July 24

Spending a quiet weekend at the farm.

Thursday was another unexpectedly busy pizza night. Not on the scale of other weeks (we sold 56 pizzas) but it had been pouring rain all day (ended up with 4" total) so we weren't planning on many people. One more set of hands in the kitchen would have been nice (she told one of our helpers that they didn't need to come in because we were so sure it would be slow), but we kept up ok.

Because the pizzas are cooked one at a time, the kitchen only needs to be 1 or 2 pizzas ahead of the oven. In fact, if the dough sits out too long with all the ingredients on it (especially if the kitchen is hot) it gets really "crabby" we like to say. It sticks to the counter and the peel (the big flat spatula that they get moved around with), and is very difficult to work with. I've had to remind myself of all that many times. Just because there's a big stack of orders waiting to be made, as long as we're staying ahead of the oven, it's all good.

During all the rain before Pizza Night, we got a lesson in different preserving methods. We made 2 2-gallon jars of refrigerator pickles (just the pickling cucumbers, dill, garlic and onion, soaked in a brine and stored in the fridge), 10 quarts of spiced peaches (peaches in a simple syrup with ginger and cinnamon) processed in a hot water bath, and 20 quarts of green beans (with a touch of salt, then covered with boiling water) processed with a pressure canner. I've always wanted to do more canning and preserving but I've never had the volume of produce I felt I needed to justify the time.

Friday was a little tough on me. After a full day Thursday (only a couple of short "breaks" between chores at 7:30 a.m. until cleanup was done in the pizza kitchen at 9:00 p.m.) I was so tired. Even getting a little later start didn't help much. And, of course, it was hot and humid and the fields were very muddy. Plus, my weeding buddy, C, left early for the weekend so I was tackling some newer squash plants by myself. H took pity on me, though, and we finished up a little early!

I'm basically being a lazy bum today, which is kinda nice! I've been reading and working on some sewing projects. There may even be a nap in the near future! Just trying to re-charge my batteries so I can face the rest of the squash on Monday!