Ready for a Long Hard Winter

waiting their turn in the pressure canner

 We stopped by our Amish friends place yesterday on our way from picking up my last seven railroad ties. Howie, the friend who gave the ties to us, was in the hospital, and we feared some one else would help themselves to the ties, if left unattended. He's home now. Stomach Virus and dehydration. He has heart problems and cannot be too cautious.

Our Amish friends had accumulated a huge box of tomatoes with flaws and they were sitting there on the porch. I was looking through the box and they were really nice tomatoes. Some were cracked and some had small blemishes on them, but overall, nothing that could not be saved. I asked Mary if they were for sale, and she said she would sell them even though she usually canned those for her family. She said she was so busy, she really didn't have time to do her own canning at this time,so she would let me have the entire box for $8.
The perfect ones, she sells for 85 cents a pound, so this was a real bargain.Even with the blemishes.

I took them home and immediately began working them up. That was yesterday. I ended up with seventeen quarts, so today, I am putting them in the pressure canner for processing. Four at a time. That will take me all day. But it's worth it to have the job done all at once. Our tomatoes are not doing as well as they normally do, so it would have taken me all summer to accumulate enough to can seventeen jars of juice. I have canned several pints of whole tomatoes from our garden. Enough to supply Pop with his tomatoes and cornbread, all winter. This should be the end my canning for this coming Winter. Unless it be a few more jars of fried apples. Our tree is loaded this year and I have been giving them to anyone who seems interested.