August 23, 2013
Morning Show
1h 1m
Complete
Radio Episode
2013
▶ Audio Player
Summary
Mark Koernke discussed food preservation and preparedness during late summer, covering topics including sugar shortages due to Michigan sugar beet planting failures, food storage methods using oxygen absorbers and repurposed soda bottles, and seasonal gardening for fall crops. He shared extensive advice on canning, preserving, and drying foods including jams, jellies, and vegetables, along with personal anecdotes about gardening, farm life, and working in retail in a multicultural university town. The episode emphasized the importance of self-sufficiency and food production as economic uncertainty persists.
- food preservation
- canning
- sugar shortage
- preparedness
- gardening
- food storage
- oxygen absorbers
- michigan agriculture
- self-sufficiency
- jams and jellies
- root vegetables
- fall crops
- economic uncertainty
- homesteading
Transcript
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Hello, yeah, where you are? Hey, hey. In a second, Roger sales to do for Jeff Bennett with some technical problems. Well, mine and variety. I'm sorry, that's just too funny. And we're going to be with Robbie, Robbie Noel, Team York Robbie Noel, I believe. Are you with us Robbie? Yes, I am, Roger. I'm sorry. This is the funniest thing, man. How you doing, buddy? It's been great on this May Day. What was that May Day? I'm not sure if it's an official holiday here in Mexico, but I do know pretty much throughout Europe it is a holiday. And so Wall Street's not taking any from Europe as everything is closed. I've been on dot com today. We should go when they drop the hammer. before the weekend and then finished it on Monday to start all this in about two weeks ago? Yep. The thing they created is absolutely going to eat beef up. Just a little bit I've been able to check on the net. The problem I've had is I've got, you know, your Friday night, knocked off a bunch of electricity and the net intermittently opened on Sunday and I haven't had internet at home. We're at one of the hotels with Wi-Fi and the reason I was laughing and messing up is because I'm just now learning to use a cell phone on the headset. Evidently the tablets, any of them, phone capability built into the higher end ones, the telephones in all of them. Buddy Dave, two days on that day up there in Idaho, found that out and told me to go buy. I could go to a cell phone store and just go buy a little cell phone up on there. And that's the reason I had the problem previously, using the microphone on this tablet. So I went down and bought one, and they saw I just took on the microphone didn't know what they were and I've thrown the directions away and I hadn't been able to get back down there and ask them ready for the show and I bet music was and I didn't know what was wrong because you can't see it it's just down below your eyesight you can't see it very well so that's why I was laughing so hard became one of the areas I figured out how to undo that mute button and what it was I didn't know if it was all you roll or what so anyway just to give you you know why that sounded stupid but it was kind of interesting this mayday And you said celebrated around Europe and the markets are lackluster except for gold being knocked down 35 joint. What was the significance of May Day? Well, it's probably heard before. Okay. I'd like to hear it. You would? Yeah. Is what you understand... Fifth of May. Cinco C. Fifth of May. That's Mexico's national holiday, right? When you go drink? His clothes were torn and dirty as he stood here by my bed. He took off his three-cornered hat and speaking low to me. We fought a revolution to secure our liberty. The Constitution is a shield from tyranny. For future generations this length is this, the length we secured for you we hoped you'd always keep. The tyrant flavored endlessly while your parents were asleep. Your freedom's gone, your courage lost, you're no more than a slave. In this, the land of the free and home of the brave. You buy permits to travel and permits to own a gun. To start a business or to build a place for one. On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent. Although you have no voice in saying how the money's spent. Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate. And your Christian values can't be taught according to this estate. You read about the current use in a regulated press, and you pay a tax you do not owe to please the IRS. Your money is no longer made of silver nor of gold. You trade your wealth for paper so your life can be controlled. You pay for crimes that make our nation turn from God and shame. You've taken Satan. You've given government control to those who do you harm so they could burn down churches and seemingly farm. and keep our country deep in debt. Put men of God in jail. Harash your fellow countrymen while corrupted courts prevail. Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oaths they've sworn. And your daughters, this is for their children. Your leaders send artillery and guns to foreign shores, and send your sons to slaughter fighting other people's wars. Can you regain the freedoms for which we fought and died? Or don't you have the courage or the faith to stand with pride And are there no more values for which you will fight to save? Or do you wish your children as slaves once the republic arrives to defend the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, preserve our great republic and eat God's given right, pray to God as I awoke he vanished in the midst of whence he came. His words were true, not free, but we have ourselves to blame. Or even now as parents trampled each god-given right We only watch him tremble, too afraid to stand and fight He stood by your bedside in a dream while you were asleep And wondered what remains of the freedoms he fought to