Canning Like Crazy!!

Last week was a busy one at our house. Jeff dug up all the potatoes and put them all in a little garden wagon we have. That wagon was FULL!! So the next day I went out to the garage and sorted through the potatoes. I took all the small to medium sized ones into the house to be washed and canned. WHAT A CHORE!!! I scrubbed potatoes for about 2 hours that day and ended up canning 7 quarts that day! I was "potatoed out" that night (at 11:30 when they were finally all done processing, etc.)! So on Friday I had a half of a sink full of potatoes yet to scrub and can. So I began scrubbing...and scrubbing....and scrubbing! Two and a half hours later the sink was finally empty and the potatoes were all scrubbed and ready to can. I got another 10 quarts of potatoes on Friday! Again I was SO SICK of potatoes by the time I went to bed. I'm surprised I didn't have nightmares about potatoes...he he!!

On Saturday morning I made sweet pickle relish. Let me just say this..I LOVE my food processor!! If it wasn't for that magical machine I probably would still be chopping all the veggies that go in relish :)!! I had to let the cucumber, pepper, onion, and celery sit for 4 hours before I could can the relish. So while that was going on I made a Zucchini "Apple" Pie. It's zucchini pie that tastes so much like apple pie no one even knows the difference (and let me say it's very YUMMY)! I also managed to can 4 quarts of green beans during this time! After lunch I got the relish all processed after the allotted time and then the TRUE FUN began!

Jeff picked 4 5 gallon buckets of sweet corn on Saturday, husked it and brought it to the house. We started cleaning it, cutting it off the cob (Thank goodness Jeff bought an electric knife that morning) and getting it ready to can. We did this ALL AFTERNOON!!! Did you know that it takes 85 minutes to pressure can corn!! We did 13 quarts of corn! Our pressure canner only does 7 quarts at a time...so we did 2 batches. By that time we were both pretty sick of it but that was only 2 buckets worth!! So we ended up taking one whole bucket of corn on the cob and freezing that. Jeff then took another bucket of corn and took it all off the cob. We put it on cookies sheets and froze it so I could vacuum seal it later. Sad thing is...this hardly made a dent in our corn!! I'm not complaining though...it's really good corn and in the winter we will be so happy we decided to can and freeze as much as we did!

We have taken a little break from the canning but Jeff informed me this morning that the corn is ready and we will be canning and freezing more in the next few days. LET THE FUN BEGIN (yet again)...he he :)!! I need to do something with the rest of our medium sized potatoes too (probably more scrubbing and canning). I need to invest in a vegetable scrubber...probably a heavy-duty one :)!! Maybe we should have a corn picking party at our house too...anyone interested?!

We got to see both our VERY CUTE, VERY SWEET nephews this past Sunday. Corey is 2 months old today (which is hard to believe). He's growing like a weed. He weighs in at around 12 lbs. now. It's amazing to see how much he changes in a weeks time. I got lots of quality squeezing time in on Sunday. After we left Inwood we stopped at Adam and Morgan's house to see Cade. Oh my gosh he has grown so much since we last saw him 2 months ago. He is at such a fun age right now! He is starting to walk when you hold his hands and he sits and plays with his toys. He LOVES to stick his fingers in your mouth and try to play with your teeth. He's not quite crawling yet but probably will be soon (they think he might walk before he crawls though). He's almost 8 months old already. Where has the time gone! It was good to visit with Adam and Morgan too. It's a shame we don't get to spend more time together...everyones just so busy! We'll have to start stopping by there more often :)!!

So that's life at the Blankespoors! We hope everyone had a great weekend and is having a great week so far. God's Blessings to you all!!