Garden Goodies and a Fearful Fourth!

Hello, everyone! How was your Independence Day? We had a pretty good one all the way up until the fireworks started. Then one cat went into hiding. The dog freaked out.

Here is the cat "hiding":

No pics of the dog freaking out. I was ready to pull my hair out. He was going through the house trying to climb or crawl under everything. I had to drag him out of the litter box. My husband and I finally put his cage back up and shoved him in. He started chewing on the bars and I was afraid he would break his teeth. So, in I went into the cage. I sat in there with him for about an hour. Then I let him out when it sounded like the fireworks had slowed down. Only to have him make a beeline for my son's room and try to claw his way through it. About 2330 he finally settled enough for me to go to bed. Only to have my other cat wake me up at about 0230. I checked on the dog and he seemed okay by then. Then I woke up at 0330 with heartburn. I came to the kitchen to get some milk and found the dog getting ready to eat cat poop. Which I took from him and cleaned up his mess. Next thing I know, the cat that had awakened me was hacking and puking in the hallway. Yay. What a night.

This morning, I sliced a bag of onions with my mandolin slicer my honey got for me. It was marvelous. I sliced those suckers in a fraction of the time it normally takes. Loaded them up into the dehydrator. (I think I have mentioned I have a nine tray Excalibur.) I filled all the trays up, took it outside and turned it on. I will be able to bring it in later after the smell dies down. I think I am probably stinking up the whole street.

Yesterday, I put up the mushrooms I had already dehydrated. We have about one quart of those now. We found some clearanced out so we bought four packages and into the dehydrator they went.

I canned some ground beef last week that I forgot to mention. I followed the tips from Annie (Thank You!!) and think I have a good batch.

Also, this morning I spent some time in the garden harvesting more veggies. I got three lemon squash, gold rush beans, green beans, tiger eye, pinto, red and Cherokee cornfield beans.
See:

I need to work on using the flash so it doesn't come out with funky colors.

I was supposed to get my new holster today. It didn't show up. We have a new mailman and seem to be having some problems.

Tomorrow, my husband goes in for his dental work. I am looking forward to it so he won't have to deal with the constant pain anymore. For the past few weeks, it's been every day. At least after the procedure is done and his mouth starts healing the pain will go away. I plan on spoiling him for the next little while until he feels like himself again. He will probably tell me he is fine and to stop hovering! LOL

January will be my turn. Unless something changes, I want to wait until the down time at work when I don't have any hours so I don't miss any days. After that, we will finish my husband's teeth, then mine and all dental work will be done.

As per request, here are a couple of pics of the gazebo we put up.

It even has shelves and a hook in the corners so I can put out some pretties! And maybe someday I will even get cushions for my chairs and get them in there. For now, it's just the fire pit to keep it out of the weather. I will get our adirondack chairs in there so we can enjoy it now.
It is now time for me to get some dishes done and laundry washed to hang outside. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day! Tomorrow, I will get some pics of the dried up onions posted.

P.S. Supper tonight is chuck roast and garden veggies. I am using the pressure cooker this time to see how it turns out. A new project for me as I have never used one before.

P.P.S. Today I am thankful that we do have a cage for the dog. We used it when we first got him to keep him safe from the cats at night. We haven't used it in ages and had to put it back together last night since we had taken it down some time ago. I am just glad that I was able to safely contain him and prevent him from getting hurt during his freak out.

Some Canning Lessons and More

Last week ended up being a busy week, right through today. We just got home.

Wednesday, I had some unexpected time with my husband. We spent the day going over some plans for when we are ready to build our home. We also made our plans for what we had going on this weekend.

Then Wednesday evening, I noticed that something didn't smell too good in the hallway. I thought it was the litter boxes. I thought to myself, I really need to do something about that. My husband and I also noticed a big increase in the gnats and flies in the house. I assumed it was from the heat and humidity and letting the dog in and out all day long. And probably the litter boxes.

So on Thursday, I decided to get a start on the litter boxes. I figured it must be time to completely dump and wash out. Except when I got them out, I knew that could not be the problem. Cleaned them out anyway. Still smells. Did something die under the house?

I got the beans and beef broth jars washed off and ready to put in the panty. I opened the door, and Oh my Lord! there was the smell. And flies. And gnats. And GRODY! maggots on some of my canned jars. Barf-gag-eewwww-bleh! I pulled the jars down and immediately took them to the kitchen sink to wash them off and see if the seal was broken. As far as I could tell they were not, except that the bugs were on the inside, too. I pushed the tops in to see if they popped. They did not. They still looked sealed. So I filled the sink with hot soapy water and dropped them in. Here was the bubbles. Not very many, but enough to show me they were not sealed completely. I am not sure how the tops can be popped down but the seal not intact. Strange.

