Day Off

I have begun to reclaim my house. Shampooing the carpets last week meant that every single piece of furniture had to be moved, including everything that was formerly sitting on it. Because the carpets took a couple of days to completely dry, not everything could be put back in its home immediately. That, paired with going to the you-pick the next day and bringing home nearly 200 lbs of produce that had to be dealt with immediately turned my whole house upside down!

Slowly... very slowly, things have been returning to normal. Brad has been doing a lot of organizing and moving things to storage to free up some space for baby. I have been doing a lot of food processing. Keegan has been tending to most of the animals' needs, which thankfully have been few. The roosters are being very mean, though. They need to be dealt with soon. He also helped me pick almost 4 gallons of blueberries yesterday, which I also processed. That was a hot and miserable task that seemed to take forever! In reality it took nearly 3 hours, and because it has been storming every evening, and I wasn't up until late, it had to be done in the heat of the day. We had put it off for 4 days instead of our usual every other day picking schedule, because it has been storming. No more of that!

The current pantry total for this week is:

Salsa
    - 10 pints
    - 3 half pints
    - 3 quarts
Tomato Sauce
    - 7 quarts
Crushed Tomatoes
    - 5 quarts
Blueberry Jam
    - 14 pints
    - 15 half pints
Frozen Blueberries
    - 1 Gallon
Bell Peppers
    - 3 Gallons Frozen
    - 1/2 Gallon dehydrated (equivalent to ~3 Gallons chopped)
Onions
    - 2 dehydrator loads in progress and many more to go

Onions are the only You-Pick produce left to finish processing. They are still on the back porch drying out between storms. I have been covering them with a tarp and uncovering them when the sun comes out. I'm proud of myself for processing everything before one single thing went bad. Usually I have to toss at least a few soft tomatoes and peppers. I was on top of it this year. I may still have a few soft onions after it is all said and done. Brad was a huge help. He washed a good deal of it while I processed. We have some left over bell and hot peppers to use fresh and about 2/3 gallon of fresh blueberries that wouldn't fit in my 5 gallon stock pot last night. I will probably use some fresh and freeze the rest. Lots of bags of stuff need to be taken to the deep freezers at my in-laws'. We don't have room for a chest freezer here yet. I am going to try to process much more this year that can be stored at room temp.

The garden is doing well, despite my having spent very little time tending to it. Thank goodness for the rain and my having mulched heavily last week to help combat weeds. I need to spend some time out there soon retying tomatoes, checking for insect damage, and weed eating the rows. Cucumbers should be ready soon! That means pickles will soon join my pantry.

For now, another storm is echoing in the distance. Maybe I will get to take some pictures after the rain passes. I really need to get some cleaning done inside. Brad is at work and I miss having him home. Mostly, I think I will take some much needed down-time. There will be plenty to do soon enough. I need a lazy day.