Another 90 degree day

[Clipper]

We have spent the day so far making bread and butter pickles. I slice and she cans. 16 pints so far. More to come tomorrow. We still have probably 1/3 or more of the 1/2 bushel basket left to can.

Just went to see a friend that has a homestead type farm near here. He plants an acre and a half of vegetables every year. He called me and asked me if I wanted some cukes, yellow squash, and green beans. His wife and daughters have canned 84 quarts of green beans and they are drying out 30 lbs of pinto beans.

While I was there he also gave me pound of his homemade breakfast sausage and 2lbs of fresh ground nice lean hamburger. They recently butchered a huge hog and an angus steer. They love the homesteading life. She is an RN an he stays home and works the farm except when he has a call to inspect a house. He is licensed home inspector.

They have 10 angus steers, 100+ chickens, 4 more hogs, 3 riding horses, and a turkey named Tom who greets everyone when they come. His favorite place to hang out is in the shade on the front porch. That bird is weird. When David is outside working old Tom follows him everywhere he goes. They bought him to raise for a turkey dinner but the girls got attached and now he has run of the farm.

Time to jump in the rain locker and clean up, shave, and we are meeting friends at Longhorn Steak House for dinner. The heat is just unbearable again today. Too hot to accomplish anything outside.

[Clipper]

Up and at'em early. Watered the garden, took the dog out, rolled the garbage can to the curb, wahsed the car, before coming in for breakfast.

The cukes my friend gave me were large and too seedy to slice for bread and butter pickles. I just finished cutting them into spears and scraped the seeds out. Today will be a DILL pickle day. I had enough of the large cukes to make about 3 quarts and I cut another 3 or 4 quarts worth of the smaller pickles from the half bushel I bought.

Now I am cutting the ends off the string beans and removing the strings in order to cut them up, blanch them, and vacuum pack them for freezing. There is probably 5lbs of them. I picked my first two zucchinis this morning. Zucchini is strange. A few days ago they were only about 4 or 5 inches long. This morning when I went to water there was two of them that had grown to 8 or 10 inches long in a matter of about 3 days. Just right for slicing and grilling or putting in a saute pan with butter and onions.

We froze a half a bushel of bell peppers awhile back, now we are canning the pickles. We will probably take a few days off before we start on tomatoes. Only put 4 plants in the garden for use fresh, but we will buy tomatoes by the 1/2 bushel for canning. She makes chili sauce, spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes, and this year she is going to can some salsa.

We will probably buy another 1/2 bushel of cukes for pickles, and a couple of half bushels of tomatoes.

Another day heading to almost 90 but I plan to work outside for a while until it gets too hot to do so. It is 83 and climbing already.

Have a good day all. Stay cool and stay safe.

[Clipper]

Go hot about a half an hour after I went back outside so I came in and cut up one of the large yellow squash my friend gave us yesterday. The skin is a bit thick and tough due to the hot weather so I sliced it thin and layered it with thinly sliced onion, minced garlic, a light sprinkle of Italian seasoning, and some butter. I am hoping that with an hour or more steaming and baking in the oven at 350 the skin may soften a bit.

Grilled pork chops done on the grill, a small green salad, and a baked potato will be on the menu. (not looking forward to standing over the grill when it is 90 degrees, but I am sure I will survive, lol.)