I didn't know it'd been so long since I posted!

I think I've mentioned before that when real life gets busy, blogging falls by the wayside. I'm sorry about that.

After taking that canning class, I find I've done things like buy extra peaches at the Farmer's Market to make some peach preserves.

Our cucumber plants produced enough for me to make these 14 jars of cucumber relish. Yes, I chopped by hand (with some help from Keith) 8 cups of cucumbers. I usually don't mind chopping veggies by hand when I'm cooking, but this was a little too much as there were also multiple cups of peppers, onions and celery to chop.

I'm definitely pulling out the food processor next time!

What I've found is regardless of how hot it is outside (and we've had days the thermometer has hit 97.5 F), it's never too hot to nap beside steaming hot jars set out to cool.

You can see our 14 jars of relish. I can't wait to open one up, but they have to sit for a bit and let the flavors blend.

And we made the discovery that apparently Lily patrols the kitchen counters when we're not around to chase her off them.

I couldn't find her before going to bed the night we made blueberry-lime jam. The important part was that she wasn't in the bedroom because she rarely sleeps all night.

It never occurred to me to look in the giant pot that I had washed and left to dry on the stove top.

I was more than a little surprised by this! (And darn! Now I need to wrestle with washing the pot again!)