Starting tomorrow, it's ten days and counting until we close up shop at the office and the new judge takes over. There will be two more days of court next week, then we're done with the cases, but we still have some cleaning-out to do at the office. There's one box that probably has a tarantula in it; I don't know how we're going to get that out of the office. I ain't touching it.
Friday is The Boss's big retirement party.
Monday morning, The Boss will swear in the new judge. Later that afternoon, the techies will be coming for our computers and telephones Monday the 29th, and then we will be lame ducks. The furniture will go away during the following two days. We'll be like flies without a place to land. Tuesday afternoon, the county Bar Association will be throwing one more retirement party for The Boss. After that, I suppose we will truly be done.
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Last weekend, we picked all of the tomatoes that had even a hint of color on them and set them on the sill on the back porch. Today, they were ripe enough for canning, but there weren't quite enough, so I put on my clogs and went to the garden to see if the squirrel had left any ripe ones. We've had rain showers for the past few days, and I marred up in the mud, nearly face-planted once. About half of the ripe tomatoes on the vines had been gnawed. I got the ripe ones, and any that were starting to turn. Nanny said she would like to have the ripe tomatoes to can, so I came home and got the ones from the porch, sorted out the ripest ones for Nanny to can, and put the rest of them on the porch sill. Sent the ripe ones to Nanny via The Husband, who was about to make a trip to the Dollar General.
I had also picked jalapeno and pimento peppers today to use for pepper jelly. I knew I did not have enough sugar - a batch takes THIRTEEN cups of sugar! - so I asked The Husband to pick up two bags of sugar and two boxes of fruit pectin while he was at the dollar store. As expected, the dollar store didn't have any fruit pectin, but I found two boxes among my canning supplies that were not out of date. Then, when I started measuring out the apple cider vinegar, I discovered I was a cup short. But there was a bottle of red wine vinegar in the pantry, and it was the right acidity, so I finished out the recipe with it. My pepper jelly usually comes out a pretty gold color. This time, it's more like "antique gold." But it's still pretty.
Here's a trick I learned about chopping hot peppers. I have tried wearing plastic/rubber gloves to seed and chop the peppers, but it was awkward, and my hands still burned. Last year, I tried rubbing olive oil on my hands before I started messing with the peppers, and IT WORKED. I guess the pepper juice stuck to the olive oil instead of my skin.
Here's a pepper jelly trick to keep the peppers from floating to the top of the jar: after the jars are out of the canner, while the jelly is a little warm but not set, swirl the jar. It will help distribute the pepper pieces.
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