#squirrel stew

Matt came home from the back-woods with his dad's (actually originally Grandma's) pressure canner. Because Ruby's Pantry decided to give us 30 pounds of tomatoes and if we let them go much longer they'll decay and be inedible. Last night we made salsa; tonight it's whole tomatoes. This thing is really kind of frightening with its noises and risk of 3rd degree burns (I'm thinking of the CornBaller on Arrested Development, though it's probably not that bad). And here I am finding myself terrified of the risk of botulism, even though this thing is way more sanitary than a standard water bath (which is what these recipes called for). Mostly because I have no clue what the hell we are doing. Yes, the girl who makes kombucha tea and has given out dozens of SCOBY cultures via the internet, even amid the hot summer and risk of fruit flies, is fearful of packing a few innocent vegetables at extremely high temperatures that no pesky microorganism can survive. It's okay to laugh. The same girl who AGAIN ate squirrel stew for dinner. Now that I put it in writing, it is pretty silly, isn't it? Anyway, if we survive eating what we've canned this year I'm totes growing a ton of tomatoes next summer to do it again.

Today I realized that adult ADHD is real when I opened the microwave and found a cold mug of apple cider sitting inside; meanwhile my husband was outside playing with his pellet gun. In other news, we're having squirrel stew for dinner.

The 'family time' parts of this movie remind me of redneck Hunger Games.