Fall Feasting

When I pulled all of the tomato plants out of the garden a couple of weeks ago, I was left with a BUNCH of green tomatoes.

So we did with them what anyone should do with green tomatoes, we made fried green tomatoes!

Served with Remoulade Sauce

I dried some more of my herbs, this time Rosemary.

I went ahead and pulled the pumpkin plant out because it froze, so the garden is now empty, but my counter is full of white pumpkins - I actually gave another good sized one to my parents!

A friend gifted us with an enormous maitake (hen-of-the-wood) mushroom.  I froze 2 lbs of it, and after one meal of delicious friend shrooms, I have another mess to fry up left in the fridge.

After a couple of days of rain, most of the leaves have fallen, so it's becoming more sad looking around here.  Now we just need some snow to cover up the ugly bits!

Apples

It has been a strange week.  JP's eye surgery got moved up 2 weeks to Thursday of last week.  I helped in his office in the morning, and then drove him to surgery and home.  He had a short day scheduled on Friday, so I drove the girls to school and him to work, helped out in his office again in the morning, and then drove him to his post op check, then back to the office and finally home.  He was told that he would have gradually increasing vision over the next week to week and a half in that eye, but he seems to be having some complications.  SIGH.  I really hoped that this surgery would be the end of the story about this eye!

Yesterday I drove the country roads out to the apple orchard to buy apples for apple butter.  I have come too late, it seems for the large selection that they usually have.  I was limited to Romes, Granny Smith and a few Pippins, none of which are my favorites.  Nevertheless, I came home with a bag of each, and have had apples simmering in the crock pot ever since.  I may have to run back in a few days to get some more apples for my Secret Ingredient Apple Sauce.

I was hoping that I would get to see lots of colors on the trees during my drive yesterday, but everything was mostly brown.  I nearly got run off the road twice by water trucks, speeding to or from a gas well somewhere.  It was drizzling and chilly.  Oh well, it was quiet, and I actually enjoyed myself!

The leaves are lovely here on Poplar Ridge.

 

JP set fire to the enormous pile of sticks that the girls and I collected over the past 2 or 3 years, and had a massive bon fire raging for most of the morning.  By afternoon, it had settled down to a large pile of coals, so L decided to roast marshmallows in the drizzle.

 

The cool weather and small showers have revived my moss garden.  It is looking good right now!

We have soccer this afternoon, but that, along with Fall is winding down.

Here is my recipe for Apple Butter:

10-12 apples of various varieties, peeled, cored and quartered
1 cup water or apple cider
1 1/2 c sugar
2 t cinnamon
1 t ground cloves

Place all ingredients into the crock pot and cook on Hi for 1-2 hours, then simmer on Lo for at least 12 hours until mahogany in color.  I use the stick blender to blend my smooth before canning in pint jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.  Makes about 3 pints.

The End of the Season

Today I brought in a basket full of tomatoes and some basil that was past its prime. 

 

They simmered together all day on the stove, and this evening we had a lovely tomato sauce for our pasta.  There were 4 containers to stick in the freezer for another day as well.

 

I also baked an apple pie.  Possibly one of the prettiest pies I've ever baked.

 

There is cheese in the crust, so it baked up a perfect golden brown.  I can't wait to cut into it.

 

It smells like Fall in the house!

Canning (Or - I Spent All Day in the Kitchen)

The girls and I spent about an hour and a half in the garden on Saturday.  The Mexican Bean Beetles destroyed my Fall Horticulture Beans, so we pulled the plants, and after picking all of the beans off of them, bagged them in a trash bag to kill off off the remaining beetles.  We also picked a nice bowlful of Fall Sugar Snap Peas, a few tomatoes, and all of the Jalapeno Peppers.

I spent Sunday afternoon/evening shelling beans and slicing peppers on my mandolin.  Today was canning day.  I had 3 gallon bags of shelled beans in the deep freeze, so all together, I canned 13 quarts and 7 pints of beans.

 I also canned 17 1/2 pints of peppers.  JP will enjoy these on his tacos for the next year!



A Peck of Pickled Peppers

I did find an hour or so between rain showers to paint the Northern eaves of the Chick-bit House,  as well as a litter removal door, before I ran out of paint.

A second window, a door and a litter clean-out door have been added!

 

On Saturday evening, we went out with Mom & Dad for Indian food to celebrate JP's Birthday.  We came home for cake and ice cream...and candles and cards and singing.

