Canning

I did some canning this week.  It seems like it's a lot later than when I normally start canning.  I guess with the late summer, and then my garden not doing much, I just haven't had much ambition, or much produce.  This week I was able to take some tomatoes that a friend gave me and I canned some pizza sauce.  I would make spaghetti sauce, but my kids don't like red sauce on their pasta.  I can also use this sauce for lasagna.  Then, I had the kids pick all the green tomatoes and I made green tomato salsa.  I ended up canning it all, and I haven't opened a jar yet, so I hope it tastes good.  Robert has been busy juicing pears and canning the juice.  We haven't made any pear butter yet, but we need to since Rachel really likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we are out of jelly and jam.  Or, I can learn to make jelly from the pear juice, I guess.  A friend is going to share her concord grapes with me, all I have to do is go over and pick them.  I figure I can juice those, too and maybe make some grape jelly also.  I've never made jelly, so I guess it's high time I learned, and it will be a great science experiment for the girls.

We have been enjoying these last couple of warm days.  I know that eventually they will come to an end.  Some of our cousins came up and we got to play with them Thursday and Friday.  The kids sure had fun exploring all over Grandma and Grandpa's place.  They got to pick plums off the trees and they found lots of treasures in the barn.  The girls all played lots of dress ups and even organized little plays.  Michael was so happy to have boys to play with.  I loved the opportunity to visit with my sister-in-laws.  It's nice when you marry into a family that is as wonderful as your own.

Robert finally came home on Friday after about a week and a half.  His job is almost done for the year, they are starting to run out of work.  When that happens he will be laid off until some other little job comes up, or until next spring.  The kids were so happy to see him, and I was too!  He helped me change the actuator on our van.  If you don't know what that is, don't worry, I just found out, too.  It is what controls the heat for the front of our van.  Ours actually went out over a year ago.  Imagine not having heat in the front of your vehicle for a year, especially during the winter.  The back had heat so the kids were fine, but no defrost for the windshield and the front passenger seat was always freezing.  I remember many times when we had to scrape not only the outside of the windshield, but also the inside.  Now, we shouldn't have that problem.  I had to do most of the work because the space is quite narrow to replace the actuator.  Robert took the radio out for me, and then he had to take off the cover under the radio because I kept dropping the tools and couldn't reach them.  I think maybe I should become a mechanic now.  Okay, maybe not, I don't like getting my hands dirty and I've never met a mechanic who keeps his hands clean at work.