keep What would be your answer? He called out from the grave. things on the micro effect here in the morning and from micro stations around the nation. The Grandma Bell Association on the east coast and Spike Project across the Midwest and into the Rockies. So I wanted to welcome you this morning. It's a beautiful, another beautiful day. We thought for sure we were going to get some rain yesterday. It missed us again. Well, the sprinklers go into the garden, the coffee's perking on the countertop as this day progresses. Kitty gets all clean outside, and hopefully the goats are still on their pens. Like yesterday, look outside and watch them walking by. Oh goodness. Let anybody tell you, goats are some animals, because they're not. They are so smart. they will get out they will climb over climb under you know find any little chink in the fence and guess what? they're very social too and that was a big deal yesterday they were coming up to find the people oh my crazy critters crazy critters they're lovable though ah goodness but it's been a fun day so far beautiful morning as I said the corn Oh, it's everything's bushy and the kernels are full. We've had a great crop this year. In the north, I guess, they got a little more rain and it didn't turn out quite the way they wanted to, the corn crop. The big thing right now, folks, is you can get sugar and get it on your shelf. Do so from what we understand. The spring, the sugar beets here in Michigan were not planted. The seeds did not come from the company. Normally that company comes out, brings the seed out, they plant and take whatever they offer back. It's that heavily controlled, but no sugar wheat this year, which is quite odd. That's something you've already seen the prices go up on sugar. I know you have. I have. So whenever you can get that, whenever you see a sale on sugar, grab it. You can, of course, put that in an airtight container with an oxygen packet, which is available. You can get them online. The oxygen absorber, I know the LDS Church now is, instead of using a canning system where they can it, the way they used to in a one gallon can, they're taking the empty soda bottles, the two liter soda bottles, and using a funnel and putting green and dry goods in the soda bottles and recapping it because it's something you already have. It's going to save you that little bit. It used to be like 35 cents a can. The prices of cans have gone up and for the price of free cans, that's another dollar that you could have to go towards your food storage. They have suggested that cleaning the bottle felt thoroughly and then placing your food product inside with the oxygen absorber and put it on the shelf and don't think about it for a while. You don't need to. And that's a good thing. It's one of the fields up tight and obviously is, they would not be telling you to do so, which is really good about doing so. And for the latter day saints, it's a request. They strongly suggest their members three years, who still, you know, it's not a bad plan. Even during Michigan after a few years ago, hoarding laws, if you've got more than six months through during a crisis, you're hoarding, oh my goodness, you know what? And that's the beginning. If I get down to six months, I panic. It's that simple. Oh goodness, yeah. It's like, oh my god, we're running low. I'm like, eh, I've only got four cases. And as the family gets smaller here, as will happen, it takes a little less. But no, that's where I get that. I will go into a little panic attack. In February, if I don't have my garden planned out, man, I'll stay up all night and plan my garden out. Make sure we have the seeds on hand, and of course, when I start to take a little longer to germinate. So that's always a fun dance. I watch these people come into the store where I work and they're there five times a day. It exactly how you can live from meal to meal. They come in in the morning for a donut and coffee. They went out to the mall to do their exercise regimes. come back and pick up stuff for lunch and they're back again mid-afternoon for a little snack and a kid for dinner because they're literally making a run to the store four or five times a day and I'm thinking wow your gas bill, gas bill, you know gas bill's gotta be written. And then we have people that just, you know some older people they're just there most of the day they come in they get a little something to eat over, they walk through the store, check out the Markdown, go over to the book section and read, and come over to the deli for lunch, and they're back over to finish the book, but you know, get a little something else to eat, and then they go home. It's been the whole day there. It's amazing. It's amazing. The lifestyle that I live is just really amazing to me. How can you spend your entire day in a store and do it repeatedly? Uh, two, three, four times a week at least. You love these people dearly. They're nice people. I can't wrap my mind around. Oh my goodness. Damn, it's a little different. Sometimes, you run into some very, very different people. Some that are grumpy, some that are not. That's retail. Some people are, you grow up. to it and others that they just can't deal with. There are various different people that are out there with what we see, especially in this area because it is such a multicultural, and I say that it's not just different cultures in the area, but because of Eastern Michigan University is where all the foreign exchange students come to learn English. before they go off to the respective universities. So we get from around the world, we'll stop in, in different levels of being able to speak English as well. So it's an interesting place, because you want to talk about a melting pot. Oh boy. Different ideals on how things are done. Goodness. The different areas of the country. It's about having to really, the world