Daredevil

Anytime I tell people I broke my foot, they naturally ask me what I did. The problem is, there really is no accident story, no specific fateful incident that cracked my poor foot bone. I mean, do you want to know what I was doing the night before I woke up with my foot so swollen I couldn't move it without pain?

I was learning to can peaches with our friends.

I know, I know, I need to be more risk averse. But seriously, stress fractures are kind of a straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing- apparently that part of the bone just weakens and weakens until one day it flops onto its chaise lounge, puts its hand to its head, and says "I give up". And then it cracks.

The good news is, canning peaches was fun and canning is not as scary as it seemed to be. I mean, botulism is pretty damned terrifying, don't get me wrong, but after doing some reading I've learned that fruits are acidic enough to make botulism risk virtually nil as long as they are processed correctly.

Speaking of processed, I thought it only right that the old timey-ness of this endeavor should be captured with a vintage filter.

 The key to not dying of botulism- the water bath.

 Off and on during the process, the boys played video games. Yes, they helped, but once all that was left to do was boil the jars they took to playing a terrifyingly weird Japanese video game.

 Willow, eating up the attention, blissfully unaware of how she is hindering Bobby's progress in rolling a giant sticky ball through an imaginary world.

 A little sugar water, some lemon juice, and local, organic peaches picked up at the farmers' market that morning. Purrrrrr-fect.

 The finished product. I was super excited to can my own peaches after this, but then, you know, I woke up with broken foot extravaganza and I've only cooked one time since then.

Paige and Matt have a huge backdoor garden, so they sent us home with a baggie of cherry tomatoes and some beets. All in all, between the farmers' market that morning, the canning, and the good night gifts of fruits and veggies from their garden, it was a most excellent way to celebrate, unbeknownst to me, my last day of mobility for 8 weeks.