Keeping up with… something or another.

Today we invested in a small (5.0 cu ft) chest freezer. It is now installed next to the much larger front-opening freezer in the utility room.

Now I will have room to store some grains and nuts (if we buy in bulk and freeze it’s cheaper), extra meats and meals (I like to make lasagna and tamales in quantity and freeze some for later), and frozen fruit for baking later in the year.

Tom finished the framing for the garden gate. I put a bag of compost in the cold frame and dug it in, ready for planting a crop for winter. And weeded some…

Finally, Tom and I tallied the jars of jam and jelly from this year. I have 69 at the moment (have given away at least 8 jars so far), ranging in size from 4 ounces to quart. We have plum jam and plum jelly, plum-currant jelly, sour plum jelly and plum surprise jam (plum base with peach, raspberry and blueberry); strawberry, gooseberry and raspberry jam; raspberry jelly; raspberry, marionberry and raspberry-marionberry jam; and cherry pie filling. And yes, you are noticing a dearth of blueberry and plain-old blackberry jams. Either they are still-to-come or for next year, after all 69 jars, even if some are destined for gifts, is a LOT of jam!

Here are the glads from yesterday’s post, on the hutch from Granny. They weren’t going to survive well under the bird netting that protected them from the deer, so it made sense to bring them in.