really, without having to go too far, without having to to make the distance from just in the different things. They have to be food, different availability of things in the area. Goodness, things that they're used to. Mark used to run into the university where he'd have to come in on a maintenance call. So the stove networking and the people were trying to start a flyer and the oven cleaned up. It wasn't working. They couldn't figure that one out. That was an eye opener. Thank goodness it wasn't a gas stove. Oh my. But yeah, it can be a little bizarre here from time to time here in the little state of Ann Arbor and all the outlined areas. But a lot of fun. We've had a lot of fun here and you have to giggle sometimes with some of this stuff that when you look at their background and where they're from and what they're used to it's like, okay, it's just they're not familiar with the technology. They're not familiar with what's going on here. And they're used to doing things their own way. So make adjustments and you have to sometimes take them by the hand and teach them how things work for their own safety and health. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it's a little bizarre to say the least. I will say this, if you're, it's that time of year here in the nation for food preservation, ladies and gentlemen, for coming in and there are so many different ways in which you can put things up, be it pickling, be it canning, be it drying. We were talking, as we talked earlier, about corn production this year. It's just, the corn is beautiful here in the area where I'm at. I don't think I've ever seen, I remember, you know, in writing with my grandfather on this tractor in the South, I'm not used to seeing Michigan corn get 12 and I'm just, it's in the past, so to speak, the corn that's grown field just outside my window here and see it so big and so tall. It just makes me happy, makes me very happy to see that. It just brings out so many memories of when I was little and visiting my grandfather on his farm down in Mississippi between the corn and the cattle and going out into the fields with them. That was something I really enjoyed just, you know, spent time with Grandpa. have those childhood memories. It just invokes that. It's been a very nice summer here. But the production time is here, and it is at hand. If you don't have time off to invest time in your food production, it's something you want to do. If you haven't, again, we've talked before about if you haven't put a crop in, there are a number of things you can put in. Harseness, turnip, dishes, any of your root vegetables. go on the ground now to further south. I know in Michigan years the wood will put in to put in spinach, but you can put spinach peas of your cabbage type product, the cauliflower. You put it in now Southern Indiana and lower you might get, you should be able to get in, you know, those type plants should produce a major frost. They do very well sweeter than what you put in in the spring. because it is cooler. Spinach and lettuce, getting a little cooler. If you put those things in now, they won't bolt. If you put them in tune and it gets really hot really quick, it will bolt and seed and you don't get much product. As I said before, cool enough, we've had, I only put one planting of lettuce in. I didn't need to put more in. It just now bolted. And here at the end of the season, I am getting some for next year, this is all good. Very happy, and I'm still also getting more lettuce leaves. It's a little tougher, just good for stuff I was getting earlier with a great salad. Enjoy your salad, now's the time, and everything's coming off. The cucumbers, the tomatoes, we're getting some of our squash off. The winter squash is beginning to ripen, looking very good. Michigan Watermelons. Beam production is still continuing to go, producing well every other day. We've got that coming in on a regular basis. The thing is with the beams you can dry them very easily, freeze them, or tickle them. There's a variety of ways that you can do that. When I was talking about drying, tomatoes are great to dry those. When you first got the dryer and found you could get 13 in a 1 quart jar. by drying it, pulverizing it, and making it into a powder to add to two of your things. So just really, really, really, especially for using warm or hot water comes back very, very nicely. We are getting to the bottom of the hour here, which is coming up on a break pretty quick. But with that in mind, you know, it put as much away as you can. Times are uncertain to say the least. They're saying we're in a recovery, but yet we're hearing, you know, Things in the wind about another, another collab. Keep in mind, you know, October is generally when we see these kind of things happen. I believe I hear the music. So we will be back after these messages from the micro effects with more of the IntelliC 3.4 here in the morning. one ounce of gold would purchase a good quality man suit at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, and today. You may not be in the market for a new suit, but you don't know what the future may bring. Gold is the one financial constant the world has ever known. It can always provide you with your basic needs. Whether you're looking for junk silver, old silver dollar rolls, gold bullion or fractional tradable gold pieces, Kettle Moraine is your full service representative with over 50 years of knowledge and personal experience. Visit flyingeaglegold.com or call us at 623-327-1778 today for competitive prices on all your gold or silver needs. If you're looking for real financial insurance, call Kettle Moraine today at 623-327-1778. 