Hello friends, Heidi here from Rain Country. God is good all the time, and in this Monday “this~n~that” I’m giving you a handful of real-life homestead updates—especially the kind of stuff you only learn by testing it and waiting. First up is my long-term maple syrup storage experiment. Back in 2021 I took Costco maple syrup (in plastic), poured it into glass canning jars, and vacuum sealed it. Five years later, it’s still perfect—no mold, nothing floating, and it tastes great. From here on out, if I can only get a good deal in plastic, I’ll just move it to glass and vacuum seal it so oxygen can’t cause surface mold. I also give an important update on my vanilla oil experiment. I tried infusing vanilla beans into fractionated coconut oil (twice—warm spot and then just “warm, not hot”), and both batches turned nasty after time. I’m not recommending it for flavoring chocolate, since extract won’t mix into cocoa butter like an oil will. I’m still using that vanilla-infused oil for hair and skin so it doesn’t go to waste, and I share the best store-bought vanilla oil I’ve found so far. Then I answer a common question on dehydrating meats (why I cook-freeze-dehydrate for non-ground meats), share my new frozen-parmesan coffee grinder trick, and explain why some of my videos are overviews with detailed links in the description box.