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maculategiraffe https://maculategiraffe.tumblr.com/post/658799413985263616/if-i-rerecord-my-outgoing-voicemail-box-message-as :

if I rerecord my outgoing voicemail box message as me saying with a really shaky and tearful voice “why– why are you doing this to me, why wouldn’t– couldn’t you just, just text me– please–” and then an abruptly cut off sob, do you think people will stop leaving me voicemails (Your picture was not posted)

draculasdaughter:During the 19th century, and especially in its later years, snacking in cemeteries.

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draculasdaughter https://draculasdaughter.tumblr.com/post/659081785063489536/during-the-19th-century-and-especially-in-its :

During the 19th century, and especially in its later years, snacking in cemeteries happened across the United States. It wasn’t just apple-munching alongside the winding avenues of graveyards. Since many municipalities still lacked proper recreational areas, many people had full-blown picnics in their local cemeteries. The tombstone-laden fields were the closest things, then, to modern-day public parks.

One of the reasons why eating in cemeteries become a “fad,” as some reporters called it, was that epidemics were raging across the country: Yellow fever and cholera flourished, children passed away before turning 10, women died during childbirth. Death was a constant visitor for many families, and in cemeteries, people could “talk” and break bread with family and friends, both living and deceased.

The picnic-and-relaxation trend can also be understood as the flowering of the rural cemetery movement. Whereas American and European graveyards had long been austere places on Church grounds, full of memento mori and reminders not to sin, the new cemeteries were located outside of city centers and designed like gardens for relaxation and beauty. Flower motifs replaced skulls and crossbones, and the public was welcomed to enjoy the grounds.

Cemetery picnics remained peripheral cultural staples in the early 20th century; however, they began to wane in popularity by the 1920s.

Jonathan Kendall, Remembering When Americans Picnicked in Cemeteries https://href.li/?https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/picnic-in-cemeteries-america, 2018.

I grew up having cemetery picnics. That was how we had reunions for that side of the family– we met up to tend the grave of the one great-aunt’s husband, and then later, her daughter’s as well, and then still later, hers. We stopped going when my grandmother was too frail. I have not been to a cemetery picnic since. (Your picture was not posted)

tomatoes

farm life, about the author

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today was a rainy day, and i knew it would be a rainy day. Sister had spent the evenings prior to this preparing; Saturday is the birthdays of two employees, one the beloved Veg Guy (IDK if he even counts as an employee, he’s permanent staff), and as is tradition, they were asked what kind of cake they wanted, and collaboratively decided on 1) a vanilla cake, with 2) coffee ice cream, and 3) hot fudge. So Monday night Sister made the coffee ice cream, Tuesday night she made the hot fudge, and Wednesday night she made the cake. (We were eating the Fancy Birthday Dessert today because one of the employees is off tomorrow and both are off Saturday, so today it was.)

She told me to make tomato soup for lunch, and got out bread from the freezer to accompany it.

I was directed to several flats of tomatoes left over from Saturday’s harvest, which would need heavy sorting. I went out this morning and got them and halved them (cutting out the bad spots; they were a bit past best) and threw them onto some jelly roll pans (sheet pans with edges, v important) along with a handful of halved onions, two heads of garlic I’d pulled the cloves out of and stripped them, and– this is the good bit– about six carrots I’d sliced fairly finely. Threw those into the oven to roast for like an hour at 400 degrees.

And i kept going on those tomatoes. There was another whole jelly roll pan, and meanwhile I also started filling a stockpot. I know Sister already had boiled down a batch and threw them in quart bags in the freezer, but I wanted to jar these, as that’s shelf-stable. (Freezer space winds up at something of a premium around here, even with counts seven chest freezers on the property, plus two upright freezers, plus three fridges with freezers in them.)

There were tomatoes left over from yesterday too, so we sorted through those midmorning. Someone wanted to buy 40 lbs of them, so we weighed out 40 lbs of acceptable tomatoes, and then the food bank picks up donations on Thursdays so we picked out the most beautiful of the beefsteak slicers and loaded a tote with about 20 lbs of those, and then I took the rest inside and crammed them into the pot. They didn’t fit, so I started a second small pot. Meanwhile I was still working on lunch, so I cranked both pots up as high as they’d go and stirred them incessantly while working, so they’d boil down fast.

I managed to combine them both into one pot by lunchtime. (You generally reduce tomatoes by 50% for canning, which does put rather a lot of steam in the air…)

I had errands to run all afternoon, but when I got back I turned the heat back on and got the pot boiling again, and boiled it down the last little bit.

After dinner I got the water bath going and sterilized jars and canned the tomatoes.

I fit them into 7 quart jars and 7 pint jars, because the canner holds 7 jars at a go. I was so pleased. There was nothing left over, and all the jars were full. Triumph!

It was a lot of work and very sweaty but that’s what to do with a rainy day. And it’ll be worth it in February, to taste summer again. [image: image]

[image description: recipe from the Ball Blue Book Of Canning for tomato sauce. transcript: Tomato Sauce. Yield: about 14 pints or 7 quarts ingredients: 45 lbs tomatoes, bottle lemon juice

Wash tomatoes; drain. Remove core and blossom ends. Cut into quarters; simmer 20 minutes in a large saucepot, stirring occasionally. Puree tomatoes in a food processor or food mill. Strain puree to remoe seeds and peels. Cook pulp in a large, uncovered saucepot over medium-high heat until sauce thickens, stirring to prevent sticking. Reduce volume by one-half. Add 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice to each pint jar, 2 tablespoons to each quart jar. Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process pints 35 minutes, quarts 40 minutes, in a boiling-water canner.]

(I did not strain, the seeds and peels are in it. I used an immersion blender to puree them but only bothered because I had it out to make the tomato soup for lunch; hours of stirring do the job just fine. I sterilized my jars by boiling them in the canner for 2 minutes apiece, and sterilized my lids in a small saucepan of boiling water.) (Your picture was not posted)