At Least No One Is Getting Scurvy Around Here

I might have gone a bit overboard, but I have fifteen pounds (!) of Moro blood oranges ready for canning as slices in syrup, marmalade and jelly. I do like blood oranges. I keep thinking it is a very good thing I do not have access to Seville oranges.

Anyway, canning is expected over the next couple of days, though truthfully I don't feel much up to it. I've been severely anemic along with a nice big lupus flare and all I want to do is crawl back into bed...after I can the oranges. Oh come on, have you ever seen how beautiful those suckers are? If ever there were a project worth knocking myself out over, this is it. Oh, you should have seen the look on Mr. Eat The Blog's face when he saw how much I spent on oranges. We won't talk about that. At least the leg of lamb was cheap (cheaper per pound than the oranges anyway...).

In other news:
I've completely lost my mind and am growing my own vinegar "mother." I don't know why-I guess because I have a book that details how to go about it. I figure at the very least, it will make a good science project for Danny. The instructions are in a frightening old publication put out by Ortho (yes, that Ortho aka Chevron Chemical Corporation) that has exciting sections with scary titles like "Let's Pickle Something New!"

OK, let's.

So between the pickled day lily buds and banana slices, I can grow vinegar, pickle salmon with spruce twigs, and if I'm still alive to tell about it, I can pickle some geranium leaves with mint. I'll have to pass on making pickled Cow's tongue as saltpetre is unfortunately no longer available at the druggist. I'm told it has some sort of use in making explosives. OK, so no tongue-but I'm totally making the vinegar.