Finishing Up

Saturday sort of wore me out, so I took Sunday off.  Turned into a  slug, I did.  Watched a couple of movies.  Did a bit of sewing on my quilt top.  Read several chapters of my latest murder mystery.  Drank coffee.  Took naps.  It was a lovely day.

Had a bit of a scare Saturday evening.  Oldest Son was cooking supper when he fainted dead away.  Scraped up his back some and hit his head on a chair on the way down.  Lori took him to the Emergency Room where they ran an EKG, a CT scan to make sure his brains weren't too badly scrambled and took X-Rays to make sure he hadn't done damage to his back.  The tests were all negative.  The doctors decided he was dehydrated and gave him some intravenous fluids.  A few hours later he was back home with a giant headache and very stiff back, but thankfully, all in one piece.  Lori promised me she would make him mind and not overdo, a difficult task considering he is at least as stubborn as his mother.  I don't care how old our children are, they are still our babies and we worry.  I am just thankful Lori was there to help.

This morning I pressure canned the ham cubes, winding up with 20 half pint jars.  The half pints are just the right size for one person to use for ham sandwiches or ham and scrambled eggs or in omelets.  The next time I can ham I will use pint jars.  That is a good amount of meat for scalloped potatoes and ham or in soup or casseroles.

I washed the jars of potatoes and carrots, wrote the contents and date on the lids and stocked them on the shelf.  I had filled 34 pint jars with half potato dices and half carrot dices.  My reasoning was that this would work well for smaller batches of soup or stew at times when I want a quick meal - just add broth, meat and seasonings.  There were more potatoes than carrots, so I canned 10 pints of potato dices to be used mostly for fried breakfast potatoes.  They are fully cooked after processing, so all I need to do is brown them in a frying pan and maybe toss in some onion or garlic.

The onions and cabbage went into the dehydrators late this afternoon.  They should be fully dried by morning.  I seem to go through a lot of onions, so that is something I order in quantity at least once every couple of months to dehydrate.  I keep a few fresh onions but drying them seems to be the best way for me to keep them on hand.

And that, I think, is enough for one day.  Time to fix a bit of supper, fire up the Kindle and read awhile.  It has been a good day.