Yesterday I said I was going off to accomplish some things, and I certainly did.
I got my gherkins started, which actually involved mopping the kitchen floor since no sooner had I gotten the tiny cucumbers set up in their brine I tipped the whole bowl over and inundated that whole side of the kitchen in salt water. I decided that I must have needed to purify the area, or something. Anyway, once I got that part cleaned up I realized that is just was not going to look right if I didn’t do the other half of the floor, so I did. This morning I drained and rinsed them and got them set up with the vinegar/sugar/spice soak. There are two more stages to go, then I can seal them in their jars.
I pulled the beets too, and brought them in to separate them from their greens and wash them. The greens I blanched and they are now in the freezer awaiting use next winter. While I was putting them in the freezer I realized that both deep freezes badly needed be defrosting, so I proceeded to load all the fruits and vegetables into the meat freezer that would fit, put the remainder into coolers, and defrosted the empty one.
That freezer has a very annoying feature that I’m sure the paranoiac engineers that designed it thought was a grand idea. There is a 9V battery that operates an alarm that beeps every five seconds if the freezer has been detached from its power source. Guess what? I knew that the thing was unplugged, I didn’t need a hysterical little beep every five seconds while I was trying to clean it to remind me of the fact. I suppose I could have hunted out the instruction manual and figured out how to remove the battery, but I was focused on getting the freezer cleaned up so I could put stuff back in it before the items in the coolers melted.
Anyway, once that job was done (and notice that it was NOT on my planned “To Do List”), I got back to work and prepped the beets for pickling. About halfway through that process Jim came home from work, and helped me by peeling the blanched beets while I cleaned the jars and prepared the brine.
That reminds me. I thought of another one of my favorite sounds while I was pickling the beets. That is the metallic little tap/click that the canning jar lids make as they cool and indicate the vacuum is successful by sucking the lid into its concave position.
Don’t these beets look good? There are three kinds there: chioggia, golden, and Detroit red.
While I was washing the beets, I wound up with an interesting pattern in the bottom of my sink.
It reminds me of the aerial view of the braided rivers up in the glaciated portions of our continent. Jim says he doesn’t think there are a lot of people taking pictures of the dirt in the bottom of their sinks. I suppose he is probably right.
So then I spent a pleasant hour today tinkering with some flowers I picked, and got a bloom scan that I am quite pleased with.
Now I suppose I should go accomplish something useful, although I don’t know what that might be right at the present time.
I bet all I need to do is go outside and something will present itself.
the havens 