Quick Post

I know I've been sparse here lately... I had a comment waiting for me this evening wondering where I'm at :) Not blogging very much, that's for sure! It hasn't been for lack of blogging fodder, I just haven't had time or energy.

The garden is about ka-put for the season. Except for the corn, it looks like a bunch of twigs. Oh, the peppers are still hanging on, and I need to go pick them again - maybe tomorrow. I think I'll pick the tomatoes one more time (tomorrow) and that will be it. They are pretty much toast. I haven't gotten nearly as many tomatoes canned as I wanted, but some is better than none.

The 1st planting of corn had a nice 1st picking, but the 2nd set of ears were not worth it. I'm hoping the 2nd planting will produce nicely - I only have 4 qt. in the freezer so far! I'm debating buying corn to freeze, but I have a full plate already and cannot handle corn at the moment.

Remember the post about Daniel's work having slowed down? That was for one week. Since then, until this week, he has been leaving the house between 7 and 7:30 in the mornings and not getting home until usually around or after 9, sometimes as "early" as 8 or 8:30. This week the weather is a smidge cooler and he's been home before dark both days so far! He's also on call this week, so there's no guarantee that once he's home he won't have to go back out, but so far so good :)

My days have been full of parenting and canning/freezing what produce we do get. On a typical day I spend the morning doing housework (dishes, laundry) and the afternoon working on getting tomatoes or apples ready to can, and then run the canner in the evening. Last week I did tomatoes and salsa. On Friday I went and picked up 4 bushel of apples that I had ordered from an orchard, and every day but Sunday I've loaded both crockpots and a stock pot full in the mornings, and then Daniel and I run them through the Squeezo in the evenings.

I did buy a steam canner this summer, and since I've figured out how to make it work on my glass top stove, it IS faster than waiting for the whole waterbath pot to heat up. I'm sure I'll especially like in in another week or so when I'll be getting 4 bushel of peaches to can!! I imagine I'll have the steam canner AND waterbath canner going if I can keep the jars filled and ready.

If you haven't seen it already, over on my side bar to the right I have been listing, just for fun, what I've been canning and freezing this year. All of the fruit I bought, but all the vegetables are from our garden.

So I am still alive and kicking :) Once the applesauce and peaches are over, I really do hope to get back to blogging more frequently. And maybe once in a while, like tonight, I'll just sit down and peck out something while I wait for the canner to finish.