Cukes, Peaches, and a Tooth

I do believe I've seen the last of this for the summer:

The cuke vines are dying back and while I'll still be able to harvest a few more before all is said and done, the huge harvests are over for the year.  It was a great cuke year!  It allowed me to finely hone my pickle recipes. I started out with refrigerator pickles, then some bread and butters, then canned some vinegar dill pickles and more bread and butters, then fermented a whole lot of deli dills.  I'm now in love with the fermented deli dills.  Real nice combo of salty and sour and full of probiotic greatness.  It also just happens to be the easiest of the preservation techniques.  

Totals for the year:

6 quarts refrigerator Dills

2 quarts refrigerator Bread and Butter

7 quarts canned Dills

5 pints canned Bread and Butter

11 quarts of fermented Deli Dills

In addition to the cukes, I've also pickled (so far):

2 quarts fermented Dilly beans

2 quarts fermented pepperoncini

3 pints canned pepperoncini

Peaches are in!  We've been crazy busy processing (and eating) them.  Kaya is a fanatic and I watched her eat no less than 4 peaches back to back, and then ask for another.  For some reason I felt the need to cut her off! 

I could have swore that I bought two 18 lb cases last year, which didn't quite get us through the winter.  So this year I bought three 18 lb cases.  Once I made the first batch of jam and barely put a dent in the top layer of the first case, I realized that I was quite mistaken and had only purchased 1 box last year.  I was a bit worried about getting through them all before they started to turn, but we're down to only half a case left.  

They had a great time helping me peel.  In fact, they did all the peeling, while I halved and pitted.  Then they helped me measure out the water and sugar for the syrup.  They wanted to keep helping with the rest of the process, but there was just too much boiling water and boiling syrup and simmering lids and hot jars involved to let them partake in that just yet.  This day, we canned 14 quarts of peaches in syrup.  

Even Kassie couldn't resist and tried a bite of peach!  She said she liked it and acted like she liked it, but only had the one bite.  It's a start!

Peach totals for the year:

14 quarts peaches in syrup

9 half pints Summer Fruit jam (a combo of peaches and apples...with apples from our very own apple tree!)

10 half pints peach jam

4 pints Fruit Ketchup (made with peaches, apples, some leftover Romas I had frozen from last years harvest and a few fresh Romas that are just starting to come in)

20-30 fresh peaches, eaten in 3 days by Kaya

The other big happening this week...Kaya finally lost her first tooth!  Only took me 3 or 4 good yanks to get it out.  She was so excited!  The tooth fairy came as expected and didn't wake her up, so all were happy.

Random, parting sunflower shot.