Not a good day, at least at the start

Yesterday I had to get something at the home farm and while there the young couple, who rent the house offered me a bag of cucumbers. In the winter they had asked Laurence for a patch of ground to have a garden and Laurence had worked up a patch. Now they discovered , that after a week's holidays things had grown more then expected. It was just last Sunday ,that Jenny mentioned, that all the cucumber relish was gone. When we moved a few years ago I had decided not to do any canning and I got rid of my jars and my, mostly too old anyway, spices. Now things have changed and I'am planning to can, besides applesauce, peaches and tomatoes, relish and pickles. So this meant a trip to town to get new spices and some supplies. And since I threw out my old recipes, I also had to look for a new one. Everything was cut up last night, all ready to go first thing this morning. The relish was cooked and bottled. Then when I had a sample, it did not tast like it should. Something had gone wrong.Anyway, this is the first time in almost 40 years, that I could not use my relish. So I will ask for my old recipe from my friend Pat and try it next week again. I was told that there are an over abundance of cucumbers where these came from. So not a good start of my day. Then I tried some machine quilting and could not make that go. I gave up at that point and went to the garden, where I found this lily. I had totally forgotten ,that I had planted it in between some bushes. I bought it for Easter last year and once it quit blooming I had taken it outside. Now that was a nice surprise. And Another pair of socks. The pattern is out of Sock Innovation by Cookie A. Yarn by Socks that rock. A somewhat boring pattern in a very boring color. I was glad, when I was finished. Now it is on to a more challenging pair. The crazy quilt is still on my wall and that's where it will stay for a few weeks, till I have figured out, how to put it together. So far I'm pleased that it all went together.I have made up my mind, that this is more a project for colder days. This afternoon I got another quilt top out. This one I started for our guild challenge last year. Once I found out, that it did not really fit the criteria, I forgot about it. And oh wonders, this time I could get my machine to work. For some reason machine quilting is hard for me. I seem to get really tense and end up with very sore shoulders and back. But so far so good. Later in the afternoon I helped Laurence with bringing the large round straw bales out of the field to the barn. Just like the threshing I talked about last week, this also is much easier. No more handling small bales up in a hot barn! Now it is all done from a tractor seat. Only 2 small fields of spring wheat to combine and this part of the harvest is finished. This has been a great year with a good yield and a great price. It is not often, that you get both. Usually it is one of the other, or both are way down.

Just now a truck drove in and I received another bag of freshly picked cucumbers and green peppers. These were the left over from todays harvest after they had cut up enough for 2 batches of bread and butter pickles. Now this time it will be done right!!