Too busy to blog

Things have been stupidly busy around here lately, and so I’m not posting anywhere near as often as I want to, so this is a very brief, point form update:

Work: my part-time job doing copy-editing and proofreading is going really well, and bringing in some much appreciated extra cash. Sometimes the work is sporradic and other times (like today) I do nearly a full day. Because I’ve always got several projects on the go here, I can fit the paid work around the house stuff and vice-versa, so it works out really well.

Homesetading: canning proceeds apace. The jelly is now all done (6 jars of wild apple and 8 jars of apple-grape – the grape’s from my uncle’s garden in town). I bought a half-bushel of apples at the market on Saturday and so I plan to make sauce just as soon as I find the time. My quilting is going very slowly because I’m so busy with everything else.

Family: my sister and her boyfriend were in Canada for a flying visit, and got to come out to see our new place, which was great. We met the boyfriend for the first time and he’s lovely. My mother has shingles, which is making life exceedingly difficult because it means she can’t go to the nursing home to visit my dad. I’m going once a week but wish I could manage more (which I could if I didn’t still have this damn cough!)

News: Turbid, the film I worked as Art Director for last summer is being premiered next Monday, Oct. 13th at the Montreal Festival of New Cinema.

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Sauce!

This weekend’s harvest included 25lbs of paste tomatoes that I bought at the Vankleek Hill Farmer’s Market, and 20lbs of wild apples that Fearsclave and I gathered from a wide variety of trees in his back 40.

I spent most of yesterday processing the tomatoes into 16 jars of crushed tomatoes/tomato sauce:

Wash

Scald

Chop

Crush

[This wonderful machine is a European Tomato Press that I bought from Lee Valley Tools. It not only crushes the tomatoes to a very fine consistency, but spits the peels and seeds out the other end while doing so.]

Simmer

Sauce!

Health and work schedule permitting, I’ll be turning the wild apples into apple jelly on Thursday or Friday.

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