J had another soccer game in the rain on Sunday afternoon.  The good news is, they finally won a game, 3-0!  L said she played in "some sprinkles", and they did not win their game.

Another weekend (and Monday) are gone. 

Still not bored!

Thankfulness 2013 - Canning

All those root crops that I brought in a few weeks ago, have been in bags in the refrigerator, waiting for me to do something with them.  We have eaten a few potatoes, and plan to eat a lot more in a couple of days.  I realized yesterday, that I needed to get them out of there in order to make room for a turkey and a couple of pies!

Yesterday I peeled, chopped, blanched and froze the parsnips.  Today I cooked, peeled, chopped, pickled and canned the red beets.  I also cut up, peeled and cooked the pumpkin from our garden, I just need to mash it up to be ready to bake into pies tomorrow.

 

It is a lot of work, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of eating things that I have tended from seed to table.

Tonight I am thankful that we have SO MUCH fruit, vegetables and meat put up for the next few months.

J is feeling better, and is heading to school tomorrow as long as there is no snow day.

Stella puppy, however, is one sick dog.  She has been vomiting all day...I've never seen so much stuff come out of such a small dog who hasn't eaten for 24 hours!  She had to get another bath tonight, and I've been mopping and washing dog beds and towels all evening.

Sigh.  I think I'm done for the evening.  Even if I'm not finished...I'm DONE!

Blood & Guts

Today was butchering day on Poplar Ridge.  The egg laying up here is getting more pathetic by the week.  Yesterday we gathered 3 eggs - from a total of 22 hens!  They haven't stopped eating, however.  They go through 150 lbs of chicken feed and 50 lbs of corn every 3-4 weeks, along with kitchen scraps.

Ultimately, we decided that the 4 roosters must go, along with the 4 hens that have still not quite recovered from their nakedness despite all the goop and spray and aprons that I have put on their little pink backs and back-sides.

J had a serious problem with this.  (She happened to be away last year on butchering day.)  "You are just so MEAN!"  she cried.  "How would you like it if some bullies picked on you until you had sores, and then someone KILLED you just because you were sick?"

No amount of reasoning with her that chickens don't think and emote like humans would convince her that this was not completely unethical.  Not even the cold hard fact that we raise these chickens for FOOD, swayed her.  She flat out refused to help, so she was sent to work in the garden, pulling out cornstalks while the rest of us did the dirty work.

I don't LIKE doing this, in fact, I feel a bit bad offing these chickens who run up to me every time I go outside (I MUST be bringing them food if I'm coming outside, right?)  The girls and I especially have invested quite a lot of time and energy into keeping these animals healthy and happy.  I too, have to keep reminding myself that they are costing us more and more each day they are not laying, and that having some organic, free range chicken meat over the winter will be much appreciated.  I can understand why the Native Americans would thank the animal that became their meal for dying in order to sustain them - I am ending a life, even if these creatures only have brains the size of raisins.

My parents were busy over in their cabin today, processing a deer that my Dad harvested last evening.  They really depend on the meat that they can procure from hunting to get them through each year.

Even though we all have mixed feelings about this day of blood and guts up on our hill, at the end of it all, the jars of meat on our shelves, and the packages in the freezers are testament to the hard work that we do here and our part in living sustainably on this earth.

By the way, I saw a flock of Turkey Vultures circling overhead this evening.  They will enjoy the parts that we don't...so we are not the ONLY ones gaining here!

Soup

I canned these things yesterday, and took a good look at them today.  Besides the ingredients for some yummy soup, what do they look like?

Chicken Stock, Horticulture Beans, Shredded Chicken

To me, they look like the culmination of a season of hard work.  I planted, weeded, picked and shelled all those beans.  I fed, watered, cleaned out the cage for, butchered and prepared that chicken meat and broth.

These jars represent a job well done, the chance to take some time this winter to relax, and, yes, they look like the makings of a delicious pot of soup.

Fall has Fallen

Autumn seemingly arrived overnight last weekend.  It rained, no it POURED, all day Saturday.  We stayed in the whole day and watched a movie with the girls.  When I looked out of the window Sunday morning, the leaves on the trees had started to change colors.  The nights are remaining chilly - dropping into the high 30's, but the days are sunny and blue.

