so I knew it was time to weigh the summer's bounty and get it canned up. I pulled all the bags out of the freezer and laid them on the table.

Can you see why these bags were dominating the freezer space?

One by one, I started weighing the bags, and tallying the results.

The total: 57.25 lbs!!!

Holy toledo, I did NOT expect the bushes to be this fruitful.

The trouble is, we don't need nearly sixty pounds of blueberries. I still have some canned up from last year. The solution, of course, was to give most of them away. I gave ten pounds of frozen berries to the UPS driver, a very sweet man, who said his wife canned and would be grateful for the fruit.

I planned to can up the rest and distribute a good portion to church members.

Canning gave me an excuse to use my lovely new water-bath canners I got for my birthday last year.

I canned everything using a "very light" syrup, the recipe of which can be found in this canning reference book.

While the syrup heated up...

...I washed fourteen quart jars, the maximum the two canners could handle.

The berries had been defrosting overnight. I cold-packed the defrosted fruit into quart jars.

Adding the syrup.

Wiping the rims (and checking for nicks).

Filling the canners with water. I used regular disposable lids for these berries instead of Tattlers, since I was giving away the majority of the canned blueberries and didn't want to lose any Tattler lids.

For raw packs in quarts at our elevation, I needed to process the jars for 25 minutes at a rolling boil.

I brought the water up to a rolling boil and began timing the berries. Suddenly I heard a bang. Sure enough, the bottom broke off one of the jars, resulting in a deluge of loose blueberries and a broken jar floating at the top of the pot.

I fished out the broken jar and let the rest of the jars process.

The culprit, I believe, is the racks that came with the pots didn't have enough clearance from the bottom. (During canning, jars should never be in direct contact with the pot's bottom.)

So I put a rack at the bottom. Duh, I should have done that first.

Typical canning chaos in the kitchen.

When all was said and done, I canned up 36 quarts of blueberries (including the one that broke), plus gave away another 10 lbs. of frozen berries to the UPS fellow.

Now 36 quarts of blueberries – on top of what I haven't yet used up from last year – is way more than we need, so we brought 24 of those quarts to church to hand out. (By the time I managed to snap a photo, several quarts had already been claimed.) The only request – augmented by a piece of tape on each quart – was to return the jars to me when the contents are finished. (What can I say, I'm territorial about my canning jars.) Needless to say, every last jar disappeared.

Interestingly, though, several older church members have offered me some of their surplus canning jars they no longer need, so it's turned into a win-win situation.

Incidentally, a reader asked, "How do you make pie filling from your canned blueberries?" To make a blueberry pie, I drain the berries, add sugar to taste, and about half a cup of flour, mix everything, and pour it into a pie crust. Sometimes I'll add a pat or two of butter over the top of the berries before putting the pie top on.

So that's our blueberry harvest for the year. With nearly sixty pounds harvested, that's about three-and-half times what we harvested the year before. I wonder what will happen next year?