canning

the second show canner that we got used and rebuilt had a leak around the press-fit. i called the manufacturer and talked to a technician. he said that i could re-polish the metal to metal seal with '000'-steel-wool. so i cleaned the press fit area and buffed it with some steel wool. it got very shiny and seemed-right. we then tested it on a small batch of tomatoes--it worked.
i have had two smaller allergic reactions since the large one. things seem to be getting better.
we picked a bunch of tomatoes and will do some more canning tomorrow. this is a photo of today's bounty. tabitha does baby-yoga/stretch-flex-bend during picking of the tomatoes. it is the only way she can reach all of them.
tristan and kassi are best friends. they play so well together it amazes me. tristan wrote a bunch of letter like symbols mixed with letters and said that it reads "kassi loves tristan." kassi does love tristan and tristan loves kassi--what more could parents want? the other day they were playing doctors and taking care of a little baby. tristan would call "doctor kassi, doctor kassi" then the rush to the rescue of the baby. tristan made a stethoscope out of a piece of string and a little pot lid. they are both so creative. they make the appropriate toys out of nothing--maybe because they don't really have that many toys. although, tristan is a little technophile. he is trying to play this really complicated game on pbskids.org--cyber chase. it is obviously for kids older than ten. i can't keep him away from it. it frustrates him but intrigues him at the same time. i told him he needs to be able to read to answer the questions. they have word scrambles, zoological knowledge questions, fairly complex pattern recognition and problem solving. it requires seventeen points to win and he has only gotten to seven. what could be better than a pregnant woman in a sarong?