Anyone want some cucumbers???

Still a little bit sick around here, but at this point I'm just mostly sick of cucumbers!

When hubby first planted our garden this year, the beans did fabulously (they still are, actually) but he thought that the cucumber plants had all died...so he planted a second row of them...well, the first plants weren't dead afterall, and the second ones are thriving, too!

I loaned my waterbath canner to my MIL quite a while ago, and I took one of her canners home before we went to Wichita...well, I was nice and returned that canner with the bucket of cucumbers we gave her when we left...and she still has the canner (and another bucket of cucumbers...) so I've been doing my waterbath canning in my stockpot, which works fine, but I think the max I can do at a time is 5-6 pint jars (I definately couldn't do many quart jars in it!)

So, yesterday, I did 3 pints of dill pickle spears and 5 pints of sweet pickle relish. I also am midway through doing a pint or two of gerkhins (they require a couple of days of soaking.

Talking to my mom last night (she called to see if I wanted some videotapes that I made with some of my friends in middle school...I told her to burn them, please!) she mentioned that some homemade sweet pickle relish would make a good Christmas gift. The poor woman doesn't know what she's getting into, because I have enough monster cucumbers to make at least 6 more pints (if not 9!) So, in a while I need to run to the hardware store (for more pint canning jars and a new nightlight for the girls...they've been using a GentleVapors thing with a nightlight the last few nights!) and to the grocery store (for more green pepper, onion, celery seed and mustard seed). Then, there is a lot more canning in my future.

I also have a tentative plan for getting my dishwasher (birthday present), but I'm waiting to find out if hubby's schedule is what was written down, and then I need to check with my MIL so we can borrow her vehicle and possibly leave the children with her.