Canning, Fencing, and Sunburn

It was a very busy weekend around here.

I knew it was going to be a busy weekend when I bought two 5-gallon pails of cucumbers.  This was probably a bushel and a quarter of cucumbers. 

So, 52 quarts of garlic dill pickles later - the cucumbers are finally gone.  We only had one jar not seal and one jar cracked after going through the canner.  The unsealed jar is in the fridge pickling and the broken jar and contents have been thrown away for safety's sake.

I also canned 6 pints of pickled garlic.  You'd think the 4 cloves of garlic that I have to put into each jar of pickles would be enough for my family when they are going after it.  Nope.  Have to make pickled garlic, too.  Then, went to work on the bucket of beets that Dad gave me and that yielded another 5 pints of beets.  I didn't even have to make the brine for that one - Mom had extra after doing her beets and gave me the brine.

We blanched some beans and added another 3 quarts of green beans to the freezer.  Dehydrated 9 racks of sliced zucchini and need to do some more.  That is so good in soup.  It adds a taste of summer during winter.

I had been (kind of) joking with my "little" 6'2" 300-lb brother on Facebook the other day. He was going to be at my parents' house and he wanted to do some strongman workout.  I asked if strongman workout included building fence.  Luckily for me, he decided that it did.  He dug at least 11 fence post holes, 3 1/2 feet deep each.  Then, he helped us put the posts in and put up the fence.  Not only did we put up about 250' of new fence, we undid some of the existing fence and spread that out further.  The goat pen is at least 6 times the size it was.  Even though my ankle is killing me today and Bob's wrist is spasming on him.

The goats didn't know what to do with all that space.  Carmel zoomed back and forth and then panted.  She did this several times.  What a goofball!

Which leads us to the sunburn.  We built fence for about 4 hours yesterday, and my shoulders and the back of my neck are burned.  The back of Bob's neck is RED!  Luckily, I've seen lots of sun doing stuff outside this summer, so the sunburn just needed some aloe.

Ugh, my body is sore, especially down the entire right side of my body.  That is the side with the sore ankle.  So, walking over all that uneven ground yesterday messed me up.  Woke up with a charlie horse in my calf. My hip hurts. The right side of my back has already been iced this morning. My shoulder is tight and it hurts down into my upper arm and elbow.  I think I have a pinched nerve in my shoulder, because I can trace the nerve path into my arm.  I'm hoping to get to the chiropractor tomorrow morning.

Ok, back to real life and trying to get work appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday.