Adventures in homemaking...

Back when we went on our trip to Montana, my neighbor watered the garden for me. Except that they went camping too and didn't water for three days. My cukes all died except one pitiful plant. I think she felt guilty because she keeps coming over with bags full of cukes from her own garden for me. I don't hold it against her that my cukes died, but I do appreciate her kindness and generosity!

The other day she dropped off four enormous cucumbers - almost 6 pounds' worth. We can't eat six pounds of cukes even if we ate them for every meal, so I decided to make a batch of bread and butter pickles to be canned. I'll take a couple of jars to my neighbor to let her know we appreciate her!

Anyway, as I was pulling them out of the canner I noticed the water looked a little yellowish and cloudy - not normal. I pulled up the quart-sized jar I'd done and the pickles all fell out of the bottom. That's when I realized the bottom had cracked clean around and the bottom fell off of the jar.




I've never experienced anything like that before! Glad it wasn't an explosion or anything, though that's not common in boiling-water canning. It's either because the jar was old (probably acquired at a yard sale or something, and jars have a life of about 10 years) but could also be from a whole host of other reasons... I'm not terribly concerned, I doubt it'll happen again soon.

Now I've got to clean out the canning pot before I do the 12 pounds of tomatoes I've picked over the last week from our own garden. The canning pot is a mess:



I did manage to at least get four pints of pickles canned - won't last long, but they'll be yummy!



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I made a preemie hat for my dear friend Deb's new granddaughter, Mackenzie Danielle, born last week. She was born 10 weeks early: nearly the same as Chloe and seeing her pictures brings back so many memories! If you're a pray-er, or if you're interested in sending some thoughts of health and wellness, please do - Mackenzie's mama Meghan is still in the hospital with some lasting effects of pre-eclampsia. She could use some positive energy.

Here's the hat:




It's actually the second one but I forgot to take photos of the first. Chloe's preemie doll is the model. :o)

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Here's a pic of Chloe saving lettuce seeds for next year's garden:



And a photo of two busy little bees pollinating our pumpkin blossoms:



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One last bit of good news: Chloe's tooth finally came out this morning! And then she was walking around the house with it (who knows why) and dropped it. We managed to find it in the carpet though. YAY! for Chloe!!