Some things I do..

Well, there hasn't been a whole lot to report lately. Hubby's job is changing, as it often does with slope work. The contract he's been working under has been bought by a new company, but the company they are doing the work for insisted that the crew he's on stay. So he's in the process of changing companies, which will will mean needing to update paperwork and we're just waiting for everything to be official before we finish all of that up.
Meanwhile, I have spent the last several days doing one of the things I enjoy doing. Canning. Specifically, I've been making jams. I did pickles a while ago. Last year was the first time I'd done pickles in years and I got a bit carried away and pickled everything I could get my hands on. Cucumbers, peppers, asparagus, cauliflower, green beans, pea pods, carrots, etc. They were really good and the kids and their friends ate through most of them and demanded more. So I did a bunch more pickles this year. Jars and jars of them. Oldest step daughter took a dozen of them right off, as an early birthday present for the guy they are house sitting for. Hopefully I've got enough of them bottled downstairs to last though the year.
Anyway, this week I decided it was cold enough to do jams. I had a few bags of frozen fruit in the deep freezer that needed using up, and we had pureed and bagged up almost 2 watermelons this last summer, so I had all of that to do something with. I got 31 half pints of watermelon jelly done yesterday. That was a long day and I was very tired by the end of it, but it's good, and will be going into our Christmas gift bags this year for a nice little touch of summer in the middle of an Alaskan winter. That was from 10 batches of jam.. I have a big bowl of foam and left overs in the fridge from that as well, and am trying to think of something to use it for... maybe watermelon thumbprint cookies?
Today was a much easier day. Only two batches of jam needed doing. I did a batch of plain strawberry and a batch of mixed (strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, peach and white grape). Both were very yummy. I got 8 half pints from each batch. I had done an earlier batch of watermelon and some blueberry jam and blueberry syrup this summer, so between it all, and the bottles I still have from last year's jamming, I may not need to make jam for another 2 or 3 years!
Tomorrow, may plan anyway, is to do a couple batches of butter which will then go into the freezer. I also need to do a small batch of cheese to see how well it freezes. I'm really just starting with cheeses and haven't been able to do anything more complex then a simple quesa blanca. I tried mozzarella once, it didn't work out too well, but my hubby thinks he killed my thermometer which may have been the problem. I need to try that again, but probably won't have time for it until after Thanksgiving.
Speaking of Thanksgiving, this is the year we have the girls for it instead of Christmas. This year, because of hubby's work schedule and the fact that the grand baby's birthday (she'll be 3) is on Saturday, we're having the big family dinner and party on Saturday instead of Thursday, and the oldest gal wants to host at the house they're at. Which is fine. It's her first year up here, everyone will be here (except her brother, as far as we know anyway..) and, hey, means I won't have to do the clean up! We've got the menu mostly nailed down and we're splitting it up so no one is doing everything. We'll both be doing turkeys though. She wants to brine one, but because of my blood pressure I am on a low sodium diet and brined turkey is not a good idea when I know there's going to be an abundance of salt in other things (though I'm working on that as much as I can...) so I'm doing a non-brined one, that will instead have a great herbed butter tucked under the skin. It has never failed me. :)