I made spaghetti sauce again today, with tomatoes from the garden, a couple of plants in Mom's flower bed, and some from an acquaintance of JP's.  We now have enough frozen to make a dozen quick meals this winter. 

I brought in the Butternut squashes yesterday - about a dozen of those in varying sizes are tucked away in our cellar and in Mom & Dad's, along with a few Acorn squashes.

My Fall peas are producing!  They survived the late planting and the mauling by deer, and we are having a second helping of sweet, green sugar snap peas in October for the first time ever - I love it!  The Fall lettuce is nearly ready to harvest also, but the deer ate all my Fall radishes.  A few of the horticulture beans have come back from being mowed down by deer, so we may get another handful of beans.  I'm glad that I didn't can those yet, instead, I just chucked 2 gallon bag fulls into the deep freeze.

It's almost time to start on my secret recipe applesauce.  I've been putting it off since it's such a huge messy job.  We love it though, and the 2 measly remaining pints in the freezer will not be enough to last until next year!

Fall = school + soccer + canning.  It's enough to make a person weary.   Thank goodness for winter so that we can put our feet up for a month or two!

Weekend Excitement

It has been another full weekend, and it is not over yet.  I am in the thick of canning beans.  I picked over 30 lbs of green and wax beans from the garden in the past week.  I have 27 pints finished, and have about 7 quarts to go.  There is also zucchini bread in the oven - also from our garden harvest.

The jars on the left are Dilly Beans, the ones on
the right are just canned beans

Yesterday morning, while folding laundry during a rainstorm, I suddenly heard an enormous BOOM, and at the same time, felt the house shake and saw a column of orange and red fire in my parents' yard.  Lightening struck a walnut tree about 150 yards from their house.  It threw bits of bark all the way up to their driveway!  Surprisingly, it did not look burnt, but simply as if  someone had carefully stripped a line of bark off for 30 feet of length.

After the rain, I took a few photos of the garden, which looks lush and gorgeous.



Two varieties of Winter Squash

We will soon have corn on the cob to eat!




Broccoli



 

J is growing this lovely cantaloupe



Onions

 

I never got around to finishing the Murphy bed that my dad built using wood from the oak that fell in our woods 2 winters ago.  He finally stained and varnished it last week so that he could get it out of his woodshop.  It looks absolutely gorgeous!  Once the thunderstorm passed, and the rain eased off, JP, my dad and I loaded the bed onto a trailer, and steadied it while JP pulled it down to the front french doors with his lawn tractor.  We managed to ease it into the house, and get it placed in the guest bedroom.  It is still not functional, as it needs to be anchored into the wall first.

Now my dad plans to start work on shelving units that attach on either side of the bed.  This will enable us to move the dresser out of the guest room as well, and move our exercise equipment in at some point.  For now, if you come to visit overnight, you will have to bunk up with the girls on the twin trundle beds in their play room.

This weekend, we also had to say "goodbye" to another family of our dear friends.  It is heartbreaking and maddening, and the whole situation is so unjust, that it is hard to know how to feel or respond.  I've found that I do best staying REALLY busy, and I've managed to do just that all weekend.

That about covers all of the excitement for the weekend.  We are rapidly moving into a new week, which I'm sure will be filled with excitement of its own. 

Grab Bag

Another week has flown by.  My parents are unexpectedly in California right now.  My Great-Uncle Howie, who was actually no blood relation to me, but a foster child who grew up with my Grandma and became family that way, passed away this week.  Mom and Dad flew out to be with the family for his funeral, and are taking a couple of days while on the Left Coast to visit my Mom's brother near LA (I think that's where he lives - JP says San Diego.)

Uncle Howie was a mortician before he retired.  I remember visiting when I was Jr. High School age, maybe even a Freshman in High School.  He took me on a tour of the Funeral Home in which he worked, and talked to me about the things he did.  I was completely fascinated, and was seriously pursuing that career choice for about a year and a half.  In the end, I decided to work with the people that are still living, and it suits me fine!

We missed a soccer practice this week due to torrential down pours, and that brings our total soccer commitment down to 6 remaining games or practices...just one more week!  It really seems to have flown by this year, and thankfully I have not been so incredibly stressed out as last year during the whole season either.

