Just thought I should do a little update on the pickle foray...

As of this morning, it seems all 6 jars sealed. No bouncy lids. I took all the rings off, and none of the lids lift easily with my fingertips.
So yay? haha.
Now, according to the Ball Blue Book, they need to cure/ferment/settle for 4-6 WEEKS.
Makes me chuckle some more.
So, I'll have to wait a bit longer to find out if all that extra pickling salt was a disaster, or if I did a good enough job of rinsing.
And then I need to hope everything else worked, too. haha.
Will update this again in a month, I guess. :)

Can you believe it's July tomorrow?

So I've learned something today

Read all the instructions on the pickling salt package several times. And then read them again.
I am canning today. For the first time ever. I wish my grandmother had made me pay closer attention. ;)
I bought my supplies at WalMart. Bought Ball's pickling salt because it had a recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles and my husband loves bread and butter pickles.

The part about reading them again? I used the whole bag of salt on my cucumbers and onions and wondered why it wouldn't dissolve. ;) It wasn't until after I was rinsing them out that I realized I was only supposed to use, like, a quarter cup.
Oops.

Second thing I learned? I need a BIGGER STOVE for canning. I can't keep the jars and lids hot, boil the cucumbers and syrup and heat the canner at the same time. :/ Just not enough space on the stove, or my counter either, for that matter.

Just how critical is head space, anyway? Is it okay to have a bit more, but not a bit less?

And another thing. How do you know the temp inside the canner, after you put the lid on?

Can you tell I am hopeless and clueless?

If any of these jars seal, and if the pickles actually turn out? I'll be really amazed. Do Bread and Butter pickles actually have to sit a month before you can eat them?

Oh, and the fan on my stove vent? It only works in high now, and it won't shut off. I suppose that's better than not at all?

Sorry for the quality of the picture. I didn't want to use the flash, and I couldn't figure out how to take a normal picture, haha. It's pretty sad when the equipment is smarter than the operator. ;)

Today

is wet.

With thunder and lightning.

The power has gone out twice, but I think the storm is slowly moving off now.
If I didn't say it before, I'll say it now. Hope you all have a great weekend! :)

No egg test today

Didn't get as hot as it did yesterday, haha. Typical. ;)
So, you'll all have to wait until later for egg test number 2.
Given August and September are usually the hottest months, I'm sure I'll get another chance. :)
Hope you all have a great Friday and a good weekend!
We're going to try fishing again, of course. :)

Egg test one. ;)

Yup. I decided to try cooking an egg on the driveway.

Cracked it on foil. After a few minutes, this was all I had.

Just a tiny bit on the bottom. So I think this was pretty much a no go. But it was windy and I'm not sure the foil made good contact with the concrete, haha. Tomorrow it's supposed to be hotter, so I'll try again but without the foil...

Here is one bane of the South.

Fireants. Ugh.

I will poison them later. Too bad we don't have anything that eats them.






Oh, what is the temp, you might ask? Here is my porch temp.

Just click on a pic and you can expand it. :)

Happy Wednesday!

Nothing new here

So I am going to share some pictures.

We have these little.... frogs, I think they are. They flourish when the ditches have water in them, heh. They are about two inches at most, I think, and have the loudest croak for the size I've ever heard! Here's a picture of one. On the kitchen window screen.

Now I'm sharing more pictures of the daylilies. They're enjoying the heat. ;) Sorry about the irregularity of the pictures. I am definitely blog challenged when it comes to layouts and such.

Remember I mentioned the lilies that came up unexpectedly after two or 3 years? Well, that white one was the only one to bloom. The one on the right of the next picture. You can see on the left where the buds just sort of never opened, got eaten, were malformed and died off. Don't know what happened there. And the others just never did more than leaves. Oh well. Since they didn't grow before now, I'm not too sad they didn't bloom, just curious.

