I'd planned to go to a local SCA demo called Middle Ages on the Green and life decided to intervene. First, the menfolk decided to start shingling the garage. I wasn't 100% comfortable about going off to play while they were slaving away on the roof and having to cook their own supper, but I thought I could toss something in the crock pot for them, or make sure I was home early enough to solve that problem.
Then 50 lbs of tomatoes dropped into my lap on Friday. I knew that my play day on Saturday was to be put on hold. After running around doing errands in the morning, I spent the afternoon and part of the evening, canning. That was blanching, chopping, heating, crushing, bottling and hot water processing all those tomatoes for hours and hours. Thirty seven jars later, I considered that I didn't think I did quite so many tomatoes last year. We'll be eating tomatoes all winter!
I also had some blue prune plums, the kind with the yellow flesh and dark purple skins. I turned them into jam as they all ripened exactly at once. I wish I had a photo of the before and after of this jam. The before was this ugly yellow mush with dark flecks. As it came to a boil though, the dark flecks of the peel, started to dissolve and the plum jam ended up a beautiful dark ruby red/purple colour. Sooooo very pretty and incredibly tasty too.
I was at Westfield again today. I was in the Misener house, which has an awesome wood cook stove. I was going to make gooseberry jam but after all that canning, I was plumb tired of processing. Instead, I dug up some carrots and beets from the Lockhart garden and tossed them in a pan with a piece of beef and some potatoes. I brought them home for dinner so that the hardworking shingling menfolk had supper, but I still got to get out and play. Those freshly dug carrots and beets were so delicious! It was crazy busy today at the village though, with lots of interesting people out. The day just flew by.
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