Wednesday, September 30, 2009

BUTTER AND STUFF

I'm having a great day. We are going to can BUTTER. Yes, survival fans, you can can butter. We will attempt to do 10 pounds of it. You will be told what happens, good or bad.

I am getting a little tired of the Gold Bugs. Yeah, I know it is a precious metal and all of that, but I can't eat it nor will it give me warmth on a cold night. A lot of people seem to be selling the stuff and telling you how to store it and make money off of it and all that jazz but it ain't for me. Beans, bullets, and band-aids will do me just fine if I can get some non-hybrid seed to go along with it. I just get a little tired of the relentless hustle going on to sell gold. It is maddening. The family with plenty of food will be just fine if they can defend their asset. And there will be people out there wanting your asset. Getting out in the country reduces the number of people who will be around. This is in your favor if you want to keep your food. But having a stash of gold will only make you a fatter target if the word gets out. You will have enough trouble protecting your food. And you think you will be okay during this malady that will haunt us, but you will meet people you have never seen before when their kids get hungry or their wife is crying. You may have known the person for years, even decades, but you will meet a new person if it looks like it will be you or them as far as living is concerned. It can be really ugly shit, folks. Be advised of the threatening conditions. Jim Sinclair, Gerald Celente, and Cliff High cannot all be wrong. We are going to go through some really bad times. Got your seed from Big John Lipscomb yet? You might look into that.

We are in the midst of the butter canning project. Did you ever try to melt 10 pounds of butter? It takes a while. But it has to be done and done properly. We don't want any scorched butter in our stash. The canning jars are heating in the oven. They go to 200 degrees. The lids and rings have been boiled. We wait on the melted butter. The Handmaiden wants to skim off the stuff that floats to the top of the butter and I have talked her out of it. I think it is just milk solids and is part of the butter and we are making canned butter not canned Ghee. Butter seems to be kinda funny. Some of the jars seal very quickly. Some seem to drag their heels for a longer period of time. They behave sorta "leaky" but they are sealing. Sort of. Shaking the butter in the canning jar seems to be an important exercise. You put the jars in the fridge when you get done canning but you go in there and shake the mixture anyhow. Thems the directions. We wait for future development. Ain't anything else to do. The Handmaiden left the jars in for a half hour or forty five minutes and brought them out. They were no longer hot to the touch and the shaking can be done quickly and efficiently. But as they cool there is less and less shaking to be done. All twelve jars have sealed.

So, we have 12 jars of canned butter, all sealed. There is one that refuses to congeal with all of it's milk solids dispersed throughout the butter. I have put it back into the fridge to see if I can get the whole thing to get more solid. If it does then a couple more shaking will just about do it. 12 jars of liquid sunshine. I am a happy camper. It has been on my mind to can butter for a year and I finally got to see it happen. Now I can let the system run out of butter and I will have plenty of time to look for a new supply. Terrific. And think of the barter value of canned butter. All that rice we will be eating will taste so much better with a little butter. And the Cornbread will go down so much smoother. I repeat, I am a happy camper.

Remus, of Woodpile fame, has sent out a heads-up concerning the FDIC going to negative numbers tomorrow. Good, says Michael. They will have to borrow the money to build the accounts back up or we will not have any guarantees of the safety of our bank accounts. If you have money then buy TANGIBLES. Things you can eat and shoot and bandage with. They will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no TANGIBLES. People are severely dependant on the use of money. Most folks cannot envision a world without currency. It is the system. Period. The dollar is the system. If the dollar is fried then the system is fried and that is that. I think the times are getting short in coming. We will be seeing misery before we know it. Get ready. Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net

5 comments:

Bellen said...

Once sealed, where do you store the canned butter? With other canned goods under the same storage conditions?

Staying Alive said...

Bellen-The Handmaiden is storing the butter on some shelves in a closet downstairs along with other goodies we have for storage. No special treatment. She feels it will be okay and I am going along with her. We shall see.

Michael

HermitJim said...

I have canned butter myself for a long time. The storage on it is in the pantry...and the shelf life is as good as most other home canned products. Haven't had one go bad yet.

A lot of people seem to frown on canning butter, but most of them have a vested interest in us NOT doing it, ya know?

It's been my experience that the shaking is the MOST important part of the whole process. Don't worry about the slow one...it will likely happen!

Pete Smith said...

I am happy your butter canning went well, I will try this weekend to do the same. I have lots of dry beans to put away with the food saver so I know my weekend will go by fast. I think I will try some small jelly jars for butter and see how it works. Thanks for a great Blog. Pete

http://patriotsagainstthenwo.blogspot.com/

G.C. said...

Last month me and moma (wife) canned 8 pints and 16 half pints of butter,same recipe as you used. Turned out great. For Christmas going to give home made zuchinni bread and half pint of butter to neighbors. Up here in U.P. all are preppers. Yesterday bought large bag (30 lbs.) of deer feed carrots for $4.00. Too good for deer feed so we canned them. Got 14 qts. and 8 pnts. Tomorrow same thing over again along with huge bag of apples for pies,apple sauce and apple butter. Apples were free.
G.C.