First Day of School...

Today is the first day of schooling for my kids, though we have been working our way back into it with a Summer study on King Tut which I had planned to post about today.

Yesterday was my super awesome farmer's market that I love.  My favorite farmer who runs Garden Treasures informed me that not only did he have a quarter of my tomato order, he also had pickling cukes.  Last week, I bought 20 lbs of cucumbers from another stall, half went bad before I could get to them and the rest of them are currently trying to ferment in my first 3 week pickle fermentation project.  So far, I don't know what's going on.  They seem to be soaking up the brine, but I can't say what it's supposed to look like...  So anyway, long story short, I went home with 20 lbs of tomatoes to can and 10 pounds of cucumbers to make "just in case the fermentation doesn't work pickles" on top of the 4 pounds of blackberries I've got sitting in the fridge for making jam.  And even longer story short it all fell to today.  So instead of telling you all about our fabulous King Tut/Ancient Egypt homeschool lesson (including a recipe for Egyptian cucumbers and Cornish game hens) I am going to give you my sob story and show you a cute picture of my kids and some pictures of my cucumbers.  Maybe you can tell me how it's going?

It's not slimy or smelly, but it's also not scummy like the book says it's supposed to be and it's also not bubbly like it's supposed to be.  And I've had to chuck out two pickles that started to get moldy.  Anybody out there ever make fermented pickles?

I promise to try to get the Egypt post up this week!  But it won't happen today.  Did I mention I'm also trying to make kefir?  I need more counter space.