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They came up during the depression and part of that was, man, when the depression hit, you did not know how to preserve food for yourself. You, or to have, live on a farm, you didn't have food. It wasn't there. The farmers were not being paid enough. They were actually farmers that would take their milk and pour it out in the street. Mark tells of, you know, that time that his story of daddy went to the store with his father and, you know, when the farmers were having their strikes back then because they weren't getting enough to grow the cock from what they put in. dumping milk in the street. And this one woman that was in the shop, and we went, oh, it doesn't matter to me, I went, I couldn't can. But he grew up here, and plus the can, where's the can tree? No, no. So, you know, we always had a garden, we had our food up, and it would be enough to get the food to win there, and to, and to the next growing, and beyond. It was a matter, it's a lifestyle, growing up and doing that. For me, it's become a passion. I love cooking. A lot of people don't like cooking. And it's something that is, for me, if I see a canning book, I see a cookbook, you can ask Mark, I've got so many. Oh my goodness. One of the ones that really negative things about there is really, truly love this taste of all. They've come up with a canning and preserving book. I just, I don't remember picking this up. I've got it here and it's fabulous. Different ideas that can be done for things that you wouldn't normally think of. For rosemary jelly for instance, taking your rosemary and keeping it, getting the oils out of that and then adding. other things. Don't be afraid. I had the people at Yuchen, they were amazed because I took a rhubarb and strawberries and put them together, which is a classic mix. You can do that? It's like, yeah. You can add as many different berry together combinations as you like. Everyone loves what we call a triple berry jam or a forest jam. You know, you get strawberries, you put raspberry and put them all together and you have a fabulous chance. You know, you've got small quantities of seeds. Put them together and before you know it you have enough air to do a jelly or jam recipe. It's a great thing. We did a juneberry, I'm going to do juneberry, rhubarb, codware this year for our family reunion that was just Very good. I do that as a crisp as well. But you can mix things, mix it up and try new things. Don't be afraid to experiment. Especially, you know, you've got two flavors you really like and one you believe one will complement the other. Something, there are a few things in here too that most people don't think about. The spring wild violet, the American violet. you can pick the blossoms and turn that into jam as well. Some things it's just, it's, of course you have, you know, your hot pepper jams are more popular there. They're making their way to the Midwest here. This is a big melting pot here. You get people from all over the world here who get a lot of different flavors, a lot of different requests for different things, and we get to try quite a bit. It's, testing ground, if you will, for the manufacturers will test markets or products in this area to see if it's going to take off nationwide. We've had a few weird ones, you know, the purple and neon green ketchup, that was weird. But trying to market to children and that one didn't take off. thank goodness, because it was really gross looking. You can imagine a, oh goodness, colored side, I'm sorry, it's one of those things you just kind of, really, the green maybe, but purple. I don't know how they did that, it had to be a lot of food coloring, but they did it, and it was, it was, too, adding nuts to your jams and jellies. It really, once you add nuts to it, it's a concert. If you don't want the extra nuts here, of course you can add a little bit of almond, walnut, whatever, to add that flavor to the hamster jellies that you're making. Up here in Michigan, we're getting toward the end of our blueberry season. One blueberry farmer at the end of the season, after he closes the field to the U-pick, because he's starting to get picked over, he'll open the field set to the local people to come in and pick everything. He wants everything off those lines so that it produces more nectar. So he opens it up for free, come in and pick all that you can, which is always very nice, and it's usually over the weekend. good three, four days that's done for the year. So we're looking forward to that. If you have anything like that in your area, I know to the north of us, people come in. Basically, it's like a cleaner's time. Come on in and pick up the juice for free. To the north, they do that with onions and potatoes and carrots, which is really nice if you live in an area where they allow you to do that. Then you can You can put a whole lot of food. Here we have a root cellar in the basement. We have the earthen floor and it's a great place to store your root vegetables. We put about a pound of potatoes away a year in there in that root cellar late fall February before they start to sprout again because that's when they still start to do that down there. It's warm enough. At that time, it will start to press when you've got to watch for potato rot. So, you know, the last year, it's a little winter. And you can do the same thing with carrots, any of the root vegetables, parsnips. So things that you don't have to can. Carrots will not last as long as potatoes. But potatoes last a good long time in there. Carrots, if you layer them in sand, We'll build this great and actually get the root cell. Amazing. We did that with, and it was before we just left them in the bag and they started to rot before too long because they didn't have the foil around them. But if you layer them sand and just go down and pull them out, that is another way. Which if you have the luxury of a type of root cellars. And I picked up these trays from work. You get the organic and plumsons, nice little plastic baskets lined it with paper. But the