I got up pretty early yesterday. Well, early for ME. I ran to Riverbend Farm for see if I could get some of her wonderful tomatoes, but alas…I believe I missed the window. It’s getting a little late in the season for tomatoes. I did the next best thing and went to one of my two favorite farm stands. Ward’s Market is where my mom always used to get her produce in the summer. They had canning tomatoes…a half bushel for $15. I bought a bushel and a half…which equates to 75 pounds of tomatoes. 

I dropped the half-runners off to the former Mrs. Fix-it and she gifted me a big pot with two different varieties of Wandering Jew…a plant that is pretty near impossible to kill. Which is good, because I am NOT good at keeping houseplants alive. I showed her my tomatoes and gave her the biggest one in the box! It really was the prettiest tomato of the season, I think.

After our visit, I headed to the Kroger store in Belpre, OH. It’s the closest to a Colorado grocery store that we have in this area and I just love it. I bought all the ingredients to make Vegetable Beef soup that I’ll can. On my way home, I pulled into Witten’s Farm Stand and bought a head of cabbage for the soup and a half bushel of peaches for $40. I’ll can those and make a batch or two of peach jam. We went through what I made last time and it is so, so good!

I got started on the tomatoes and I was so happy with this Weston Tomato Press & Sauce Maker. So quick and easy to turn quartered tomatoes into purée while expelling the skins, seeds, and cores into a separate container. If I had chickens or pigs or a compost pile, I would have disposed of all that pulp that way. But, I don’t so out it went. 

I was nearly finished straining the tomatoes when Mr. FixIt called me out to help him with the railing. It’s been way too hot to work out there midday so we needed to get a lot done before dark. As it was, we could barely see when we cut the last board and screwed it in place. I am really proud of the job my sweetheart (and my stepson) did on these steps. You can sure tell an engineer built them because they’re sturdy as can be. If we need to grab a railing to keep from falling, that thing isn’t budging!

I also sliced two large containers of mushrooms and put them in the dehydrator.

So, as I sit here typing, it’s going on 10:30pm and I’m whupped. I have a canner load in, working it’s way up to 10 pounds of pressure. When it gets there, I need to I start timing and making sure it stays there for 15 minutes. Then I can turn off the heat and let it cool overnight. I don’t have room in the fridge for the rest of the tomato purée so I’m going to put it in a crockpot to simmer overnight to thicken. My stepdaughter and her husband are coming over this afternoon to help us get some things done. She’ll help me with the canning and he’ll help Mr. FixIt with hauling brush.

It’s going to be a busy and productive day here at Marshmallow Ranch!

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“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.”

Proverbs 13:4 ESV