Memento Mori

I have encountered two spiders so far in this canning episode. One was very black and very dead in the canner itself. No sooner had Dan rescued me from that one than a very alive one was on a jar I picked up. It was small and I freaked out and Dan thought I was silly.

It has eight legs. It is TERRIFYING.

That is all.

Eventually, maybe, we'll actually get to the storage shed. Now that I've started the applesauce process I kinda have to finish it.

...Also, the applesauce is PINK.

Sitting down for a moment between batches of strawberries.

Aside from the two pints of moldy ones we lost, there are a LOT of bad spots in even the ones that look good. Some even have moldy-grey stuff insiiiiiiiiiide.

Ew.

And one of the jars of juice broke during the processing, but I'm SO thankful it broke in there and not, say, afterwards or before and making a big mess on the floor. I've heard quite a few pops, and it looks like they have all sealed, so that's good. I need to double check again to make sure though.

My chocolate chip purchase of yesterday also afforded me some amusement a little bit ago. I was filling up my bag at the store and thinking, "Ya know, I'm going to be a GOOD girl and get less than I usually do."

Well, I transferred the chips from bag to chip canister this morning and, uh, it's full to the gills as usual. So much for my heroic attempt at self-control.

I think I'm going to make some vegan mac and cheese for lunch using a recipe from a nifty cookbook Frances gave me. (Carpenter, not our neighbour.) It's a nice book because it's actually using healthy stuff to make the substitutes rather than, say, some of the garbitsch that a lot of Adventists stick in their food. Dan and I are both just grossed out at a lot of the meat subsitutes especially and wonder sometimes why, if you've decided you don't want to eat meat, you're so obsessed with meatlike substances still being in your food. The real thing would probably be less injurious to your health. So. Anyway. Going to give this recipe a whirl and see how it goes. It uses cashews instead of soy milk, so we should not have issues with the Overly Sweet problem.

By the way, the soy yoghurt? Interesting. It's not bad, actually, but it tastes really strongly of honey to me. It's sweetened with agave syrup, so maybe that's what I'm tasting. I could probably learn to like it in time, but being not such a huge honey fan and all, it might take a while.

It is nice to be able to get the cultures minus the dairy, though. I blended it with frozen strawberries and then stirred in some chopped fresh strawberries this morning and it was quite palatable despite, as I said, feeling transported back to the days of my childhood when we had friends who would make strawberry ice cream sweetened with ridiculous amounts of honey. *makes face*

Clearly I'm more interested in writing posts to avoid my work right now than getting my work done. Better get busy.

Well, two more jars of jam have been made. Freezer jam this time. We'll see how that works out. One is in a jar labeled "Pear Hazelnut" and the other "Marionberry". Because somebody was just too lazy to take the labels off the old jam jars. I'm a little sceptical of the success of this jam, being so insanely sugar-loaded. It even LOOKS like it's sugar with cherry bits floating in it. *sigh*

Now to load the dryer with cherries. I'm getting hungry though. Perhaps I should feed me before the dryer.

I did Go to the Library and Get My Card, Take Two this morning. It went beautifully. Of course, once I got into the library I kinda got sucked into a black hole. I found the Chris Van Allsburg books in the children's area and of course had to revisit those. They didn't have "The Stranger", but they did have the Harris Burdick one. Seriously one of the best books ever.

Got a book on knitting at the library and went to Hidden Treasures to see if they had a pair of knitting needles. They had. Went and got some money from the bank to get them. $2. At least I'm reusing someone else's needles rather than going to Wal-Mart for new ones. Right? ;-)

"What Would Jesus Buy" is really making me think a lot about just how commercial we are - even me, who doesn't have TV to give me a lot of commercial exposure. Dan is pretty good about just not buying things. He likes to buy local produce and avoid Asian-manufactured products as much as possible. Obviously, you can't totally cut that out of your life because there's so little made here anymore. But the less we support it, the better off the country will be. Reverend Billy is extreme and perhaps a bit crazy, but he wasn't afraid to make himself heard, anyway. I need to finish watching it today.

So I came home and got the laundry going while I made six more jars of applesauce. The goal is 30 jars of applesauce. Not sure how many we have so far but probably about half that. Not sure what on earth we're going to do with the rest of the apples. Maybe juice? I'd enjoy that.

I need to make the bed and get going on a few more doll dresses today. So much to do.

So far, one out of six has indicated to me its cooperation with the sealing process.

Jars of grape juice in hot water bath not exceeding 180: 6
Figurative nails bitten: 21
Time left until removal from hot water bath not exceeding 180: 8.5