Canning Tomatoes - July 25, 2020

Land sakes, I'm tired.

And the day ain't over yet.

I'm just resting my feet until the canner finishes.

I got up early this morning and test-sewed a couple of embroidery designs.

After breakfast, I went to the garden to pick some vegetables for my son and his family.  Got 'em some squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, and okra.

About mid-morning, I went with The Husband to buy a tractor.  He'd already picked it out; I just had to escort him home.  I am excited about this tractor.

He got a cultivator with it to make rows for the vegetable garden.  We need a bush hog, too, but there's an old one at my son's house that belonged to my parents.  We took off the cultivator and went to get the bush hog.  It has been sitting in weeds for years, but we managed to extract it and get it attached to the tractor to bring it home.  There's a bar thing that's supposed to slide up and down to connect it to the thing that makes it spin, and the bar is a bit rusty and wouldn't quite reach the spot to hook it up.  We hooked it up enough to get it home and down to the big shop at Nanny's.  He's been lubricating and hammering on it all afternoon.

While The Husband worked on the tractor, I mowed our yard, and then went down to Nanny's to mow her back yard.  I'd have done the front, too, but I looked up and The Brother-in-Law had come up with his big mower and was doing the front.

The tomatoes needed picking, and there were enough to justify canning them.  I got 7 pints out of this batch (I had twice as many tomatoes as in the picture).  They're in the canner now.

I still need to pick green beans and (hopefully) the last of the purple hull peas. 

A few minutes ago, I planted the potatoes that have been drying on the back porch for a few days.  They're in a big plastic tub.  As I sit here now, it occurs to me that I did not drill any holes in the bottom of the tub for drainage.  Must do that tomorrow.

Yesterday, I bought a big sheet of acrylic to attach to the outside of the back porch.  The porch makes a "T" with the house, and water pours down the valley when it rains.  It splashes on the ground and then splashes onto the porch floor.  If this keeps up, it'll rot the boards.  So I bought this piece of acrylic to keep the rain from splashing in.  We'll have to do that tomorrow, since it's going to require cutting to size and having some pilot holes drilled in it for the screws, and we're about pooped for today.