I did elderberries syrup last year. I used common flat hair brush to remove berries from the stems. It worked quite good.
I use cold overboiled water to extract must from the berries. Typical amount is 5l water to 10 kg of pure berries. Extract time 24 to 48 hours. Kept cold as possible to prevent fermentation. Extraction by simply by pressing through kitchen colander. Add sugar at least 750 g for 1 liter of pure stew and 20g of citric acid as conservant and seasoning to get more fresh fruity taste. Slowly warm to 70-75 °C, keep hot for 5 minut and fill immediately into clear bottles. Close airtight and let cool down.
Drink straight or mixed with water, tea, wodka,… Use as syrup for hot and cold meals and cookies.
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For true syrup we never add water. About half the berry amount of sugar is first mixed with the berrys for a couple of hours, then slowly heated and simmered for a few minutes. Elderberry shuld always be boiled! Citric acid or lemon juice to taste. Strain or press trugh a cloth, the syrup is super rich in colour and flavour. Usualuly diluted with water 7:1 for a refreshing drink.
Ha! In winter, when day temps rise above freezing and night temps cool down, icey crusty snow forms. Mix this snow with the syrup for a nice treat.
The leftover berry solids can be diluted with water, strained again and made in to elderberry wine. Highly priced bevridge among cancer patients!
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47 quarts of dilly beans put up so far.
Canning lids are like bullets around here… you can’t buy them!
Next comes beets and cucumbers.
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Pulled out my trusty dusty Ryobi mitre saw, plugged it up and started it. Big bang, visible flash from the motor and it died. Checked and cleaned brushes, no such luck. Pretty mad about that. Was going to cut down some pallet wood into jenga block sized chunks.
Might copy CNCMachiningIsFun’s circular saw cutting jig for boards like that. I have a cheapo circular saw that I can use for that.
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That’s the ticket alright.
Summer canning outside in the summer kitchen on “gas”.
Regards
Steve unruh
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Part of my inheritance was this 32’ 1984 Shasta motor home. As you will notice it has been sitting for about 10 years.
Bob Mackey is a glutton for punishment and wants to fix it up.
Connie and I exposed it from the camouflaged blackberry briars.
Bob came over from Wenatchee and we got it running and began cleanup.
Still haven’t got the brakes working. May need a new master cylinder
Drove 45 miles and picked up 5 nearly new tires at my son,s place (free).
So we worked yesterday and got it running, more later.
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Luck morning here. The 500 bales I have in the field over night where saved by the fact that my accumulator puts then on their side in groups of 15. If they where flat I am sure that would have been enough wet to damage the hay as it is they will most likely just have one brown edge when all is said and done.
Raining all the time makes it impossible to get my hay in this summer. I suspect there will be a serious shortage of good hay this winter.
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Hey Dan.
I started cutting hay 3 weeks before our Argos trip and still have not finish with the first cutting . It has rained just about every day . The hay that I am getting up is so thick it is very hard on the equipment .
Wife and I have been wide open saw milling but have to take a lot of breaks . The temps ( heat index ) have been 100 + with the humidity 
:
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Wayne we got enough of a drought in the spring that it was killing back the grass before the month plus of rain in July. My hay has a dead first cut stunted and headed out from the drought with a good second crop comming through it is only about what a normal hay stand would be for thickness. But yes I am still struggling to get any weather to make the first cut. Right now I cut less than half the hay I should have and most of that in June when you normally can’t cut hay here.
In the last week I gambled on 1500 bales and if I am lucky I will get 600 I can sell the other 1100 will be cattle feed. I guess I do need the feed but too much of that was my good field that brings top dollar for horses. The beef literally isn’t worth the hay the cows eat compared to selling it for horses to eat. This is the worse summer I have ever see for haying and I grew up on this farm.
Oh well such is life on the farm. Be careful in that heat we are scheduled for 94 tomorrow and I am dreading the thought of it. I can’t take the heat.
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The high humidity is what gets me first. Next the laser hot sun heat. I hope all you hayers have a sun roof on the tractors. I’m thinking of making a roof like the steam tractors had for my loy-boy.
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Jeff I don’t think we get heat without humidity here so I just think of it as one in the same.
I have thought I should make a roof for my tractors but then it wouldn’t fit into the barm for clean out and I keep telling myself I will get the big tractor with AC rebuilt that I should be using for most of the haying anyway. But it seems to never get to the top of the project list
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We get hot days with low humidity. Those can be nice days if your out of the sun for the most part. The fall has days like that, more so than summer.
Myself, I like the 50’s and lower 60F’s.
Lots of mosquitoes this year.
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Tom, I tried the freezing method but didn’t find it any easier. It took two of us hours to de stem 5 gallons of picked elderberries. We had two days of frost in July while our elderberries were in bloom and the elderberry picking was dismal at best.
@KristijanL look up mugolio. I think it may be better than elderberry. Mugolio is syrup made with pinecones. In the recipe to make it, it suggests using brown sugar. I used maple sugar instead. It tastes amazing and the health benefits are even more surprising. Tuesday someone offered me $20 for a 5oz bottle of it.
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Mmmmmmmm maple sugar, nature’s most delicious sweet treat!
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I don’t know how you southern guys do it. It is 83 at 10am here and humid I am already slowed down to a crawl and not getting much done. Headed to mid 90s again today which is just too hot for this yankee.
Well I unfortunately have to suffer thought getting some hay stacked because there isn’t any alternative 300 bales need to get off the field today as I didn’t get them off yesterday.
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745 am and 72 degrees f, heading to a hundred fast today. Air is filled with smoke from fires all over the state and I’m replacing a 26’ all steel conveyor truck bed today, yesterday the bed got to hot to touch in the sunshine. Anybody that needs to hear it stay hydrated! I would imagine our roof loaders and drivers will get called off early today so we don’t have any heat related illness concerns
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I don’t know how we do it either. It’s why we kept all the trees for shade I guess.
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Here comes the Sun! 
Five days of sunny weather was enough for grapes to start ripening. Last Sunday they were all green like lawn beneath them.
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Look whats happening in our neck of the woods. Record breaking charcoal burn was lit, 75 cords of wood!
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