Making Mint Jelly: Parts Two and Three

I first posted about making mint jelly in the end of June. Obviously I'm a bit behind updating the situation.

We took one liter of the mint juice and followed the directions on the package pectin. That mixed the powdered pectin into a little bit of sugar. And then that was stirred into the cold juice in the pot. Once it was boiling, we added the rest of the kilo of sugar. Then we simmered as directed.

We cleaned jars out with boiling water and preservative stuff that I don't know how to translate. Basically we were following the package directions. We also added some green food coloring in the hopes of making our jelly more green.

We poured everything into the jars and let sit overnight.

It didn't gel.

So while I was still asleep, DH poured all of it back in the pot. He then added another package of pectin. And repeated the cleaning procedure.

That time it set. Unfortunately it is kind of brownish in color. I think it is because the mint that we use often has a reddish tint.

DH hasn't tasted it yet. I hope it is edible, because I'm making more.

This time I am using apples for at least part of the pectin. Our apple tree bloomed very heavily this year and started a number of small fruits. However, the strong winds this week have blown a number of them off the tree. I started collecting the other day and finished this morning. So although small apples are washed in the pot along with a lot of mint.

My reading says that the less ripe fruits have more pectin. Seeing as these are very far from ripe, I expect to get a lot out of them. So I added water to cover the mint and apples. Once it is boiled to falling apart, I will strain it and the juice straining system that DH borrowed from his parents. We used it the other day for the currants that I picked.

The point of this is to say that if you want to do it without fruit, use twice the required amount of pectin.

I will let you know how a version with apples goes.

Rain and Water Cups, Flies and Fly Masks

We've been having a lot of intermittent rain this week. Unfortunately, this makes the flies very hungry and aggressive. Although Tracy and Quintas have a good bit of hair over their faces, the other two do not. Daisy is hit worst by them and has had some problems with her eyes looking like they were getting infected.

A long time ago we bought a fly mask that was supposed to be a very large one for Daisy. We hadn't tried it at the time, but it looked huge. A few weeks ago, we went out to put it on Daisy and it nowhere near fit. We figured it would fit Quintas. So I got on eBay and started searching for a draft horse sized fly mask for Daisy. We found one and the seller also had a single cob sized so we bought that for Ria. Much to our relief, it fit Daisy although the ears are quite large--probably made for mule or donkey ears.

When DH got home from work a few days ago, he noticed the flies were swarming horribly on Daisy and Tracy's faces. Those two are currently going on the pony pasture because we ran out of grass on the main pasture. Because Quintas and Ria are a bit on the pudgy side we left them on the main pasture. DH will probably need to get them a bale of hay this weekend. Daisy especially is on the thin side.

So to deal with the fly problem, we went out and put Daisy's fly mask on her and the one we bought for Ria on Tracy. Despite the copious hair Tracy has down over her face, she still was covered with flies. We also wanted those to do both have them when they were going together.

DH went out to check and discovered that Ria and Quintas were also similarly infested. I immediately got on eBay but was unable to find an appropriate mask that was reasonably priced. The seller that I had gotten the others from did not seem to have any more.

As an emergency measure, we decided to make a headband strip like fly mask for Ria. I am not sure what these are called in the states. It is usually something that looks like a headband for a halter with lots of strings hanging down from it. What we did was take a piece out of an old T-shirt. We made it long enough that it could get tied into the behind the ears part of a halter and flow down over the entire face. I cut strips in it from about where it would be above the eyes. We took scissors with us to make holes for ears when we were able to figure out where they belong.

So we took both things out of the pasture with us. We thought we be putting the purchased a mask on Quintas and the homemade one on Ria. However, this is supposedly very large mask barely fits Ria, who uses a cob halter and not its largest fitting. We probably should've put it on Tracy, but we didn't feel like swapping them around again.

So we fit the T-shirt in strips on Quintas. We tied knots in the end of each strip, so they'll be little bit weighted. It seemed to be pretty good at keeping flies off her eyes. She kept puffing at it like it tickled her.

Yesterday morning I went out to check on the horses and take pictures. Only the tie pieces were left on Quintas. I brought her halter in with me planning to make one like I'd seen online. I forget the address right now, but I tweeted it a few days ago.

But then I got thinking about how much DH wants to cover the ears. So I went out and borrow Daisy's to try to copy it.

I did my best to trace after and measure the necessary parts. I planned to use veil fabric leftover from when I married DH a couple years ago.

Then I made some repairs on Daisy's mask. She hadn't had it on for a day but had already torn the tip off one ear and made several small rips. My hands hurt too much to fix all of it but I did shorten the ears to a normal height and fix the worst rip.

