Firstly, I know I mentioned I was going to put up a photo post of Dekker’s birthday, but I forgot to steal the pictures from my mom today (oops!) so its gonna have to wait until another day. Instead, pictures of pickling will have to do.
My parents hit up the farmers market first thing in the morning and bought three 20 lbs bags of pickling cucumbers. They also picked up some extra dill, and hit up a grocery store for pickling salt. We met them at their place around 10:00am and started getting prepped. My mom and I had both sterilized our jars the night before, so that was one less thing to fuss over. Once lunch had come, we had only filled eight jars. It felt like we hadn’t accomplished anything, and I was a bit discouraged.
Until it was pointed out that the jars had their dill, garlic, and bay leaves already stuffed, and 2/3 bags of pickles were washed and ready. All the prep work was done! We just needed to fill the jars with the cucumbers, make the brine, and put it all together! So I gave up on being bummed out and destroyed our lunch of corn on the cob, mashed potatoes from our garden, and chicken fingers. Sooo good! No one else was thrilled with the corn so the rest came home with me. Yum!
The boys cleaned up lunch so mom and I could get going on the rest of the pickling. We stuffed jars and washed the last bag of cucumbers, and put two batched of brine on the stove. As soon as one batch was ready, we’d pour its contents into 7-10 jars, depending on the batch, and go again. It was a really good system. My mom said it so well the other day. She and I don’t like to fuss with complicated things, so we use an easy recipe and easy method. And lucky for us, it produces delicious pickles! I can’t wait!
All together, we came out with 56 jars!!! I can’t believe we have to wait six weeks to try them, but I’m willing. Sooo delicious, and I just can’t wait. Dekker loves pickles too, and I have no doubt Laela will enjoy the taste, or at least the novelty of them. We used them for teething with Dekker when he was a baby. He’s not a baby anymore. Yikes. When did that happen??
My parents had evening plans so we piled out around 5:00 and headed home. Dekker was very sad to leave and showed us that opinion for the rest of the night. It was sad, but I don’t blame him. It was a really fun last few days. Brady gifted me the evening and took care of the kids, as he had been doing all day already, so I could rest and not have to deal with the fatigue and attitudes. It was great. By the end of the evening, the whole family was cuddled in bed with me, Laela having her milk and Dekker in my arms, watching some YouTube videos. Yes, we were watching “movies” but it was comfy and quiet and non-confrontational. It was perfect.
Now, Brady is out picking up the supper we ordered to carry out. Sadly, our one town restaurant stopped serving my favorite thing on the menu 🙁 So I am sucking it up and having a BLT instead. Definitely a healthier option, but with considerably less cheese and sauce involved. Sad. The tub is running and the kids are sleeping on their way out relatively quiet gonna quiet down eventually. It was a great, full, tiring day. I can’t wait to not surface once tomorrow and to just take a load off from the fun and crazy. I plan to spend a lot of time watching Dekker play basketball. And thats it.
Picture show!
On that note, I think my food is close to being home and I am done waiting. Time to eat! Sleep tight, all!