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| In the front yard. |
Yesterday was also a very busy day. We did the three boxes of peaches minus those that just weren’t quite ready which was actually more than half a box so I’m not sure how accurate it is to say we did three boxes. Before doing them, I went into Gardner with Paul. He needed to pick up some stuff and wanted to look for some jeans at the Salvation Army. We stopped at Hannaford (a grocery store) where I got three dozen quart jars and met with success at Salvation Army. Paul found some jeans and shirts and I actually found some jeans, one pair was brand new with the tags still on.
Once we got home, we got the peaches done. As the afternoon wore on, I debated not doing the spaghetti sauce but went ahead and did it even though it meant not getting to bed until after midnight. Spaghetti sauce is easy enough—I just put the tomatoes through the blender and dump them in a 16-quart pot. Then it’s just a bunch of cutting (celery, onions and peppers) and crushing (garlic) and measuring (oregano, basil, etc.). Then it’s just a lot of waiting and stirring upon occasion until everything is cooked down enough. That’s the fun part. It’s easy enough ladling it into the jars and putting lids and rings on them. Then it’s waiting again: for the water to boil, for enough time to pass after the water boils, etc. Last night we got 22 jars of various sizes but one of the pint jars lost its bottom so I had a pot full of tomato sauce flavored water. Not bad, really, considering it’s the first casualty of the canning season.
This morning, I slept in until about 6:20. Trista, Scooter and I went for our walk and I wished I had the camera because the recently blue moon was up and was very pretty hanging in the western sky. I did take it out after we got in before I went out to milk and got some pictures of the clouds but missed the moon as it was behind some clouds. By the time I was done milking, the moon had gone down behind some trees and I wasn’t able to get a picture. Still, it was a pretty morning.
Milking was milking. Nothing extraordinary happened this morning to talk about. When I got in, I consolidated the milk we had into three jars so I could use one of them. Pretty unexciting and ordinary.
After that, I helped some boys get some breakfast and began working on chicken. We had paprika chicken with mushrooms and macaroni salad after church today. I’d made the salad last night while waiting for spaghetti sauce to process. That worked out well as I finished just one minute before the timer went off for the last batch. This morning, I cooked a batch of chicken and put it on a plate and cooked about one third of the onion and mushrooms just long enough to transfer the chicken to the crock pot. That worked well and the house smelled good when we got home. Once we got home, we just had to clear the table off (it was cluttered with stuff from the counter which had been cleared off for canning yesterday) and I cut up a watermelon so I wouldn’t have to do it later.
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| The spices for the chiken. This jar had paprika in it but there wasn't much left (it's at the bottom) so I added the other spices to it. Above the paprika is garlic, salt, and pepper. So much easier to shake one jar than four individual jars. I thought it looked kind of cool, so I took a picture. |
Jonathan and Elizabeth (Jonathan is the young man who was living here when we arrived from Idaho three years ago; he is married now) just moved back up here from Staten Island in New York. Jonathan moved down there about 15 months ago to marry Elizabeth. She is from Peru and is beautiful in more than just outward appearance. They are currently staying in Fitchburg with Devon, a friend of Paul’s. Anyway, they were at church today having arrived in Leominster last night with their U-Haul. Paul made them come home with us to eat (quite a hardship, you know). Those of us at home (other than Paul who took a nap) got puzzles out and worked on them. I hadn’t done a puzzle since Christmas when Laura got me one. Before that was before the accident when Daniel, Amena and I (and sometimes Laura when she was here) would work on one that Amena had gotten for her birthday or Christmas. We hadn’t finished it yet before we left and someone had the audacity to put it in the box.
Adam and Nick were also here to eat and when we were done, Adam, Nick and Jonathan went to unload the U-Haul and return it. Actually, they were just going to unload it and Jonathan was going to drive it back here and get Elizabeth. They’d been gone so long that Paul eventually called them and told Jonathan that he should just take the truck back because it was going to cost too much money to keep it and to fill it with fuel. So he did. They finally got back and we had the zucchini rum cake that I’d made after we ate. Then we had family prayer and read scriptures. Then Adam left, taking Nick home. He has to work tonight and still needed to go home and change. I hope he does alright tonight because he didn’t get any sleep today to speak of. Nick might be back tomorrow. Paul took Jonathan and Elizabeth home and isn’t back yet which is not surprising considering they only left about half an hour ago.
Currently, Amena is waiting for Cedric to finish rinsing dishes that she washed so that she can wash more. Laura, Joanna, Seth and Joseph are all abed. Laura probably isn’t asleep but the others may be. I am ready to go to bed. Morning comes all too early.
Have a wonderful evening and night!
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