I'm the Boss, Applesauce

For all the work I did yesterday, I don't have much to show for it. When I say "work," I really mean time. Despite the time it took, I'd forgotten how easy it is to make applesauce. The apples are just cored and chunked up. You don't even have to peel them. After they're cooked, the peels come off in the food mill as I run them through and turn them into that tasty stuff we call applesauce. At the end of the day, I had 15 pints.

There was time left in the day to finish off the tomatoes I'd harvested. I wasn't planning to make any tomato jam this year, but I still had tomatoes on hand. So I turned those into a small batch of tomato-jalapeno jam. My yield was three half-pints. 

Except for the spicy plum barbecue sauce I want to make when we get home from our trip, I've declared an end to Canning Season 2021. In all, I used 123 lids this year. You might know that lids have been in short supply during the pandemic. Jars too. I've managed to collect quite a stash of both when the opportunity presented itself. Last winter, I purchased a pile of lids on Amazon, and I didn't even break into that stash this year. I'm probably set with both lids and jars to last me the rest of my life. Don't tell anyone, okay? I'd prefer not to get robbed at gunpoint.

There was still a little time to head into the sewing room. Of course, my faithful helper cat was right there by my side every step of the way.

She's so funny. She hops up on the table, which takes up pretty much the whole room. (It's a ping pong table. Nobody ever played ping pong, but it makes a great work space.) Wherever I move in the room, she runs alongside on the table top. Even if I only move a foot or two, she runs alongside. It seems as if she'd wear herself out doing that. Sometimes when she's too much in the way, I encourage her to hop into her little kitty bed, and she complies...most of the time. One could not ask for a better sewing companion.

Oh yes, and I should update you on Smitty. He's seemed much better the last two days, and he seemed nearly 100% by the time we went to bed last night. It looks like he'll survive this illness. I won't lie though...we were very worried about him.

So did you notice? Jenny of Elefantz released the new Posies block a day early. My problem was that I didn't know what the color of the month would be for September's Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Okay, so I looked through the blocks to see what colors we'd used, and thought about which colors we probably would use. I figure orange will be October's color, and so I winged it by choosing lavender for September. Just now I checked the Soscrappy blog, and the new color has not been announced. We'll see if I chose wisely. Whatever color is chosen for September, mine is already committed to lavender.

So, I made up the next block, and now it's ready for stitching.

Usually, I can finish these in one sitting. We're heading out to the grocery store this morning, and so I don't know if I'll get it done. It's okay though because I'm trying to stretch out my stitching projects until we leave on our trip. I was both grateful and amused at the many of you who expressed your concern that the thimbles project would not keep me busy for the six weeks of our trip. You could be right. The way I figure it, I'd have to finish two thimbles each week in order to run out before we get home. I doubt that will happen, but I can't rule it out either. You can all stop biting your nails though because, at your urging, I'm going to try to trace out one more project to take along. There might be time today, so we'll see.

As for today, we're going to harvest what's left of the corn. Mike will help me to shuck it. Shucking is a "thumb thing," which is the term I've given to things that are harder for me now that I'm living with a previously-broken thumb. My thumb is way better, and it doesn't hurt much any more. Still, if I give it too much of a workout, the pain will flare up again, and then I'm sorry. 

So anyway...I'll blanch the corn and then we'll seal it up in our seal-a-meal bags. We've had one for a couple of years. I forget why we bought it, but Mike is the only one who's ever used it. I could have used it last year when I froze corn, but frankly, I forgot all about it. So anyway...this year we'll use it. I'm not sure how much corn is left in the garden, but I think our haul will be substantial. If I can get through all of that, there will be time to trace out another project. The fifth section for Calendula Patterdrip is next on the list.

The days are busy right now. I'm looking forward to the day we leave. The first day's drive will be a long one, but then we'll stay put for two nights. We've learned to give ourselves an extra day at the first stop so that we can relax and ease into vacation mode. It's been a busy summer, and we both need a vacation from our retirement.