LONG day - but productive

My day started WAAAAYYYYYY too early this morning. Caleb decided he wanted to get up at 2:45 this morning, and he just wouldn't go back to sleep. I gave in and turned on the TV - did you know that Sesame street is on at 3am??? I guess my child isn't the only one who gets up in the middle of the night. I drifted in and out of consciousness on the couch while Caleb alternated between watching TV and crying at me because he wanted something that I could never figure out what.

Tim woke me up (still on the couch with Caleb sleeping on my chest) at 6am so that I could get ready and be out the door by 6:30. I got to my mom's at 7 and started picking tomatoes. a gazillion tomatoes later, okay, maybe not that many, but we did fill 5 buckets - the big paint type buckets. are they 5-gallon???) anyway - it was a lot of tomatoes.

Then mom and dad helped me juice 3 of the buckets before I came home. That juice completely filled up 2 - 21 qt pressure canners, which I used to transport the juice back home.

I then spent the entire day canning tomatoes. I did spaghetti sauce, salsa, and pizza sauce. It took so long because of the spaghetti sauce - you are supposed to let it simmer FOREVER. Anyway, I finally gave up on it ever getting as thick as I wanted, and I just figured I could thicken it when I eat it! The trouble was that the sauce was boiling down int he two pressure Canners, so I couldn't process anything else while I was waiting. (I could have used my hot water bath canner - but my stove top couldn't accommodate any more than the two canning kettles that were already going...

Only had one major catastrophe. As I was holding up one jar next to the kettle to make it easier to fill, for whatever reason - the bottom of the bottle just fell right out - splattering almost a full quart of boiling hot spaghetti sauce all over. Luckily, this wasn't at the same time that Caleb was wrapped around my legs whining to be picked up. Also lucky for me that I had on a heavy duty apron, that absorbed most of the burning liquid. I did get a few small burns on my feet - I had shoes on, of course, but there is a netting type material over the toe portion, and it got me there, as well a a couple other spots.

The last batch just finished processing and I am waiting for the pressure to drop, then I am going to bed!

here's the grand total for the day (which in reality doesn't seem like very much when I consider that it took me ALL DAY LONG!!!! - Quick frankly, I think I'd rather just go BUY what I want in my food storage - but there is a feeling of accomplishment to look at those bottles all lines up - and to hear the seals popping as they cool down, and I am proud of the fact that I am gaining a few skills.... I just wish it wasn't so time consuming.)

Anyway - enough rambling on - here are my totals:

spaghetti sauce - 21 qts (plus 1 1/2 qts that we used for dinner tonight)

pizza sauce - 7 pints (this was an experiment, but I really liked how it turned out, so I am going to make some more...)

salsa - 9 qts and 13 pints - (yes, I am aware that I can just count 2 pints as a qt. and say I did 15 1/2 qts - but that's NOT what I did. I did 9 qts and 13 pints!!!) - I guess I get a little extra cranky about non important things when I'm tired eh?

So - there you have it - the super exciting , can't live without knowing, report of my day!