chickens and a cow

We headed out mid-week to see Uncle Bret. The kids always have a ball there. The house is full of sugar and he lets you climb aaallll over the furniture. We got in a good hike and found a mother load of mushrooms, chantrells and porchinies, yummy!

mags even found a nice hill to roll down....

We returned to start the craziness of canning in this house. We have made a ton of pesto! Only a quarter of my basil remains. D ran into a friend on the way to the farmers market to pick up pickling cucumbers. She told him that they were also pickling and had left over pickles. When I stopped by to pick them up their leftovers were four boxes worth. This is what it looked like after the kids and I washed them and put them in an ice bath....

and this is what 40 large jars and 5 small jars of pickles look like....

This week will be choke-cherry and strawberry-rhubarb jelly and soon the tomatoes.... Now all I need is a cow and some chickens and I can avoid my weekly grocery trips :)