Trying something new, Day 1

This morning I woke up and decided that I’m going to participate in NaBloPoMo. And hey, cool, November is their big month. I think I knew that in the back of my mind.

The front of my mind was thinking about a few things, too. How my friend A reminded me that she celebrates the New Year on October 31st. How I used to, when asked, put down non-practicing pagan when asked about my religion (I just leave it blank now). How another friend, Charlie, does daily posting and how I look forward to his blog posts every day. Really, just looking for a convenient date and excuse to work on a new habit. So today is that day. Buckle up!

Today’s a Sunday, and I’ll be spending it canning some green tomato/onion relish and if I’m lucky, some applesauce. Canning, no surprise, is a lot of work. It’s not hard work, but if you’re doing large quantities (and I like to do large quantities, so satisfying to see all those jars lined up), it can get pretty tiring. I try to do as much as I can (peeling apples, coring tomatoes) sitting down.

I have a goal this year of putting up enough applesauce that I can just eat it with wild abandon all year long until next fall’s apple harvest. I’ve lost track of how much I’ve made so far, but my goal is 40 quarts. I had Andy do the math to calculate how much we need if I ate a pint a week and then however much he’d want, and that’s the number that came back. I’ve got a bushel of apples waiting to be processed. That’s going to take more than one day, no doubt. The day I did half that amount in one go, I was limping by the end of the day.

Here’s a picture (taken by Andy) of most of the canning we’ve done so far this year, not including the 19 quarts of tomatoes that are already in the basement.

And with that, it’s time to get my butt in the kitchen and get that relish going.