Errand day - Canning Tomatoes - Pizza

Today is going to be warmer up around 90° but still better than what we have been having.

My riding mower was acting up last time we used it so we decided another trip to the shop was in order. It is located in a small town about 30 miles away so makes a pretty good little jaunt and ate up the best part of the morning.

We stopped at our favorite orchard on the way home. He didn't have anything in bushel or peck size so I just tried a 4 lb. bag of Rubyjons. I love Jonathon apples and think they can't be beat for pies or frying. This hybrid is very good. I wouldn't hesitate to buy them again. The Jonathons and Golden Delicious won't be ready for a few weeks. He had serious trouble with the Japanese Beetles too and every time he sprayed, it came a shower and washed it off. He would have to go back and repeat spray which I failed many times to do.

We also picked up a quart of Missouri honey.

We picked a couple of bushels of tomatoes yesterday and spread them out in the harvest shed. I knew I needed to do some of them after we got home so
I made up a batch of pizza dough and just left it in the food processor to raise while working on the tomatoes. I canned 5 quarts and will do another batch tomorrow. I have enough plum tomatoes to do ketchup again and plan to try cooking it down in the crock pot. Have any of you ever done that? I am wondering, with lid on or off.

Finished up the pizza around 1 PM and quit for the day.

Sat in my chair and read all afternoon. I am reading 'Housekeeping' by Marilynne Robinson......the jury is still out on this one. I enjoyed her 'Gilead' very much.

Happy ending to my doctor appointment story. I was right, the specialist was supposed to call me to schedule after I had been referred. The gal in charge of that little step didn't do it properly. After a 3-way phone call where I kept very quiet, I heard the new doctors' office person tell her 'here is how it is done, you refer, we call the patient. End of story, they faxed her the data and I will see him next Thursday, 8/26. It just takes one person not doing something correctly and then refusing to check into it but just saying I did it, I did it to snafu the system.

Only a couple of pictures today.

The first is a picture on the way to town with the mower. I was shooting into the early morning sun. This shows some of our Ozarks hills and farmland and is right behind us a few miles.


and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the beautiful apples we got. I fried some tonight with sugar and butter and had some on a slice of homemade 7-grain toast for supper.