All in a day's work

So, vacation is not over, but we have returned to Calgary to spend the last 2 weeks here.  We spent 3 days in Kelowna where the weather was marginally nice.  Harry got in a round of golf.  I visited yarn shops and art galleries.  We headed back for Calgary with the idea of doing a bunch of canning and cleaning up the yard for winter.  We were about an hour from home when we saw this:

It's a bit early for this much snow on the mountain tops.  Not a good omen!  We got back here on Friday evening and it has been COLD and raining since we got here.  We're expecting snow tonight.  Harry says not to worry ... according to him we'll get a snowfall, THEN we'll get Indian Summer.  I hope he's right.

We brought fresh produce home from the Okanagan Valley.  Today we worked on tomatoes.

We started with 30 pounds of Roma tomatoes.  First we quartered the tomatoes and put them through a tomato press.  A tomato press is soooo cool!  You put the tomatoes in the top and turn the crank.  The tomato puree comes out the right side.  The peels and seeds come out the left side.  We pressed all 30 pounds in about an hour and a half.

Thirty pounds of romas yielded us 12 quarts of tomato puree.

While Harry readied cooking pans and measured puree,  I chopped the mirepoix for the Italian-style sauce we had decided to make first.  Chopping onions gets me every time.  However, swimming goggles work wonders!!  Yeah, yeah ... I KNOW I look stupid.

We cooked the sauce, then processed it.  We bought a steam bath canner in our travels and it is really cool.  It uses about 1/4 of the water and energy of a traditional water-bath canner.

At the end of the day, we had 20 - 500 ml jars of tomato sauce :  15 of Italian-style and 5 plain.  (Conversion:  500 ml is slightly larger than a pint.)

 ... all in a day's work ...

On the road ... again

September again and that means Harry and I hit the road for a little R&R.  After the epically-long trip last year, we are staying in our own backyard this year -- figuratively and literally.  We're spending 2 or 2-1/2 weeks on the road cruising around lower BC.  Then we'll hang out at home doing some canning and cleaning up the yard for winter.

We've spent this past week in the Fairmont-Kimpberly area and are now in Creston, BC.  We are in search of warm weather.  But it seems we are destined to be travelling in cool, cloudy and rainy weather.  :-(  Tomorrow we will head to the Okanagon Valley where the weather reports promise some heat and sun.  The Okanagon Valley is famous for its orchards, vegetable farms and wineries.  We plan to get lots of apples for applesauce, some tomatoes for tomato sauce and whatever else strikes our fancy.  With all the cool weather this year the crops are on the late side so there is still lots to choose from.  And I'm sure the acquisitions will include some nice wines.

Meanwhile, we have had some enjoyable hikes and drives.

 We strolled the "platzl" in Kimberly (a Bavarian village):

  

Made friends with the local bear:

(Funny aside:  last week before we left, a friend of ours - David "Bear" Mohr - dropped by.  I was in the kitchen with Anthony getting juice and called to Harry that Bear was in the backyard.  I gave Anthony his juice and said let's go outside, but he wouldn't.  I asked him, "Don't you want to go back outside to play?"  He replied, very seriously, "You said there was a bear out there."  Yup ... he's at a very literal age!!!)

We've enjoyed evening campfires:

What's wrong with this picture of campside fun?

(WiFi by the campfire?!?!)

We've visited old friends:

It's Marco!  

He loves in Creston, BC now with John's Dad and stepmom.

On to the Okanagon ....