By the time I was done, DH was home from work. On the way in he discovered that the pump outside kept running to the had to be a water leak somewhere in the horses watering system. He turned the pump off.

He was starving so started dinner. I went out to put Daisy's mask on and see if I could locate the cause of the flood. But I didn't find any signs of flooding.

When I got back in, I started working on the mask. DH had picked up Velcro on the way home for me. I plan to pillage elastic from old pairs of underwear. DH didn't like that idea, so we went back out to the store to buy elastic.

Once back he worked on dinner while I sewed. Some things went pretty well, but it was very fiddly sewing. Every time I showed it to DH he would tell me how huge it looked.

It took me all evening, but I finally finished to eight o'clock. DH had insisted that we shorten the elastic a little bit from what I had measured with Daisy so it would not be so huge.

So DH went with me to fit on Quintas. It had a lot of problems, but it still provided some protection in the end.

The elastic is on the snug side by more than just a little bit. The piece that I cut to make the top of the head piece was definitely not large enough. I think the problem is that I should have caught a much larger piece and cut a piece out of it to sew it together so it had more space and a better fit. I also sewed the ears in wrong so they were sitting too tight to be comfortable. That was one of those places where I had had to do a lot of guessing.

Veil fabric is not strong enough for making the entire mask. It had a few holes in it already by the time we were done fitting it. Because I was too tired to make all those changes last night and would have to replace the fabric anyway, I had DH take it off and cut away at the base of the ears with a pocketknife. That disconnected that your base, a little bit from the headpiece and gave the entire thing more space. It seemed like it was going pretty well last night.

Despite copious test and searching, DH was not able to find a leak in the water system. He fears that we need to dig up probably about 75 m of hose to find the leak underground.

Luckily, Daisy and Tracy are close enough to home that we could connect a hose directly to their water cup. So they're on an automatic watering system without problem. Quintas and Ria on the other hand will have to have water delivered in jugs until we get the thing working. DH got a tub set up last night and partially filled it.

After breakfast this morning, I went over to check on the water and the fly mask. They still had probably close to as much water as he filled in, and the water cups are still full of water. Yesterday's rain probably put more in than they drank. When the grass is wet as it is right now, they don't drink very much. That at least helps in the workload. I was able to escape from having to pour jug in.

Quintas's ears are still protected by her fly mask. Her left eye is as well. But is totally torn away from her right eye.

If DH gets home early enough tonight we're going to buy fly masks tonight. While trying to fall asleep last night, I think I figured out how to make it better. We should use T-shirt material for everything except the section over the eyes. Daisy has already retorn the ear that I repaired yesterday.

I don't feel like putting the pictures in so you're going to have to live without them. My hands could not cope with sewing yesterday, and having used crutches to get over the pasture to check on the water this morning made things even worse. I can barely stand to do anything with them, including pickup cup of tea.

I am very relieved I don't have to make a new fly mask today because there's no way I could do it.

Bad Dream or Reality?

I had a really unpleasant situation last night. I'm not really sure if I was dreaming or if I was really having problems.

I felt like I was lying there, half awake and half asleep. It was like I was aware of things going on, but I couldn't do anything. I couldn't move my hands or my feet or say anything. I thought I was lying in my bed in the bedroom and that I was awake.

But I kept not breathing. I could hear DH breathing. He would take four or five breaths and I just wouldn't be able to breathe. Then suddenly I start breathing again, and take a couple short shallow asthma-like breaths. Then I would start to relax and stop breathing again.

Then DH got up to go to the bathroom, and I managed to move enough to crawl over to him but not talk to him. Then it started again.

I was up when DH left for work this morning. He says I must have been dreaming. He was aware of me being upset about something I was grunting some or something. But he didn't notice me having any breathing problems.

So was it really just a dream?

I've been up for several hours now, but I am so tired. I really didn't sleep well.

Confessing a Large Plan

I have been keeping a secret from some people for a while. I have a plan. It is probably going to take me years to complete, if I even can.

I am trying to write a book. The plan is to write it and actually get it published. I am even planning a sequel.

It is very likely that it will take years for me to complete this. After all, I've probably been working on it for more than a year already. I think I'm up to 25 pages. On the first one that is. Somewhere I have some pages written on the second one, but that comes later.

The basic idea is that I'm writing a mystery starring a handicapped woman with a service dog. In the first one she will be acquiring the dog and getting the idea of turning it into a service dog.

I wasn't going to tell everyone this, but I want to be able to tweet and blog about what I'm working on and weird ideas I get and things I want to know and all that kind of silly stuff. However, I want you to know that if anyone starts hassling me for drafts or explanations, they'll never get to see it.