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Tomato insanity!

Last year it was strawberries that my roommate and I got carried away with… this year it was tree farm produce….

What you see here is 32 lbs of tomatoes, 15 lbs of tomatillos, and almost 5 lbs of hot peppers.

After much work (and notice it’s not even done!!! there are ever more tomatoes & tomatillos to deal with), it’s turned in to 4 quarts, 11 pints, and 16 half-pints of canned stuff. It also became some fresh salsa and some tomato soup. Click on this picture if you want to see what’s what.

AND this year was the first year ever where I exploded a few jars. Sadly, these all would have been pickled peppers if only they had survived (I tasted a few explodees and they were quite tasty) and so there are only 3 jars left of that particular experiment… at least they made a pretty cool “BOOM!” sound when they blew… (^_^)

Earlier this year I canned three different kinds of jam, too:
– blueberry, low-sugar
– blueberry-cherry-rhubarb
– blueberry-blackberry-gooseberry
The blueberries I picked in Michigan, the blackberries in Chuck’s backyard, and the gooseberries in my yard (they’re one of the new bushes in the highly contested borderline). But I don’t have any pictures of *that* process.

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Changing purposes…

While in Ventura last weekend, I found a pretty nice macrame belt. Since I am not fond of wearing belts for show (I’m more of a utilitarian belt person 😉 I thought that it might make a nice necklace and/or bracelet… and it did!

I couldn’t resist taking a picture while I was unraveling the part that I cut. This makes me think of an alien bug, don’t you agree?

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Card #1 of 5

I’m in the middle of making another set of cards. 5 designs, 8 prints of each. I think that this set will be a little more obviously a “set” than the first set of cards I did this year.

Here’s the first one I finished next to the linoleum block it came from:

I may resort to random on wikipedia for names again….

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Gratuitous Pindzele shot

I’m thinking I might change her name from Pindzele to Pixel. She kind of looks like she’s pixelated *and* she doesn’t really react to any name particularly consistently anyway… so until we get the “come when you’re called” down, I figure it’s still OK to change her name.

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grinding glass

I am half done with the grinding stage of the window I’m working on. It’s nolonger safe to walk around in my kitchen w/out shoes on (don’t worry – all food has been moved to be out of range of flying glass particles), but here’s what it looks like when it’s ground down to actually fit together nicely:

Here’s what’s still left to work on:

I’m kind of excited about this project again now 🙂

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July & August intentions

I’m starting to think that perhaps I’m trying to fit too much in to one month…. especially considering that in the last two months I’ve only finished one of the things on my list :S

….starting in September, I’m narrowing the list of things to accomplish and adding a section of “bonus points for doing _____ ” kind of list. Or that’s the thought at *this* moment anyway…. let’s see if that works or not….

July/August
– re-wire kiln
– re-do the patio furniture
– mat and/or frame a bunch of stuff
– begin a woodworking project (a table!)
– paint the 3.5’x7.5′ paintings at D’s (or at least *start* them)
– track down one last ceiling tile painter…. who happens to be my roommate!
– rehab clay & glazes
– get back to creating that window!
— grind down the edges
— wash & dry all pieces
— wrap with copper foil
— burnish the copper foil
— solder the window
— ?patina?
— install the window
– play with hot glass