Sunday was a productive day at the farmhouse. My dear friend and neighbor to the north of us, Dawn and her husband, Pete have an extensive and prolific garden this year. She asked if we'd like some pickling cucumbers (among other things), and I said we would.
Pete brought over a five gallon bucket of them, along with a large crate filled with red potatoes, more zucchini, and some gorgeous eating cucumbers. We sent home jars of pickled beets, pears, and green tomatoes in exchange. Pete had planted a whole row of beets because they love eating them, but the local deer herd proceeded to waltz right down that row, plucking and eating every last beet, leaving them with nothing. Our beets came from their crop last year, so I sent the last two jars I had left home for them.
Sunday was our day to see if I was up to canning the pickles. Handsome and I cleaned and sliced all the cucumbers and then I raw packed them into jars, covering them with the liquid for processing. A number of years ago, I did pickles using a recipe from one of my books, and got limp pickles that Handsome didn't particularly care for, so this year I bought packages of Mrs. Wage's Bread and Butter Pickle Mix to make the liquid. I didn't want to take any chances. I also added less than a quarter teaspoon of Extra Crisp to the bottom of the jar, hoping that would help.
After all the cukes were sorted, washed, sliced and jarred, I added the hot, sweet liquid, then added the lids and rings. I did wash the rim of each jar first, following safe canning guidelines. We had roughly thirteen to fourteen pounds of cucumbers, and ended up processing ten quarts, plus one pint of bread and butter pickles.
These jars all pinged and were labeled last night. They sat undisturbed overnight, and I'll make sure the jars are clean on the outside and will add them to our pantry stores afterward.
I'm going to bake some bread after physical therapy today, and will be pulling all my frozen San Marzano tomatoes out of the freezer to thaw overnight. My plan is to can homemade Rotel and salsa on Wednesday.
By the end of the day, I was tired, but Handsome was, too. We had a light dinner and called it a day. I did take a mild pain med before bed, but not the heavy duty hydrocodone. I'm reserving those for before my next few physical therapy appointments, but hopefully I won't have to take them through all my remaining visits. I hate taking that stuff.
I feel like I turned the corner Sunday. I was able to accomplish something I hadn't done for a while - standing and moving around for an extended period of time. I was proud of myself for being able to do something I loved with Handsome, without too much discomfort. That's a win in my book. Yes, I'm patting myself on the back. See you tomorrow!