Then I had to clean the pantry out. I inspected every single jar in there. Most everything in it is commercially canned or sealed up in bags, so everything else was ok. I sprayed vinegar on the shelf and wiped up as much as I could. I got out the vacuum cleaner and sucked up as much as I could. Then I sprayed again. And vacuumed again. Then sprayed again for good measure. I left the pantry open to check on the progress and make sure no more icky buggies were left. I did get everything out of the pantry but the flies and gnats moved on the rest of the house. I spent all day Friday chasing flies and killing them. My dog helped out and caught a few. And proceeded to eat them. I am glad he is not a licker. The cats were useless in this job.

To control the gnats, I used water, apple cider vinegar and a few drops of dish soap. I mixed it up, covered it with plastic wrap and cut a hole in it. When I have read about it online, it said a little slit. I found that doesn't work and put a decent size hole. Then when the little bastards fly in and land on the under side of it, I smack it and send them right into the mix. They drown and I laugh my evil laugh. Just like every time I killed a fly. DIE bugs DIE!

Since I spent so much time on bug patrol on Thursday and Friday, I did not get as much around the house done as I wanted. I did not make it to the store, I did not get out into the garden and I did not get any laundry done.

I worked again on Saturday. So no time there either. Saturday morning, I put together some beef vegetable soup in the crock pot for supper Saturday and leftovers for Sunday. Thankfully, because we had a two hour road trip to meet my ex and pick my kid up from his visit with his dad and grandmother. At work, I did get a really good deal on more fruit trees. $5 each! I got two more apples, a pear (will need another one for pollination) and a nectarine tree. I will be so glad when we get our property and I can plant my fruit trees in the ground instead of in pots.

Sunday, we pretty much spent the day either out shopping and running errands or calming the dog and one of the cats when the thunder started rolling again.

We did find a gazebo on clearance on Sunday so we snatched that deal up. We have been looking at replacing the one that bit the dust last year but so far just hadn't bit the bullet and gotten one. Sunday was our day. We don't have it up because of the storms. Hopefully by this weekend we will have it up.

Today, we went to my mother-in-law's house to install her microwave. She bought a new kitchen set of appliances and they had to order the microwave. So my husband and I met his brother at his mom's house to install it. Which of course goes how every installation goes. We ran into problems and it took about 4 hours longer than we thought it would. Totally typical. At least for us, and I assume most everyone else.

We are now home and can take a breather before getting up tomorrow and starting our work week. (Our work schedules are Tuesday through Saturday.)

Lesson learned: Check those canning jars. Don't put them on a top shelf where you can't see them. Check them all the time. Don't let those bastard bugs set up shop in your pantry, because when you do, it's hell to get rid of them.

Tomorrow, it's back to normal for us. With a new routing for me to check the canning jars at least once or twice a week.

P.S. We did clean the vacuum cleaner out. We took it apart to make sure that none of the bugs were left in it.

P.P.S. Supper tonight is Arby's as I didn't plan anything for dinner, so we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and will eat them for supper.

Canning and More Canning

It's supposed to rain here today. So far, it has sprinkled just enough to make my dog want to come in.
Then it quits and he wants back out. Then it sprinkles and he wants back in. I am well trained, obviously. I hope it does actually rain as I don't want to water again and the garden could use some rain.

We got more canning done. We canned the green beans we picked out of the garden. Since it is mostly just my husband and me, I chose to can in pints so we don't have a ton of leftovers. I got five pints of beans from one week of picking! Not bad for my little bitty garden.

I also made some beef bone broth. I have made it before with added veggie leftovers and canned some in quarts. This time I wanted pints for smaller amounts. It was very strange for me the first time I made it, as I didn't know it came out white-ish. I thought it would have a brown color to it.

I have also made ham stock from a smoked pork butt my husband smoked up. OH MY! It was delicious. I used some of it in the navy bean soup I made on Tuesday. Talk about a little slice of heaven. Well, bowl of heaven. I didn't even add any seasoning to it. It didn't need any. We will definitely be doing that again. The ham was delicious and the broth was delicious. I'm making myself hungry...

I took several pounds of hamburger out of the freezer and hope to can that tonight. Today, I plan on canning the rest of the beef bone broth. I will also be making some breakfast burritos to put in the freezer for my husband to take to work for breakfast. I will be heating up the kitchen today!

I have no idea why, but my dog and cats were really acting up yesterday. They were not fighting or anything. Well, the dog wasn't. My cats were both quite testy yesterday. Hissing and swiping at the poor dog. He was too close for comfort, I guess. Every time I start to think the cats will relax and just ignore the dog, we have another day like that. At some point, they will all figure it out.

The solar generator is charging today. Since we have a good chance of storms for the next few days, I figured I better get it ready. I have also gotten a start on laundry and filtering water to refill our pitchers. Busy bee today.

I'm off to the kitchen to start some cookin'. And no, I won't be barefoot today.

P.S. Tonight for supper will be eye of round roast. I have never cooked that before. I'll let you know how it turns out.