Canning Time!

Oh it's been a busy, busy time. We took Emma back to Concordia at Moorhead last weekend

and this weekend we took Anna to her new apartment in St. Paul where she will live while attending Grad School at St. Catherine's for Physical Therapy. But we're not bored yet. The garden is going crazy and I'm kept busy freezing and canning away. Of course the temp is upper 80's and high humidity but if you want to preserve your garden's bounty, you have to knuckle down and and sweat. We didn't even turn the AC on - it can't keep with the kitchen heat.
I think I'm finished for the day though. 6 quarts pickles and 1 pint pickled eggplant this morning.

This afternoon was tomato sauce. It really takes hours and hours to make 6 pints of sauce. Hope it's worth it!

This is one day's harvest - not today's. There's canned pears in the back, eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini. beans.

Cantaloupe, watermelon, tomatoes...I can't eat all of this! Sooo I have to start doing something with all this food. It will taste good in the middle of a Minnesota winter!

Here's my freezer stuffed with beans and corn (and full of beef underneath).

Tomato Sauce - the making of....

                                                       Bags and bags of tomatoes...

After picking, we need to put them in boiling water to loosen the skins and split them. This only takes a couple of minutes.

Then we carefully dip them out of the pot and place in the sink filled with ice water to stop the cooking and continue to loosen up the skins.

Now we take the cooled tomatoes and put them through my tomato processor to get rid of the skins and seeds. It works great! Here you see the cooled tomatoes on the right and the seeds/skins/bad tomatoes on the left.

Here is the processor with the skins/seeds coming out the front into the green bowl and the tomato sauce coming out the left side.

From here I have to saute onions and garlic in olive oil. Then add celery and carrots. I add the processed tomatoes as well as parsley from Emma's herb garden and oregano, bay leaves and pepper. I simmer it all for about 2 hours during which time it reduces to about half the amount and thickens up the finished sauce. I have to add lemon juice to acidify the sauce so I can process it in a boiling water bath. The pints are processed for 35 minutes.

The finished product - 6 small pint jars of heaven! Which my children will all want to take home with them...

Barn Swallows

Ooh, been so busy lately. Today was actually a pretty slow day at work so I was able to catch up, or start catching up on a few things. I did spend a few minutes watching and taking pictures of a family of barn swallows outside our front window. They made a mess of the window, but I figure we can clean up after they fledge. You can tell they aren't far from leaving the nest! Actually they have left for flying practice and then come back for meals and sleeping.

My new camera does a pretty good job! I have to show this last picture. When I started clicking the shutter to take the picture, I had a perfect line up of orange mouths. But by the time the picture actually took, the parent was in the middle feeding someone. When the picture was done, the parent had already left - fast work! And hungry babies to feed!

Had dog training class tonight. This is my first class which is taking another 4 weeks to get ready for the Canine Good Citizen Test. Everyone is doing great and I am very proud of all of them. I think they had fun too. My new class which met Monday for the first time will be a challenge - at least some of them. I have a 6 year old lab and a 4 year old Airedale Terrier - same owner. Totally out of control and well established bad behavior. I had to put a training collar on right away so the Airedale wouldn't eat the 'poochon'! I guess the poochon is a cross between a poodle and a bichon frise. I will have my work cut out for me and I know I don't get paid enough for this! But I do it so the owners and dogs have a better life together.


Airedale Terrier



Poochon

Busy surgery day tomorrow. Dental on a 3 pound papillion, glucose curve on a diabetic cat, OFA xrays for registration of a registered dog, scraping the corneas (on the eyes) on a cat, a finally a pyometra (infected uterus on a female dog).
Won't get much else done I guess but it's job security!

