Jump start

No work got done on the house project this week. it seems sometimes life gets in the way of our best laid plans. The week got a jump start with a family gathering for our oldest daughter's birthday. A special event, we value and treasure every year we have with her and each one of our children, and their spouses, now our children too, and our "adopted" children and all the grandchildren. We don't take any of it for granted, as we don't know what tomorrow holds.

The time was precious too, because today our second oldest daughter, her husband and children left for a month in Alabama. When work is not to be found where you are, you have to go where the work is. We are praying a job will turn up even yet, when they come back, but that is in the Lord's hands, too.

Tuesday seemed like Monday because our usual time for our family gatherings is on the weekend. So, I was mixed up. Monday didn't start out very well and it took me nearly all morning to finally get my feet under me and get going. Whew. Just in time for everyone to get here and the fellowship to begin. But what I should have done Monday, waited until Tuesday...

Apples. We picked up green apples from under the trees, they were too thick and some had to be picked off. I just found a recipe on a bringbacksimplicity list, for homemade

pectin. anyone that knows me knows that I HAVE to try it. If I have the raw materials it just begs to be tried. So, today I have got the apples juiced, and now I have to go out and finish up the job, just cooking the juice down to half the amount and canning it up. I'll try making jelly later when things aren't so busy. As it turned out the pectin idea wasn't a good one. It had to simmer to cook down to half the amount and in the process scorched on the bottom of the pan. Not only did I not get to can pectin...I had to deal with the mess of cleaning up a scorched pan as well. Not my idea of a good time.

Multitasking on Tuesday. while apples cooked, the Breadmaker maid worked at our bread for the week. I added a few seeds to a few of the loaves today. More nutrition.

....yeah, I multitasked my way through the rest of the week. The bread turned out good. We found out we don't like millet seeds in our bread. But sunflower, flax and oatmeal did work.

Wednesday we did an early morning "drive by" of the gardens, noticing there were zucchini squash ready, beans to be picked, and the corn was ready for canning, peaches soon and I have to figure out what to do with the plums too. Tom helped me husk the 107 ears of corn and I proceeded to cut it and get it ready to can. One batch did make it through the process before we left for church, and we got 20 pints of canned corn. The rest was in jars waiting to be processed when we got home. However...it looked to be too big a job and I went to bed instead. Sometime in the middle of the day, we pulled onions too. Left them to dry on top of the ground.

Up early Thursday morning to complete the corn, but...the lemon juice reacted badly overnight and all but 5 pints had to be pitched. :-( Lesson learned. While waiting for the corn to process, we ground up the ingredients for pickle relish and set it to brine. Then we were off to Adrian for groceries and errands by 9:30. Always a major energy drain, and it met those expectations. Not much else was accomplished. Except later in the day some nasty looking clouds indicated we were going to get rain, and maybe some wind or hail. We hustled around and got all the onions picked up off the ground just before the rain got to us. The most of it went someplace else though, we barely got enough to lay the dust. However, we are thankful not to have had wind or hail to ruin fruit and vegetables.

Friday morning before I really had a chance to wake up Tom requested assistance. The onions had to be spread out to dry and he had an idea! It was a good idea too, as it used up some shelves and lumber that we weren't sure how to store. The end result...a number of hours later was a very nice set of 2 drying racks with 3 shelves each. All 500 of the onions fit too. Bonus! After a rest and some lunch I started on my projects...

I had a 5 gallon bucket of thawed out chicken necks, backs and wings needing to be cooked up for canning chicken stock. A 5 gallon bucket of green beans to can, and pickle relish to can. Finally, I closed up the summer kitchen at a little after 9 and was ready to call it a day. I ended up with 7 qts, 10 pints of chicken stock, 7 qts and 3 pints of canned beans, and 14 pints of relish. And some pretty achy muscles to top it all off.

It's Saturday. The last Saturday of the week. When you are retired you have 6 Saturdays, a Sunday then it starts all over again. And I'm laying low today. No early morning drive by of the gardens. I don't even wanna know what's out there!!! I got some mail ready for the mail box, and put it out for the mailman to pick up. Walked out to the soap shop but don't have the energy today to think about what needs to be done. Did just a little vacuuming , still a little more to do. Oh, and did a little housekeeping for the parakeet currently residing in the living room. Grandma gets to parakeet sit when 11 year old Emma goes away. She and her family are in Alabama for a month, so Pretty Boy entertains us. In a little while I'll make an attempt to finish up a soap order....That would be a major accomplishment for today.

We are hoping to get at the porch roof this next week but, we'll see how that goes.