I'm In The Throes Of My Yearly Canning Project.... During The Best Golf Week Of The Year

As anyone who reads this blog already knows, I usually have a garden every year, from which I *can* (even though it's a jar) various items to give as Christmas presents. However, since the fox family was just so adorable this last summer, as many of you know, I canceled planting this year in lieu of enjoying the fox pups grow and play. I can honestly say that it was worth it. I see Felicia occasionally now sitting in a warm spot on the cinder block fence, hidden by the overgrown trumpet vine. She seems serene by herself but also lonely in a way.

So, I wasn't even counting on doing much canning this year aside from the hot sauce I made and entered in the Austin Hot Sauce Festival at the end of August. Frankly, I'm growing weary of it after 26 years, even though I have always loved doing it. You can imagine my horror delight when I opened the front door last weekend to find a huge bag of green tomatoes.

Hmmmm.... It was obviously left by a fan of my Chow-Chow, right? So, I spent a couple of days going around to farmers markets buying the other veggies I needed for Chow-Chow and finally got down to business on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I realized that I'd forgotten to buy sugar, so back to the store I went. Thankfully, I remembered that I needed more jars while I was there. Before I made it to the check out I remembered that I also need more canning salt. At this point I was thinking that my brain is functioning just fine, thank you very much.

I then decided that if I was going to be making the Chow-Chow anyway, I might as well make more hot sauce so that all of our Christmas gift recipients can have one of each, so off I went in search of the rest of the items I would need for that undertaking. Good. I was done, so I proceeded to the checkout, paid my money, and headed home.

I knew it was a full moon by the way people were driving... You know. Like they were in a dream or on the FREAKING CELL PHONE. Okay, they were on cell phones, most of them. One was just a complete moron who probably shouldn't even have a drivers license. It took forever for me to get home because everyone was acting like we were in a slow motion movie or a time warp. It was truly weird. They just passed a new law here that states you cannot talk on cell phones while in school zones. I saw countless people on their cell phones in school zones. What good is a law if it isn't enforced, right?

Just as I pull in the driveway I remember that I'd also needed to get more cilantro for the hot sauce and by this time I was getting annoyed as Hell with myself. I promptly turned around, cursing under my breath and headed once again to the store. I went in, got the damn cilantro and headed back home, which proved to be amazingly uneventful.

Needless to say, I got off to a rather slow start, considering my failing *gathering skills*, but picked up steam later on. I've now gotten several cases of Chow-Chow finished as well as two more cases of hot sauce, with only one more case of each to go. I'm hoping to get that finished up Monday. Then I can slap the labels I made on the jars and be done with it.

So, I'm a bit absent during this. However, I am still posting once per day, as promised. Is November almost over yet?