Thursday

Long day. Started at 5:30, work at 7:15, finish work at 5:15, start last dog training class at 6:15 and end it at 8:15. Home at 9:00 and the girls weren't home so animals weren't fed and put up. Jacky putting up our first corn so I went out in the near dark and put away the animals for the night. Got on the computer and Ben was on so spent a few with him (he was ready for bed) and girls came home (Anna from Mankato, Emma from Lee's house). Phew! and tomorrow is my long day...
Last day of training went very well. I had everyone fill out an evaluation form and looked at them tonight too. Everyone seemed to enjoy the .8 weeks of class. I know they've made a lot of progress but they also have a ways to go. All the feedback was positive and they are almost all going to come to my 'extension' classes. I'm adding another 4 weeks to get ready for the Canine Good Citizen Test, hopefully middle of September. We start that next Wednesday night because I'm starting another "Dog Manners 101" on Monday again for another 8 weeks. Also 3 of my students from this class recommended me to friends so 4 dogs in my new class are there because of these first students. I hope I'm deserving of this! We've had a whole lot of fun and sometimes my insights into the dogs have surprised the students, and even me when they turned out so true!
Tomorrow will be a super busy day - and ACL surgery, an entropion surgery (where the eyelids are turned in and the eyelashes rub on the eyeball), plus a cat neuter and a dog spay. I'm also trying to fix the boarding mess my coworkers made in the 4 days I was gone (just Saturday, Sunday, off Monday for Livestock interviews in Owatonna, and Tuesday my day off). I came in this morning and they're like, "Lori, you better look at the boarding, I think we're over booked!". Well, yes and no and it took all morning to straighten it out. We are quite full with a waiting list. and one of my regulars went somewhere else because we had no room. Another regular called today and expected to get in this weekend. I forgot to call her back but I really don't know where I'd stash her dog....
Better get to bed. Hopefully will talk to you tomorrow.

County Fair Time!

Busy, busy week. Emma's last county fair as a 4H-er. It's hard to believe the years and years of showing at the fair are almost over.
Emma has done very well. Her drawing got Grand Champion in Crafts and Fine Arts. She can't show it at the state fair because she will be back at school! Her lambs both got purple ribbons and 1st and 2nd in their weight class! - and 4th and 7th in the state fair line up. They were fantastic! Out of about 60 lambs I would guess. Very very competitive. This is only the second year Emma's done lambs too...

Ashley is next to her in yellow with Emma's second lamb. They are put in a class based on their weight and Emma's were only 2 pounds different. Obviously you can't hold two animals at the same time so another
4H-er is allowed to show one of the animals. Way to go Emma! Fantastic job!!!!
That was Wednesday night. Thursday night was Goats. Wish I could say the judge was ok but he was horrible. Not anything new in 4H. Sometimes I think they just put a warm body out there. Emma had the only Nubian Dairy goat.They put all the dry yearlings together and Maggie was 5th out of 6. The judge's reasons and the goats he put ahead of her made no sense whatsoever. Emma will be taking her to State Fair and I hope this judge is watching when "Maggie" does well there. Emma did get Grand Champion in Senior Showmanship. Great Job! She also won the Goat Interviews, Senior division!

More to come on the Meat goats. Tomorrow is the last how - Llama show at 9:00. So to bed!

Back to business

Having taken a week off for my Aunt Kat's funeral in Texas, I am now trying to get back into the pattern of writing you again. The week in Texas was wonderful, even if it was for a funeral. To see all the family again, be back in Seguin, eat real Texas food... Kat will be sorely missed though. She was a wonderful, caring person. Here's a couple of pictures from Texas;

Mother and Chip waiting to eat at Casa Rio

Kim celebrating her birthday!

Casa Rio on the River walk, San Antonio

Pear Cactus Margarita



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Today was spent relaxing some, getting a few things done. I had to go to the clinic this morning - dogs and cat in the treatment area to be taken care of. We were over booked so I decided to do it this way. I had also promised Larry, Max's owner, I would let him pick up his dog this morning. I'm not supposed to do it but Larry travels as a travel guide and was gone for 2 weeks in Alaska. He leaves in a week again for 2 weeks and Max is his only family. One more day with his buddy home with him makes me feel good. It also helps keep clients coming back!

Back at home I made a great lunch - spaghetti with homemade sauce and meat from my coworker's steer, eggplant parmesan made with fairytale eggplants straight from the garden today (I picked 10 today and used 7), followed by fresh peach pie with peaches from Colorado...Yum!

Tomorrow is my dog training class so I spent part of the day figuring out what to do. We're coming to the end of class so I want to introduce something fun. Trixie thinks this piece of agility equipment will work just fine!

