My pressure canning class today --

Nothing about writing today, so you can skip this if you'd rather.

So, I had my class this afternoon for some hands-on experience about pressure canning. I posted previously about getting a vintage canner at an estate sale. I had the gauge tested, and the gaskets checked out about a month ago at my local Agricultural Extension office. If you haven't taken advantage of your local office, you should check it out -- there may be a class or some gardening tips you can use.

Anyway, for this class we prepared and canned green beans. It was an awesome class, and it was good to get some practice on the techniques. Books are great, but for something that involves that nasty botulism germ, it's good to have someone around to teach you the right way.

After we weighed out two pounds of green beans, we washed them, then cut them into pieces about 2" long. Then the beans went into boiling water to blanch them, and then into the jars. We packed them down a bit, then poured some of the boiling water into the jar, placed a lid on, then a ring. Then we put our jar into the canner.

I wish I'd been able to get pictures of the class, just to show you, but the result is one quart of lovely fresh beans, which we will have for supper tonight. Normally, the canned food would be left undisturbed to cool for 24 hours, and then stored for later use, but since we are having car trouble at our house, and I can't be sure I'd get back next week to pick mine up, I brought it home.

HOT jars! Woo!

I've been doing a small garden this year, trying out the lasagne gardening method. It's a great concept, especially with my red clay and compacted gravel soil. There's a long story involved with the gravel-thing, maybe I'll post about it someday.

This is the first tomato. It was tiny, because the plant had fruited when it was about 18" tall, but it ripened so I plucked it off before some creature got it. We also have three babies on the watermelon vines. and the potatoes are going gangbusters, despite being in the same plot as the tomatoes (not supposed to grow together, but that info came a little late!).

The melons are about twice this size now. If you look just past it, you can just see a tiny bit of red. That's the tomato before I picked it.Well, enough blathering about the garden, and green beans, for the day. Forgive the blurry pictures, I must be shaking a little more than usual.



Until next time, Gentle Readers. Have a save and fun weekend.

Operation Ebook Drop

I just recently joined a fantastic organization called Operation Ebook Drop, which allows authors to send coupons from Smashwords to our members serving overseas so they can download free books. To find out more, follow the link to the group's website.

I put up all four of my short stories so far, and they are being downloaded. I'm proud to be doing this little thing to brighten the day of our men and women in uniform. I was in the US Air Force myself, many moons ago, and I have a special place in my heart for the military.

I've been thinking recently -- I know, I know, too dangerous -- about rejoining the group I used to be in that makes cards for our service members to send home. Many of the military serve in places where there aren't many choices for things to buy, so this gives them a chance to have handmade cards to send for birthdays, holidays, or just general reasons.

It's been a while since I've made any cards for this group, but I've never forgotten the people who do this, at their own expense, to help our guys and gals in uniform.

The group is on the Cricut message board here:  Cards for Soldiers.  There are other groups around the Internet that does cards like this, one I've recently found is called Operation Write Home. Check them out for more information.


If you haven't heard of it, the Cricut is a die cutting machine that uses cartridges with pre-loaded images and fonts to cut paper and cardstock, which can be used on scrapbook pages, cards, and various other items, like home decor. There are other brands of cutting machines that do much the same things.

Well, enough chattering for today, got crafty stuff to do, and I haven't gotten any writing done on my novel, or any of the shorts I have hanging around.

So, until later, Gentle Readers. Take care.

 

new Smashwords stories

I've uploaded two more stories to Smashwords, although these aren't free. Sorry. These were next up on my list to publish, it just turns out it happened during the sale--which is still on-going, if you haven't checked it out.

The first, "Teacher's Pet", is a tale about a third grade teacher and the problems she has with the class pet. This is selling for $0.99.

It was written in response to a prompt on the Absolute Write horror forum. There's a link to the site on the right side bar, if you want to check it out. They have a wonderful community of writers there.

The second story is actually two in one. The first is a novelette (6,850 words) about what happens when a down-on-his-luck newspaper man gets the job of his dreams. You know what they say: if something is too good to be true...

The second part is a very short story (1,400 words) about a family that finds an unusual pet on their way home from an outing.

I put these two together because they have the same sort of vaguely Lovecraft vibe, and also because I didn't feel right charging separately for such a short work. A little over 8,000 words for both, for $1.99. (Either linked picture takes you to the same page.)

So, there you are. Hope you all had a lovely Independence Day!

Until next time, Gentle Readers.

Smashwords summer/winter sale!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm participating in the sale over at Smashwords. For the month of July both of the short stories I have there are free.

Yes, that's right--you can download the stories for free (they're usually $0.99 each)!

The links to the left go directly to each story's page, just click on the cover. Then use the code SSWSF at checkout.

The anthology is of course not included in this sale (for one thing, it's on Amazon, and for another, it's not my anthology, I'm just one of the included authors).  

There are lots of authors participating in the sale, with prices ranging from free to 75% off cover price. To get to the sales, on the Smashwords home page click on the link on the left. Each book/story has its own coupon code, depending on the discounted price.

I hope you go check it out, and find something good to read!

Have a sparkling good Independence Day, and stay safe, Gentle Readers.