Ruff Day

This is Oliver at the end of his very long day. I took the picture about five minutes ago and he hasn't moved yet. He may be out for the night. He really did have a rough day, though.

We got up this morning and went for a walk, to enjoy the cool weather. As you may know, Oliver is not the best walker in the world. He loves to get his leash on, but once we're outside he really doesn't know what to do with his fluffy little self. He is scared of walking. But he still gives it a try whenever I get the leash out. And, of course, he expects treats when he gets home from this scary adventure. (Today his "treat" was his heartworm pill.)

After his walk, I made an egg for breakfast. He saw the neighbor hanging laundry outside and started barking at her. We've had Oliver in this house with the same neighbor for a year and a half. She and Oliver have never had a problem, although Oliver always barks his head off when he sees her. When I am over at her house for a visit, Oliver barks the whole time I'm gone - and the river seems to amplify the noise. Today, while my hands were full of eggs, I told Oliver to "hush" when he barked. (As I always do. It never works. We need to go to obedience training.) Today, Judy was having a rough morning of her own, and she yelled at him to be quiet! I washed the egg off of my hands and carried Oliver into the kitchen by me. He gets pretty distracted by good smells in the kitchen. And the eggs were just the start of things today.

After my breakfast, I headed out in the back yard with Oliver and 30 ears of corn. While I shucked the corn, Judy came over to apologize for yelling at Oliver. She'd hung a new blouse out on her clothes line and one of the trees in the yard dropped goop all over it and may have ruined the shirt - that she was planning to wear to a luncheon at the high school today. (I told her she is free to yell at Oliver whenever he bothers her; she must have felt so bad about the whole deal that she apologized to Michael when she saw him at the luncheon - even though he didn't even know what had happened!)

Oliver hung out for most of the corn shucking, then wanted to come back in the house. Soon I joined him with the last 8 ears of corn. I boiled water and set up an ice water bath in my cooler. I blanched the corn, cooled it, and cut it off the cobs. Oliver waited at my feet, hoping for a "jackpot." He got a few. I froze 10 bags (3/4 lb. each) of corn. In the past, I have made the bags one pound each, but they seem a little too full. Besides, this way the corn will last longer. Of all of the corn that I have frozen this summer, this was by far the best tasting. I reserved another two dozen ears (which meant 30 yesterday) to pick up on Sunday at our CSA.
The tomatoes in the background are extras from our CSA. I thought about throwing them in with the rest of the canning today, but ended up keeping them out - I was already feeling a little bad because I forgot to save out a few ears of corn for our dinner tonight!

The corn was finished around 12:30, and I thought about eating lunch, but did the dishes instead, because I'd made plans to pick up 30 pounds of Roma tomatoes at the farmers' market at 2:00. I did some other cleaning in the kitchen, then headed to the grocery store to buy more jars and lemon juice. I looked at the jars for about 7 minutes, trying to decide whether to make between 6 and 8 quarts, or 12-14 pints. I didn't want to buy two cases of pint size jars, so I finally decided on the quarts. I'm quite certain that Oliver barked the entire time I was at the grocery store.

I picked up my tomatoes at the farmers market on my way home from the grocery store, and started canning at about 2:08. I washed the tomatoes, and Oliver waited expectantly at my feet for a tomato to fall.

The big box of tomatoes, partially emptied
On the left are tomatoes ready to be blanched. In the middle is the box. In the sink are (obviously) tomatoes being washed. This was a LOT of small tomatoes!
I think I could have filled my sink three times with all of the tomatoes in that box.

I blanched the tomatoes. Oliver waited expectantly at my feet for a tomato to fall.
(I blanched four trays full of tomatoes - but I had to bring out non-snowman trays in order to pull that off.)

I skinned and cored the tomatoes. Oliver waited expectantly at my feet for a tomato to fall.
Two tomatoes did fall while I was doing this, but Oliver didn't get either one.

In addition to making sure that no fallen tomatoes went uneaten, Oliver was also very busy barking at our landlord, who was using his Bobcat in the back yard, trying to figure out the grade of the terrace, and why the grass seeds aren't growing. Our landlord brought his dog, who whined the whole afternoon. Oliver heard the whining and barked. I told him to be quiet. He barked. The other dog whined. Oliver barked. The other dog whined. I wanted to pull my hair out. I called Michael to see when he'd be home from work. His phone was off. I locked Oliver in the bedroom. He barked, and also peed on the carpet.

It wasn't my favorite afternoon.

But Michael came home, and after he decompressed from back-to-school meetings he helped me with the tomatoes, which made the afternoon go much faster. (Also, our landlord left and took the dog with him, so Oliver didn't have anything to bark at. He just waited for tomatoes to fall.)

The tomatoes I bought were glorious - I only had to throw out two from the entire box. But while the Romas I got from my CSA were bright red and meaty, with thick red pulp around the seeds, these Romas were pale and watery. The puree they made coming out of the chinois was pretty thin - and the seeds slipped through the holes in the sieve part. (Not all of the seeds, just a few.)


I followed the Ball Blue Book recipe for tomato sauce in part, because I wasn't sure how long to cook the puree before putting it in the water bath. That recipe said to cook the tomato pulp down until it was half the original volume.

I couldn't wait that long. I didn't get my tomatoes until 2:00, remember? And I did the blanching and skinning mostly on my own, which takes a lot longer than doing it with another set of hands. Plus these Romas were very little, and I had to put a lot more effort into coring them than I would have with larger canning tomatoes. So I was still putting them through the chinois at 7:15 when our pizza was delivered. (Yes, it was ironic that we got pizza tonight while I was making tomato puree that might become pizza sauce sometime this winter. But Michael suggested pizza from a locally owned place, and I'm always up for food that someone else cooks.) So I boiled them down in three separate pots (because I didn't have a 3-gallon pot) until all of the tomato pulp fit into my 8 quart pot.
On the left is some of the juice that drained off of the tomatoes while they were waiting to be smashed in the chinois. On the right is the first large pot of puree.

And then I continued to boil it down while the water in the canner was bringing itself up to a simmer, and then a boil.
All of the puree in my eight-quart stock pot.

My sauce is pretty thin, but I think it will taste good. (I know it tastes good because I tried some, actually.) Five of the six jars that went into the water bath sealed so far (I took them out of the water bath 35 minutes ago), and the half quart that didn't go into the canner sealed too, but we'll eat that this week.
The leftover jar.

Resting in the water bath after 40 minutes boiling away.
I put vinegar in my water to keep the lime away, but apparently didn't use enough. However, this time the residue was only on the outside of the jars, not the inside. (I know because I looked, and also because I went ahead and put vinegar in the water while the jars were being sterilized today.)

From my human perspective, it was a good day. Oliver did his best to be in the way, but only got one drop of tomato on his head for all of his trouble. (Well, that plus the four tablespoons of corn that went flying when I lost my grip on the ear I was holding this morning.)
(My last jar just popped. So I can go to bed now, and my grandma can get back to whatever she was doing with her angel friends.)