I was a little slow getting started this morning. Cut me a break; it was Saturday, and I'd stayed up too late reading. (I'm reading a book called The Overstory. It's pretty good.) About 8:30, I was drinking coffee on the back porch and working the WSJ crossword puzzle, when my son's big Rottweiler came loping around the corner. I did not speak to him because I did not want to fool with him. He sniffed his way across the back yard and into the neighbor's yard, and then he suddenly raised his head and perked up his ears, came loping back, and asked to come onto the porch. Instead of letting him in, I got up and went outside. My son was not in the yard, he was across the road at Nanny's, and I heard him whistle. Apparently, Axel the Beast had heard the whistle, too. I don't know why he wanted on the porch. Standing in the driveway, I pointed toward Nanny's shop (where my son's truck was parked), and I said, "Axel, GO." He trotted to the end of the driveway and turned around and looked at me. I pointed again and said, "GO!" and he trotted across the road and down the driveway. I came back and finished my puzzle.
A little after noon, Cousin Roger rolled up on his lawnmower. He said, "I don't want nothin'. I just came to visit." We shot the breeze for a while. When he went home, I went in the house and started on the relish.
The cucumber/onion/pepper mixture had soaked in the refrigerator overnight. It had to be drained and rinsed and drained again, then spiced and cooked. I'd already washed the jars in the dishwasher. Had to send The Husband to the attic to get the water-bath canner. I rinsed it out, put the jars in it, filled it up with water, and heaved it over to the stove to heat and sterilize the jars.
Making the cucumber relish is a little bit of a crap shoot every. The recipe calls for 10 - 12 large cucumbers (and doesn't say how many pints it should yield). I mean, what is "large?" Big as a grocery-store cucumber? Big as a baseball bat? I hadn't even counted how many I'd used. Might've been 8, might've been 12. <shrug> Ground up, it made a big soup pan full, and that was without the 4 "large" onions and 2 "large" peppers. My onions and peppers were small, so I just chopped up every pepper and onion in the house. In addition to the store-bought red peppers, which were quite large, I threw in some pimientos and a couple of serranos and cayennes. Moved it all into the large spaghetti pot and cooked it down low.
The recipe didn't say how long to water-bath it. In fact, it didn't say water-bath it, period. It said put the relish into hot jars and seal them. This is an old, old recipe. I expect many a household has eaten un-water-bathed relish without dying from food poisoning. But I like to water-bath stuff. I got out the "Canning and Freezing" pamphlet from the County Extension Service. Checked the times for several pickled relishes. Some said to water-bath for 5 minutes, some said 10, some said 15. I water-bathed it for 12 minutes and called it done.
After the canning, I talked The Husband into getting the tractor and helping me load up some pine needles from Uncle B's yard across the road. While he went to get the tractor, I got my pitchfork out of the shed and went across the road to start raking. Uncle B, Aunt Bonnie, and Cousin Roger all came out to watch. The pine needles were several inches deep between the tree line and Uncle B's shed. I loaded the bucket on the tractor three times and barely made a dent in them. Uncle B said I could come back and get all I want. He said he's kind of worried about all those pine needles piling up. He said, "A little bit of fahr in there would be bad. I wouldn't mind if you got them all." I looked down the path, and thought, Shit. This poor old man was worried about his shed burning down, but I was about done for the day. Plus, the path beyond where I'd raked was hairy with poison ivy. I raked a little more but realized that this was going to be a big, big job. And I'd already told The Husband not to come back with the tractor. I told Uncle B to call me when his other son comes to visit, and I'd help him get rid of the fire hazard.
Then I had to go spray Nanny's rose bushes, which were twitching with Japanese beetles.
Then we sprayed the green beans, for they had beetles, too. And put down a little more cardboard in the middles, and pulled a little more grass.
Then I come home, showered, and made a chocolate cake to take to Cousin Gus's annual family 4th of July cookout tomorrow.
And now I really am done for the day.
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