thing is, at the end of the year, I can flip that, put that sand out. And they're beautiful. I mean, these lovely put some back in the ground to get the seed off them, because carrots will seed every other year. So they have a two-year life cycle. The first year, that root is very tender. you get kind of, and we'll go to seed. But you want the seeds off of something. If you've got a really nice producer, nice flavor, and it's what you're looking for, then you want to get the seeds. You want to save them. And that's what we've been doing with this one volunteer cherry tomato plant that has produced and produced and produced. If you save those seeds, we've actually let it go to seed out there just last year. And I think that was a mistake. Because there were so many, oh my gosh, hundreds of seeds that landed in the areas. We're having to send them out and get them out of there. I think we've got probably 20 plants that are sitting in pots. They won't get as big because the roots are contained in a smaller container. They're only, they work so much, plant life above. the size of the pot is going to determine the size of your plant. So remember that if you're going to do some container gardening, patios, tomato things of that nature. If you're going to put a tomato plant in there, you want to be nice and big and get nice big fruit. You got a nice big base on that. Nice big pot to put it in. Remember a number of different things, canning, jams and jellies. But also like best in winning a big pot of chili, you can Do your soup, your salsa, set time of year to to dig up your... Oh my goodness. Your horseradish. Now horseradish is very, very pungent. I've made my own, I tell ya. Dan, you want to do this outside, folks. Isn't that something you want? Because... Oh my goodness. Ah, very, very, very strong, very pungent. You won't be able to breathe in your house if you try to do it in your kitchen. If you don't have your own horseshoe, you will not. So if you go to... because I peel the roots. Some of the shavings off the roots side and I now have this high clump of horse radish. And if you think you can get rid of it, not a chance. Not a chance. You're going to have to burn it out. Use something to fry and it's very tenacious. Whatever you do, if you have it and you're trying to get rid of it, don't rototill it because every piece that's ground up in another plant. Really amazing stuff. or horseradish sauce, little horseradish and mayonnaise or mustard. The way we do, it's a good thing. But peeling it and then you want to grind it very, very fine and food processed. Food processed, I'm going to talk this morning. Or in a blender, you want to make sure again, you do this outside because you take that lid off. All that, the fight is in the air. Something I saw, which I have not seen before in the grocery store, is turmeric roots. I used to see dried turmeric, so I'm half tempted to, because turmeric is one of those things that are used in bread and butter pickles and also in our cucumber relish. I've not played with it yet. And I say play because I look at my kitchen It's not just the kitchen. That's my laboratory, so to speak. I get to go in there and play and experiment and try new things. I've only had one major failure over the years with the kids. The kids called eggs erroneous because everyone was really bad and sick. And of course they took it and it's done. But yeah, it's like I ever made. But you're going to have successes and failures to different degrees. Some that are not going to be so good, some that are going to be just fantastic. Your sense of smell. If it doesn't smell good, it's not going to taste good. Taste is... If it doesn't smell good, it's not going to work out. Trust palate. If it tastes good to you, it's more likely going to taste good to other people. And in that sense, don't be afraid to try things too. If you see it in a cook, someone has put it together and liked it. If it happens to try smaller, if you like it, don't go out and buy bushels when you're experimenting because that's really what it is. There are out on the market many many different types of things that can be done. You can duplicate at home. Take a look in your grocery store and see if there's, you know, that sounds interesting. I wonder if I can recreate that. Take a look at the ink list. Is it something that you have? reproduce it, try it. You'd be surprised how easy that is to market. Mark and I have done that for years, is take something and see it and say, okay, these are the obvious ingredients. There have been one or two times what we've been signing about. Okay, what's giving it this flavor? And had a hard time finding it. It's a lot of fun to do if you really truly like to cook and experiment. And I believe we're at the top of the hour already here. This morning, this Friday, people to ammo goes. In this case, our ammo has to be at this production. Something to get on the shelf to keep people running on this one. It'll be there. Like we're never gonna get out of this hole. Maybe I can help. We sure could use it. We've even taken out loans to help make payments. Well, you're not the only ones. Did you know millions of Americans live with debt they cannot control? That's why I developed this unique new program for managing your debt. It's called Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford. Confusing? Where would you get this saved money? Chapter 3. You don't buy it. Well, let's say I don't have enough money to buy something. Should I buy it anyway? Now I'm really confused. It's a little confusing at first. Well, can you buy something? When you don't have the money. Something I want. And then hope that I can pay for it, right? You make sure you have money, then you buy it. Oh, did you buy it before you have the money? No. It's in the book. It's only one page long. We interrupt this program for an hour