a hill taken

It's a wrap.

I'll admit that I wasn't sure I'd make it through the final quarter of the tomatoes; but then they looked so lonely and hopeful. Fine. We ended up with 20 qts. of crushed tomatoes to get us through the long, hard, mid-Atlantic winter. We are getting ready to order firewood and run a rope from the house to town just in case there's a big blizzard. I started at about 10:30am and the last half-dozen came out of the processing at about 5:30pm. There's some dead time in there - three rounds of processing at about 50 minutes each - so it's not work the entire time. In fact, I got all my laundry done, washed some bedding, and cleaned a good portion of the house while things were doing their things; I'd estimate about 5 hours of good, solid, settler work. There are some photos of the finished product included below (and a few of the steps along the way) - feel free to stop over in January if you need a base for a grand sauce or want a bite to eat.

The boys are back home (from Omaha) for a few days before heading to western Mass on Tuesday for their (sort of) final week of summer vacation. They'll be back and we'll all head to Ohio for the Labor Day weekend before they both start back in school; I estimate that's the last break for me until Thanksgiving.

I have theatre and rock n' roll over the next few weeks and the Eleven has our first opera of the season in mid-September.

I'm off to relex.

love to all,

T