A wide field of tall yellow sunflowers facing the sky under partly cloudy blue skies.

What's new?

I've just published my Home Canning Reference article. It includes references to tested recipes, an ingredient chart with PC and Water bath times for different ingredients, including the source for those times. Also, some basic tips and answers to frequently asked canning questions.

I've just uploaded the last video in my tomato sauce series, please check them out!
these are the first videos in my canning series:

  1. Make Tomato Juice - Just the Facts
  2. Make Tomato Juice - Ramble Cut
  3. Turn Juice into Sauce
  4. Can Tomato Sauce for the Pantry (coming soon - check after 10/1 at 4pm)
  5. How to use a presto precise digital canner (coming soon - check after 10/4 at 10 am)

Check out my new Article Index page, which will show you all my posts sorted by most recent. Also, my Video Index which shows all of my published and scheduled YouTube videos.

What is 321 Oak?

9.4.25
by: Jill@321Oak
Pennsylvania, USA

321 Oak is the website home to my new education/lifestyle content group. It will eventually include videos on YouTube, books from amazon (the first one is in editing already!), and a group of social media outlets (links at the bottom of this page).

I’m Jill—mom, early retiree, and lifelong problem-solver. I built a successful career and invested wisely and that's allowed me to retire, but my real work has always been figuring out how to make things easier. I do a lot of personal process development and improvement. From raising kids to work, cooking, gardening, and managing money, I’ve spent a lifetime testing systems that actually work. Now I share those shortcuts so you can skip the overwhelm and take the next step toward your own success.

I’m not exactly sure what this site will become, and I imagine I’ll update this page over time as I figure it out. My hope is to document a collection of how-to articles, general research on my hobbies and interests, and lessons I’ve worked out over the years that might be useful to others.

As my content collection grows, I’ll be starting a YouTube channel and posting on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. Feel free to follow me around the internet if you’re curious to see how this turns out.

My Digital Garden: Why I Built 321 Oak as a Digital Garden

A quick note about this site: I use a note-taking program called Obsidian that I love more than is reasonable. The combination of Obsidian and a plug-in called Digital Garden is the core infrastructure I’m using.

I chose this format because it offers flexible navigation, keeps the site ad-free, and supports diverse but interconnected growth.

I wanted a format that was very different from the usual blog. You’ll probably arrive here through an internet search or a link from one of my other platforms. Those links will take you directly to the article you’re interested in. If that’s all you need, I hope you find the articles clear, concise, and simple to follow.

You’ll also see plenty of internal links to other articles. To navigate like a book, you can explore the file tree to the left. To follow the rabbit warren of connections, check out the graph view to the left; it shows articles that are linked to this one. As you move through different nodes, new articles will appear in the graph. If you’d rather dive deeper into the specific topic of the article you’re reading, scroll to the bottom of the page for direct links to related posts.

Ad-Free: Why 321 Oak Is an Ad-Free Space

This site is, and I expect always will be, ad-free. I dislike landing on a recipe blog only to wade through a maze of ads—some of which pop up directly under my eyeballs. It’s even worse when an outdated ad glitches and crashes the page.

While I do hope to finance this project at some point, it will be through YouTube, partnerships, affiliate links, and product offerings—not by cluttering the site with ads.

This gives me the freedom to write at the length a subject deserves. If you see a ridiculously long article here, you can be sure it’s because I’m trying to capture your interest and imagination for the sake of entertainment and learning—not just to capture your attention to rack up ad dollars.

Diverse but Interconnected: A Diverse but Connected Collection of Life Skills

Here I’ll be writing about the things I care about, the lessons I’ve learned in my first fifty-ish years, and the things I’d like my kids to know as they grow up. It’s a pretty diverse set of interests, but the digital garden style makes that work.

If you’re here for recipes, you can skip straight to the recipe file. If you’re not interested in canning tomatoes but want to know how I plan a kayaking trip, you can head straight to the river section.

To start, check out these first few posts: From Picking to Powder – Processing Tomatoes, Recipe – Simple Tomato Sauce

Join Me! Stay Connected with 321 Oak

So, welcome to 321 Oak. I hope you love it here. Please join me on my other platforms as they become available—I’ll link them here as they’re set up. For now, bookmark this site and check back to see what I’m working on. Eventually, I’ll have an email list and newsletter you can subscribe to for updates.

Feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions or comments about my content!

YouTube
Instagram
Pinterest
Facebook

Email: jill+comments@321Oak

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