Our Labor on Labor Day

Since this was a 'day off' from work, we had a lot to get done. Even though Frank has a sore back and seems to be coming down with a cold.

 
I started a batch of chevre cheese in the morning.

After milking the goats and feeding the chickens, dogs and cats, I picked the garden while Frank got the salsa, jars and water bath canner ready to go. We canned 7 pints of salsa that I had put together a few days ago.

I hadn't picked the green beans in several days and was really, really surprised at how many there were. Time to can green beans. There is also okra, tomatoes and a few squash to do something with.

We got the salsa canned, made a squash/meat casserole for dinner (which I will post later), fixed bacon and eggs for lunch and mixed up a batch of bread.

In the meantime, we had two quarts of store bought cream in the freezer that needed to be used, and plenty of milk in the frig, so we made up two batches of ice cream (which I will also post later).

While the bread was rising and the last batch of ice cream was working, we stopped to have a bowl of ice cream with peach butter. We are really enjoying the peach butter. I hope making it will be an annual event.

After that short break it was time to snap the beans and get them ready for the pressure canner. We ended up with 16 pints and some left over, which is great.  There will be another batch to can tomorrow after work. We are glad for the harvest.

 
The bread is always a welcome treat. Hot from the oven with homemade butter. We ended up having bread and butter for dinner. We had already had the ice cream in the late afternoon and decided to save the casserole until tomorrow. We had to wait for the green beans to be finished in the canner so we could go do the evening chores for all of the animals.
 

So, after the chores, we worked the cheese and have it hanging to drain, set the green beans out to cool with the salsa, and cleaned up the canner. It has been a long day, but very productive. Frank ran into a saying a while back somewhere that is very appropriate for our times. We have it hanging on our refrigerator. "Every day now your options diminish. Get it done!" We don't get things done everyday, but many days we do. Another saying I have come to repeat lately is, "There are not enough hours in the day or energy in my body to get everything done we need to do." But for today.......Whew! What a day! That's what we celebrate on Labor Day, right? Good old hard work and the intrinsic satisfaction that comes with it.

Until next time - Fern


P.S. When I got home from work today, Frank had the canner, jars, rings and lids ready to can the remaining green beans. There were only 10 pints of bean, so we canned 6 more pints of squash to fill up the canner. 

I have started freezing my okra again for now. I wash it, slice it, coat it with a mixture of cornmeal, seasoning salt and pepper and put it in quart size freezer bags. Tonight we put up 4 quarts. As soon as we get the green beans and squash out of the canner, it is time to go do chores.

Enjoy the blessings of work.