Done With Tomatoes

Thirty-three quarts of tomato sauce later, I declare an end to the 2019 canning season:

I may still do a few batches of beans as we need more, but for the most part, I can put my canning supplies back into storage until next year and reclaim some kitchen space. Yay.

I did run into an issue with my All-American pressure canner: I had the 15-pound weight on the exhaust valve—we’re at a high enough elevation that I process everything at 15 pounds—but it started venting when the gauge read 10 pounds. I use this canner so much that I want to be sure the gauge is working properly. A new one is only $17 plus shipping, so I’ll order it this week. I stopped the canner load when I saw what was happening. After the canner cooled down, I moved the jars to the water bath canner and processed them that way. I usually pressure can tomato sauce even though it’s safe to water bath can it. I pressure can it because I can get 14 quarts in my pressure canner and can do one load in the pressure canner in less time than it takes to do two water bath loads.

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While waiting for tomatoes to cook down, I added patterns to the Big Sky Knitting Designs store. It’s a process—apparently I designed quite a bit of stuff that I’d forgotten about. I’m working alphabetically and I’ve only made it through “C” so far. I’ve set myself a goal of 10 patterns a day. I also got the PayPal API issue sorted and (hopefully) the store should function properly.

[One of Charisma’s friends who was helping with the retreat this past weekend said something amusing, but maybe I only find it funny because I’m an ex-knitting designer. We were talking about the different kinds of fiber arts. This woman said she never quite got the hang of knitting, partly because of way the patterns are written. “All those k’s and p’s!—could I buy a vowel, please?” I was laughing about that while working on the store.]

I feel bad for Bonnie Hunter—she posted to Facebook last night that she was so tired of getting hateful and judgmental e-mails from quilters. This last round came from people who said she shouldn’t be buying king-sized flannel sheets on Amazon to make the design walls for Quiltville Inn. These people think she should have purchased the fabric from a local quilt store. (She bought an old Victorian house and is renovating it as a retreat center so that she doesn’t have to travel so much.) Truly, the gall of some people is just amazing—do they really have nothing better to do than to spread negativity everywhere? Fielding this kind of criticism comes with being a celebrity in the quilting world, I know, but I think that people often forget that there is a human being behind that celebrity. And she is one of the most generous quilt teachers out there. If something doesn’t affect you personally, keep your mouth shut. (Also, as she pointed out, she could have gotten the fabric wholesale from one of her suppliers if it had come in the width she needed.)

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The husband found this in the yard the other day:

I have to admire the ingenuity of these birds and how skillfully they wove cast-off chicken feathers into this design. I am sure there is probably some Lila fur in there, too.

The husband said there was a Stellar Jay hanging out by the chicken coop all weekend. They aren’t around for very long—about two weeks in the spring and two weeks in the fall. I am not sure why this one is still here, unless it likes the free scratch grains that fall outside the chicken yard. Usually the turkeys come and hoover them up.