Ryan and Sharee canning and wasps

Since Sharee is working at the farmers market she has access to LOTS of produce at free and reduced prices.  So this weekend they got to do their first canning......and more. She had a half bushel of too ripe peaches that they trimmed up and turned into 13 jars of peach preserves.  The remainder they put into a peach cobbler that went into the freezer for future consumption. 

They also came over with all these cucumbers.  Some are from the farmers market and some are from her sisters garden.  Several were huge and went to the chickens.  Some were perfect size for whole pickles and some were a bit too big so they got sliced up and turned into sliced pickles. 

They both worked hard for 4 1/2 hours processing all the cukes.  The kitchen was a flurry of activity all day.

In the end they have 14 quarts of dill, 7 quarts of bread and butter and 7 quarts of spicy garlic dill. 

I think they had a lot of fun except for the wasps.  At one point Ryan went out the back door to take some stuff to the compost bin.  I heard him scream as soon as the door slammed.  I thought he had slammed his fingers in the door because the door slammed but bounced back open.  Sharee, who had been in the other room when he went outside, heard him scream and assumed he had been burned by boiling water.  We both came running.  I went outside to see what happened and discovered he had been attacked by wasps and because I was now standing there I started to get attacked also.  I ran back inside and grabbed the wasp spray that Patrick had just purchased that morning and went outside ready to get my own revenge.  In the mean time the door had been left open so one was in the house and it was angry.  Ryan is still jumping around the yard trying to get the wasps off of him. Finally we both are free from wasps and are able to get back in the house.  Things settled down after a bit of Benadryl kicked in. As for the wasp in the house; it went up into a light fixture that was on and got overheated and burned up. Too bad, so sad. After dark Patrick went out there with the wasp spray can and nailed the rest of them.  I guess they will always remember their first canning experience.