Traeh and Trixie knew right away what was up. I couldn't keep them out of it! I tried to get Bryn through but the other two kept running in. I did finally succeed and also got Candy in who had never done it before. 

This is the start of fair week so Emma is super busy getting her goats and lambs ready. They have to be clipped just so and tonight was the lambs' turn. Her boyfriend, Lee, is helping her. He showed lambs for years and is now too old to...

The garden is crazy right now and it's not weeds making it crazy - it's growing vegetables!!! Unfortunately it seems a raccoon has also discovered our sweet corn that is getting close to harvest. We discovered 2 ears shredded. I'm hoping the dogs will discourage this behavior!

Look at these pictures of the garden - beautiful! Can't wait for more veggies to be ready to harvest. Today I picked 10 eggplants, 2 tomatoes, 1 yellow crookneck squash (the first). But I saw butternut squash, lots of watermelons, loads of tomatoes, potatoes,....Beans haven't even flowered yet but I'm hoping some day...

Wednesday

Busy, busy day. Seems to be the pattern doesn't it? Megan was gone since her daughter is getting married on Saturday (actually she's already married but they're having the church ceremony). Therefore, I had to be appointment today. Pooh! I hate being appointment!! That's 4 days within the past week!
Well, the first appointment was kind of fun (although not for the animal). It was a chicken!!!!! Yep, a couple brought in a hen wrapped up in a towel - for limping. Before the doctor got there, I examined the bird and thought she had "bumblefoot" - a foot condition where manure builds up and causes inflammation and infection on the feet.I wanted to check that there was no string or twine wrapped around a toe, since feedsacks are abundant in barns. The couple was what was interesting. The woman was all concerned for this hen - one of 12 that the grandchildren just love. This hen had no name (the grandchildren got tired of thinking of names - plus the hens were all the same breed and looked the same). The man however came in with a big grin on his face. He couldn't believe he was bringing a chicken to the vet!
Tom examined the hen and found a large abscess that he opened up. The woman couldn't watch but the man held onto the hen and watched everything. He was going to try to treat another chicken who was limping at home. Henny Penny was an excellent patient and I wish the dogs and cats that came in were as well behaved!

This is the type of chicken we saw - a Red Star hen, a breed for laying eggs.

This is exactly what her foot looked like! (the round lump in the middle is not normal)

We also had a dog come in for a C-Section. Yes, we do those on dogs too. This Golden Retriever went into labor on Monday, had 2 dead puppies yesterday and x-rays from another vet yesterday that showed 2 more puppies. For whatever reason, they brought her to us today. Once Jen was able to put her under, she found the 2 puppies but they were also dead. Not a happy outcome, but it saved the dog's life. The toxins build up if the puppies don't come out. I guess, just like with some people, the puppies couldn't get through the birth canal so they couldn't have been born naturally. The people will spay the dog when she is better since she probably can never have puppies. The dog is so fat though that Jen said she would not spay the dog until she lost some weight.

Mike had a calf come in with what they thought was an umbilical hernia. I didn't get to help but when Mike sedated the calf and got a good look, he found an abscess instead. Hopefully the calf will do ok - it's worth $2000  according to the owner. They raise show dairy cattle. Here's a similar calf for you to see. There was a lot of mooing in the barn when she woke up! That went along with the bleating of the goat there to be castrated....

Garden!

Just a quick post today. Spent some of the morning filling up water for everyone and taking pictures of our beautiful garden. We've never had such a good garden here. Even as hot as it's been we've been keeping it watered, weeded and loved. And it shows! I picked about 7 small eggplants and another handful of cherry tomatoes. But there's lots to come. I have no more room for zucchini in the fridge, even though there's more to be picked. Here's a few pics of the wonderful veggies;

Of course I had the dogs with me this morning. It was getting a little warm, as you can see from the panting. Uli has his own way of keeping cool - ear flaps! Trixie likes to keep cool with a dust bath.

Also the flowers by the house are in bloom - don't know what they are - and my tiger lilly is blooming. We had to keep the snow fence up just to keep the geese from eating the lilly blooms. Must be a goose delicacy.