Sunday, September 19, 2010

Canning and Third degree burns...

This weekend Jed and I made a quick trip to Afton, Wyoming to visit Adam, Erika, and baby Taylor. As always, we had a really good time!
Friday night, Jed and Adam went to a scouting backpacking trip/campout, and Erika and I stayed home and canned peaches. As I've mentioned before, I have never canned before but have been wanting to learn lately. It was a lot of fun chatting girl talk with Erika and canning three varieties of peaches until 2:30 in the morning.
Saturday, the boys came home then left to go chop the last load of wood that the Benches need for the winter. While they were gone, Erika and I got started on the applesauce that we decided to can at the last minute.
Unfortunately, we experienced a freak accident with a pressure cooker that sent one of us (but not me) to the ER and left one of us (not me) with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns up and down the arms. It was very traumatic for us both and a very scary situation. It really isn't a laughing matter, but that's how we chose to deal with it once we got home from the hospital (and even while we were there... but the nurses and docs didn't have such a great sense of humor). I have to say that a lot of remarkable things happened that left me feeling like we (or Erika, rather) was prevented from having much worse wounds/burns and was very lucky despite the terrible burns she received. She is doing a little better now... even if she does kind of look like a mummy with those dressings on her arms. (Erika! get better soon!)
Once the boys came home, we had to explain to them everything that had happened that day.. including no applesauce being made. So what did we do? We decided to plow through the night and finish the applesauce and start and finish the salsa we had planned to make. The boys really stepped it up, and we got it all done (even Erika spent all night working with us.. even though she was on some serious pain meds and had every reason to retreat to her bedroom and be waited on hand and foot.... not saying I would do that or anything.... but you know, I would have).

We finally got to bed at 4:30 am last night.

But we finished everything!
We finished and split with the Benches 45 jars of applesauce, 16 jars of delicious salsa, and close to 40 jars of peaches total.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty eventful weekend, and I'm grateful for the Benches and all they do for us! I love canning and hope to do and learn a lot more in the years to come!

Here are some pictures!

Don't these peaches just look delicious!??

Well.. they are! I love the sound of the lids sealing. Pop!

Notice that this was around midnight... I was grinding the applesauce (no make-up or hair done... i look 11)

Don't worry.. these arms look even worse now. Don't you just want to cry looking at them? Erika is the strongest person everrrr


Good work, team!

P.S. don't forget to look at the other post I did tonight about my fun night with Kelly Clarkson!

5 comments:

Marie said...

Wow, super productive! I get worn out just doing one of those three. It's nice to have so much done at once though because you are all stocked up for the next year (or longer)!

Kel said...

Ouch ouch ouch!

I must say, I'm way impressed. Our peach tree is producing fruit like crazy and I have no clue what to do with the fruit. The peaches just drop and rot on the ground (well, the ones I don't stuff my face with)...

:)

I wish I knew how to can things.

Andrea Olsen said...

I WANT SOME PEACHES!!!!! MMMMM!

And that burn looks like it HURTS!!!!!!!!!!

Unknown said...

WOW.
that looks so painful....and makes me never ever want to do that...

Natali said...

Wow Reed and I just got a pressure cooker as a gift from some friends in France but now I don't think I want it anymore. I'm scared. This is not the first time I have heard of freak accidents happening with pressure cookers. I just read a lawsuit about a woman whose pressure cooker like blew up and burned her whole face. Do you use it a lot?