Pickling Cucumbers

Wednesday of last week, my Mom met Elizabeth & me in Schulenberg for lunch and then she took Elizabeth to spend a few extra days with her and my Dad before Travis & I went up there Saturday for Father's Day. We crammed so much stuff into those couple of free days! Travis even took Friday off so we could work on painting the bedrooms!

Wednesday afternoon, I put up a few more pints of peach jelly. Thursday morning, I started pickling cucumbers.

Getting them washed up.

Packing them into jars.

Washing up the large cucumbers Noah from FM gave me to experiment with.

Packing those big daddys into jars.

Simmering the vinegar, water, salt, and pickling spices.

Packing the dill and mustard seed into the jars.

After processing in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes, they're all ready! Now in 4-6 weeks, we can pop a jar open and try them!

I did have one small problem with my pickles. My water was not gently boiling as it should have been. It was boiling fast and hard, shaking the jars a bit. It's really hard to adjust the heat on an electric stove, so that's what I get. The cucumbers shrank a lot more than they were supposed to and they look shriveled and warty. I'm hoping that it won't affect the taste! If I decide to pickle again this year, I'll remember to really try to adjust my temperature and hope that that will make all the difference!