Laughing Thyme Farm: Living the Dream

This weekend was a canning festival.  Well, festival was probably a poor choice for wording, because it was HOURS of work.  That topped with church, a party, family visits and many other small, but time-consuming events made for a jam-packed weekend.  SO I guess the appropriate wording for the first sentence would be: This weekend was a canning marathon. 

Aggie and I were butting heads for a couple of hours on Friday concerning her math just because she didn’t WANT to do it.  I, on the other hand, insisted that she must do it.  (Guess who won? Thaaaaat’s right.  Mommy.)  She is perfectly capable of doing it.  In fact, she is a whiz at it.  I guess that she was just wanting to do something else.  So, I wasn’t able to get my water-bath canning done on Friday as planned.  This made my weekend schedule THAT much more tedious.  

Saturday, I canned some more crushed tomato and pickled hot peppers. I can’t remember at the moment how many pints of crushed tomato I made, but I got 1 qt. and 1 pint of the peppers.  I made 4 qts. of cinnamon applesauce. Mmmmm.   I also cut up many, many pumpkins.  So many pumpkins that my hands were orange and ached afterwards. I couldn’t get to pressure canning them until…

Sunday.  I canned 13 qts. of pumpkin, 2 qts. of butternut squash, and 2 qts. of sweet potatoes.  I have the one of the biggest non-commercial pressure canners, but it only fits 7 qts. at a time.  So I had to process each batch 90 minutes, wait for the pressure canner to “chill” for an hour and then start another batch.  I was up until probably 2 a.m. last night getting this done.  My parents were good enough to stay up the entire time with me.  Eric stayed up for a good portion of it, but he had to work today. 

I am writing now at 4:30-ish.  I’m getting rather groggy, but my day is far from over.  I will say that my body longs for some sleep.  However, it is relieving to my mind to know that I have a majority of the canning done for the winter. 

Overall count for my pantry for the winter, (after giving some away and using a few thing already,):

21 qt. pumpkin

2 qt. butternut squash

2 qt. sweet potato

2 qt. and 1 pt. canned peaches

2 qt. and 1 pt. pickled pepper stuff

3 qt. pickled watermelon rind

1 qt. and 1 half pt. peach-ginger jam

2 pt. strawberry jam

2 half pint blueberry jam

1 half pint pickled onion

8 qt. applesauce

14 pt. and 1 half pint crushed tomatoes

In freezer:

lots of chopped onion….don’t know how much

chopped onion/bell pepper mixture….don’t know how much

In storage:

14 small spaghetti squash

The pumpkin, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, half of the tomatoes, one qt. of peppers, and all the onion came from our garden.  I’m hoping that next year we’ll be able to double the harvest.  I’ve learned what to repeat for next year and what to do different. 

I’ll probably buy some more apples at the farmer’s market.  I still have tomatoes producing, so there will be more tomatoes to can.  I love pickled green tomatoes so when the frost comes I’ll get those done too.  We have three walnut trees to harvest a little later on too.  I have some zucchini and summer squash to grate and freeze in the fridge right now.  But not today….