And last, a picture of the crepe myrtle. It's starting to bloom. :)

It's a bicolor. My oldest son got it for me when he worked as manager of outside lawn and garden at a local Lowes. I love the flowers when they bloom.
Only drawback? The wasps love them too. ;) I noticed a couple weeks ago, when the buds were forming, that the wasps were quite infatuated with the crepe myrtle. Oh well. I can't blame them. :)

Have a blessed weekend, everyone!

I wonder if I could cook an egg on the driveway?

It's a tempting thought to try. Like Mythbusters, hehe.
My front porch is 106 right now. If I have any foreign readers, that's 41C.
I am glad we had our air conditioner serviced last week.

They're saying we might get rain tonight.
We'll see, I guess.

Hope you're all doing well! :)

Hot again today.

Almost 100 today and tomorrow.
I took a couple more pictures today.

This last one seems as if it has been eaten by something.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures. I took them with my cell phone. ;)

Have a good day everyone! :)

Another hot one today!

Spent almost the whole day fishing though. Went to a couple of our favorite spots. Caught lots of fish. Flounder, pinfish, croaker, bluegill, channel catfish, white bass and yellow perch. Would have been a great day if any of them had been big enough to keep, haha.

Some people would have kept the perch and bluegill, but we prefer to let little fish grow to big fish.

So instead, we brought home Popeye's Chicken. Yay! ;)

Got up to 98 today. Don't know what the heat index was, but it was plenty hot. Had a breeze that felt good, but I think it must have still been too hot because I have a bit of a headache now, in spite of drinking lots of liquids. Oh well. Was still a good day.

You all have a nice, blessed week!

Hump Day. ;)

We had a cold front come through, so it's been only the mid 80s mostly. Much nicer. Not a lot going on here. The usual. Laundry, ironing, housekeeping stuffs. I've been scanning articles into my computer so we can donate the magazines to clinics and doctor's offices and not have to take them with us.

I scan all sorts of articles. Heritage breeds, composting, worm farming, home repair, etcetera.
Got to run some errands a bit later when the boys are up and can come help.

You all have a wonderful blessed day, especially my friends having some hard times right now. ♥

Hot day today

They said it would be and it is. Glad we went out this morning, even if hubby did outfish me today. ;)
There were lots of little pan fish. I found most of those. He caught five nice keepers though. We'll freeze them till we have more.
It got hot quicker than we expected. It seemed nice enough with the wind blowing, but we probably should have come home sooner.
It's 98 on the front porch. We'll be staying in where it's cooler.

Hope you all have a great week! Hard to believe the year is almost half over!

Rain

Lots of rain and thunder today. I usually like rain, but it's not the right kind today. Doesn't have that good smell to it. It's just rain, thunder and lightning, haha.
Hope the power stays on today.

You all have a safe, blessed weekend!

Whew

Finished uploading the pictures from our last trip. You can find the link on the side there - May 2010.
Not much more to add. Lots of memories once again.

June already!

How time flies.
Went fishing yesterday, but only caught 3 fish. One long ear sunfish and 2 bluegill. Forgot to take pictures. Oops. ;)
Randy over at Chicken Boys challenged me to do an award. I've always known them as memes, hehe. And I didn't have time till now.

10 things about me

1. I am retired Air Force.
2. I have 5 brothers.
3. One son served 2 tours in Iraq.
4. I have hazel eyes.
5. I'm celebrating my 36th anniversary on the 6th of July.
6. 2 days after my birthday.
7. I have my dad's nose.
8. And his big feet. ;)
9. I am not much of a tom boy.
10. I love crawfish.

5 things I don't like

1. I HATE PINK
2. Dresses
3. Bugs in general, haha
4. Snakes (or anything else that can sneak up on you - husbands not included) ;)
5. People who talk and drive at the same time. Hang up.

I will share the pictures of our trip after I get them uploaded to my webshots album, but I'm not sure when I'll have time. Will work on them again tonight, I hope. :)
You all have a blessed week! *Hugs* ♥