Too Many Pickles

Is there such a thing as too many pickles? If such a limit does exist, I think I've gone past it. Waaaay past it. We've had two large baskets of cucumbers sitting in our kitchen for a couple of days now and every day I've been adding to it. Glenn finally reached the end of his patience yesterday and said "I'll help you make pickles, let's just get it done. It shouldn't take long." Those are the famous last words of the inexperienced pickler. Those are also the words I had been waiting on. I'll help you. Ok then, let's get them done!

We spent five hours canning pickles yesterday. Have I mentioned how small my kitchen is? Have I mentioned before that I have almost NO usable counter space? Canning in my kitchen is so much fun, especially with two people in a small kitchen. And two dogs. And one cat. Rachael Ray would have a field day in our kitchen. You know how she's all about making one trip to fridge and counter to save time? HA. Here's how it happens in our kitchen.

1) Glenn washes and trims ends off the cukes at the sink, then piles them into the strainer.
2) I pick up the strainer, carry it over to the kitchen table where I then slice them into future pickles.
3) Once all the pickles and onions are sliced I realize I need pots to put them in so they can sit with canning salt and ice cubes. So into the pantry I go for pots. Then to the kitchen sink, because everything in this house has to have the dust rinsed out before using it. I kick Glenn aside, listen to his grumblings and watch the knife in his hand very closely, then back to the kitchen table to put the cukes in the pots.
4) Walk to the fridge to get ice cubes, then back to the kitchen table.
5) Walk to the spice cabinet to get canning salt, then back to the kitchen table.
6) Back to the stove to get the brine ready.
7) Back to the kitchen table because I realized I didn't have any pots left for the brine.
8) Spend a minute trying to come up with more storage options for the cuke slices so I could free up a pot.
9) Back to the cabinet over the stove for two casserole dishes, then back to the kitchen table.
10) Dump one pot of cukes into both casserole dishes, back to sink to rinse it out and start the brine.

I won't bore you with any more, but now you know why this took five hours. We did five batches of pickles: four more batches of the Methodist and one batch of Bread & Butter. Why so many Methodist? Because Glenn couldn't possibly go into winter without at least 30 jars in the pantry. Current pickle inventory: 35 Methodist, 20 Bread & Butter, 12 Dill spears, 6 pints dill slices. Now when my pregnant friend comes to visit I'll just need to pick up some ice cream.

I'd like to do more dills and I really want to try doing some sweet gherkins this year. But the bugs have started to get to my cukes and they're beginning to turn yellow, so I'm not sure how much more cuke time I've got this season. I also need to order more spinach, collards, and beet seeds for a second fall planting. But please don't hold me to that.


Appybutt was supposed to go home last weekend. Drunken neighbor said she's been working on the fence and would really like to have him home. I'm actually surprised that she remembered that he was gone. But she never showed up last weekend to get him. Of course she didn't. She would have had to walk at least a few hundred yards to accomplish the move. Oh, the horror of it all. So when Glenn gets home today we'll take him home ourselves. It will take two of us because I guarantee he's not going to want to leave. But once he's gone Indy, Stride, Manny, and Chief will get moved into the back pasture to hang with the bachelor dwarfs. I'll just have to ignore any dirty looks from Manny this time. They should be happy about it, there's a lot more grass back there and the Troublets will not be able to harass them any more. But I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot of whinnying for awhile until they get used to it.

Excuse the lack of pictures. The camera is MIA at the moment. I've interrogated Thor, but he's a tough nut to crack and won't tell me where he buried it.