I got antsy and restless about noon today, so I grabbed a pickin' bag and said to The Husband, "I'm going to get some cucumbers to make pickles." The recipe said I needed 7 pounds.
The garden was M-U-D-D-Y, and soft and squishy. But I waded in and started picking cucumbers. Got bitten by a horse fly (on that soft, tender under-arm). It stung so bad the pain shot up one side of my face! I also acquired about a million new chiggers.
The cucumbers are next to the purple hull peas, and they needed picking, too. When I thought I had more that 7 pounds of cucumbers in my bag, I started working on the peas. Man, those pea rows and middles are grassy, so I spent about half my time pulling up weeds and grass. Got almost a 5-gallon bucket of peas and gave them to Nanny to shell and put up. By the time I got to the end of the peas, my gardening clogs were carrying twice their weight in mud. Had to hose them off in Nanny's yard before I could get in my car.
Dumped the cucumbers in the kitchen sink to deal with later, showered, and went to the grocery store.
After putting the groceries away, I started on the cucumbers. Sliced them on a mandolin and put them in water with pickling lime to soak overnight. A few years ago, I read that pickling lime was frowned upon, but I use it, anyway. (I think the danger is in soaking the cucumbers for too long, letting botulism grow.) It makes a big difference in the crispness of the pickles.
These pickles are going to be sweet/hot/dill. One time when I was canning both dill pickles and sweet pickles and had some of each brine left over, I mixed them together and made a batch of sweet dill pickles. Boy, were they good! This time, I'm adding jalapeno pepper slices to the jars. The peppers are soaking in lime with the pickles.
This batch of pickles will be something of an experiment. I'll let you know how they turn out.
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