Picnics and Pickle-making

I'll begin by saying that E's friends' wedding reception was the most delightful reception I've been to in...quite possibly, ever! The ceremony was nice, and after changing out of my dress (vintage-y red with white polka dots) and those $@&%#!* high heels (silver and sparkly, but which rendered me utterly useless), I carried camera equipment for E while she took pics of the wedding party at a local park. It's fun to watch her work...she has a great eye and equally great ideas, and would love to do more professional photography gigs. Anyway - the reception!! It started out looking fairly standard: rented foreign legion hall, food buffet, round tables with fancy napkins. The food was pretty good, and there was free beer and wine, but what really made it a party was the music!!!! That was the first time I've ever heard so many not-standard songs (The Spice Girls, The Beach Boys, Footloose, Blues Traveler, etc), the first Neil Diamond sing-a-long (Sweeeeeeet Caroline/ "BAH BAH BAHHHHHHHHHH", good times never seemed sooo good/ "SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!"), the first time I've slow-danced to Daydream Believer (and E didn't mind that I sang the whole thing to her while we danced! SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!), and most definitely the first time I've ever danced the Time Warp. SO much better than the Chicken Dance!! Plus, it turns out that the bride and groom are in a really awesome cover band, and they took the stage intermittently and rocked the house! Total wedding win.

On Sunday, we slept in, then did a little pre-picnic grocery shopping. We needed bacon for our BLTs, and then we got a bright idea - "Hey, we have all that cast iron that needs to be seasoned...we should use the bacon!!" Roughly two hours later, the bacon was cooling, and so were our newly-seasoned pans:

 

Then, using toasted onion rolls, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and bacon, I assembled our main course:

 

Nommalicious, right?! These tasty sammiches went into a cooler bag with single-serve bags of Fritos and Funyuns, glass bottles of Coke and Mountain Dew, some napkins, and some dark chocolate. We grabbed a blanket and our current books, and off we went to the banks of the Huron River:  

 (There's a street and some street parking behind us, but never mind that part. River! People fishing! Nature!)

The weather was absolutely perfect. Not too warm, a nice breeze, no bugs. We spread our blanket, enjoyed our sandwiches, and watched the ducks. There were a lot of ducks. Some were in the river, including three white ones that performed some formation gliding...and as time went on, we realized they did formation everything. Seriously, these three did not go anywhere individually:

And yes, there were quite a few ducks in the river. Most, however, were next to us. Like, right next to us:

 Do you see allllll of those ducks?! Look closer. Look further, by the pine tree. (Also, see that white goose? I named him Gordon. He looked very much like a Gordon up close.)

E and I decided that it wouldn't be so bad, coming back as ducks. Lots of swimming, soft feathers, the ability to fly...and you get to quack! One particularly chatty duck was very entertaining: "QUACK quack quack! QUACK QUACK QUACK!" You could totally tell that one was the loud relative at all the family parties. It was great to duck-watch, eat chocolate, and enjoy our books and each others' company in nature. Totally relaxing and blissful. We're hoping to do it lots more before winter!

So. Pickle-making. Having already dipped my toe in the fermented-foods pool, having six lovely blue mason pint canning jars that beg to be filled with something special, and having tasted some absolutely fantastic homemade pickles at Fest (Yes, in the woods. What?!), I was super excited when I found this recipe for Seven-Day Fermented Pickles. Currently, there are four quart-sized mason jars (for the fermenting process) in the dishwasher, and 5 pounds of (MI grown, local-business purchased) pickle cucumbers on the counter, waiting for their ice water bath. They'll soak for 30 minutes, then I'll slice them into 1/2-inch slices, pack them into the mason jars, and cover them with boiling water. Tomorrow night, I'll drain them, then cover them with boiling salted water. On Day 3, they'll be drained and covered with boiling water with dissolved alum. Day 4, drained and covered with boiling apple cider vinegar, and spiced. They'll brine for 3 days, fermenting all the while, and then...well, just read the recipe. LOL! I am so stinking excited to make these things! And I hope E likes them...she's more of a dill/sour pickle person, I think, so we'll have to do those next. 

Ok, the dishwasher's done...time to soak the cukes...wish me luck!