Spilled The Oil!

Remember that I said yesterday I was going to stitch til midnight? Nope . . I made a huge mess and had to clean it up.

I had onions and garlic in the freeze dryer and about 10:00 p.m., it was ready to come out. When I go in there to get food out of the freeze dryer, I take a plastic drinking glass (that we no longer use for a drinking glass) in there full of vacuum pump oil. I have an old style pump and I change the oil after every load. I set the oil down next to the pump. I took all the food out of the freeze dryer and put it in jars, put lids and rings on those, stuck them in the vacuum chamber, then I drained all the oil from the pump. It’s easier to drain it while it’s still warm. First time it’s ever happened but as I was tilting the pump to drain all the oil, the pump slipped and knocked over that entire glass of oil. It was like it happened in slow motion and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The oil went all over and down the wall but worse, there were two stacks of cases of quart jars – 12 jars per case. Six cases per stack. The jars were full and they were heavy and they were kinda behind a stack of pint jars. The pint jars all had to be moved before I could get to the quart jars, the quart jars were sitting in oil so they all had to be moved and then I had to clean up the oily wall and floor. Only the bottom two cases of jars had enough oil in them that I question if the boxes are ok to keep using. I put all the other cases of jars back, took the jars out of those two cases and cleaned them. I don’t have any extra cases to store the jars in so I’m hoping they’re ok.

By the time I had all that done, I took a shower, went to bed and read! Today we’ve been busy doing stuff . . Addie and Nicole came by for a few minutes, I cooked breakfast but didn’t even cook dinner. We had leftovers. I’ve gotten a bit of stitching done but not enough. Dare I say . . I have from 9 to midnight to stitch? Hopefully there will be no crazy mess to have to clean up tonight (or ever again). You can bet I will never again have that glass of oil sitting where it can get turned over!