Last weekend, in The Great Garden Clear Out, I pulled the jalapeno plants that were still covered with peppers.  I had a 2 gallon bucket full of peppers sitting on the counter all week, trying to decide what to do with them.  I canned a bunch of hot peppers a couple of years ago, and they were very disappointing:  mushy and flavorless.  JP uses lots of canned jalapenos on his weekly tacos, so I really wanted to be able to use these instead of having to buy them!  I did a bunch of internet research, and finally stumbled upon a comment about a recipe for canning hot peppers.  This person said that they used the "inversion method" of canning so that the peppers would stay more crisp.

A-ha!  A bit more research revealed that this method is safe only for jams and certain pickles.  After sterilizing the canning jars and lids, the cold, sliced peppers are packed in jars, and topped with a boiling mixture of water and vinegar, salt and garlic is added, and the lids are screwed on tightly.  Following this, I turned the jars upside down and left them sitting on their lids on a towel for 5-6 minutes.  After righting them, every single jar sealed!

All of the recipes recommended waiting for 7-14 days before trying them, so I am not certain of the potency yet, but I got 8 pints and 7 half pints of sliced jalapenos canned.  They look beautiful!

Our friend, C, spent the day with us today.  We tested the maximum capacity of the tree house, and found that 3 girls with paint rollers and 2 adults with a paint brush fit with room to spare, although it gets kind of messy!

We got a primer coat of paint on the walls inside the tree house.  I also started staining the tongue and groove boards for the soffits under both porch roofs.  We are planning to paint the walls the same pale green of the girls' rooms, and then use other bright gloss colors to paint the windows, doors and trim.  The ceilings inside will also be tongue and groove, but I plan to simply put a coat of clear poly on them and leave them blond in color.  JP also installed the ceiling insulation today, so that the Hickory nuts falling out of the tree onto the metal roof no longer sound like gun shots from the inside. 

JP and I set an old telephone pole into a 4 foot hole just down hill from the tree house today.  This will be connected to the tree house post with a beam, and will serve as the swing set.  This project keeps evolving.  Now we are looking for the perfect name for our tree house, so let us know if you have any good ideas.  We have thought of "Hickory Haven", "Martins' Floating Castle", "Motel 46", and a few others...but none of them quite flow off the tongue like we'd like!

Last night I spent the night at the Hospital for a sleep study.  Although I did sneak a sleeping pill in, and took it right away before they hooked me up to about 47 different tubes and wires, I slept very little.  I hit a wall about 3:00 this afternoon, and plopped down on the giant bean bag with the girls to try to figure out a Halloween costume for C.  At this point, after coffee, iced coffee, black tea and various other caffeinated beverages, I have been awake as long as I can possibly tolerate.

Heading to bed now for some lovely ZZZZ's.

Attack of the Stink Bugs

I've recently returned home from work, where I was double booked with patients several times because the surgeons were stuck in the OR with an emergency case.  I'm tired, so tired.  I've been fighting a cold for almost a week, which got markedly worse on Sunday.  My head throbs and feels packed full of goo.

Now I'm clad in my comfortable t shirt with the holes under the arms, stretch pants and Birkenstocks...it's a lovely look.  We are having some kind of pseudo-taco salad for dinner that the girls are excited about...made up of crushed Doritos and Hormel chili no beans.  I'm ok with it because it's quick and it contains veggies. 

The girls are on the veranda sweeping away the hundreds and hundreds of stink bugs that congregated there today.  I let the dogs out to join them, and now they are trying to eat the kitten.

I worked last night on my special applesauce...lots and lots of it.  It is laced with all kinds of good things.  I'm using my Grandma's applesauce press to make it, and wondering what she would think of the things I've adulterated the sauce with.  There are more apples to sauce tonight.

It's time to try this dinner.  After that, I still have 5 charts to do.

No rest for the weary.

Poetry and Berry Picking

Last week, I walked around the ridge and picked about 2 pints of black raspberries.  They are not as plentiful and plump as last year, when I picked several gallons full.  There are still some languishing in my freezer, which I intend to turn into raspberry gelato with a new recipe from Cook's...more to come on that.  Last year, my right arm and hand became incredibly scratched and sore from my forages into the brambles, but there would always seem to be a lovely handful just...a...bit...further...in!

I heard a poem on NPR a couple of weeks ago about picking blackberries, which I enjoyed.  Although L asked if she could join me in picking today, she never made it out there.  Maybe some day, we will pick berries together and talk while we pick.

Blackberries for Amelia

-Richard Wilbur

Fringing the woods, the stone walls, and the lanes,

Old thickets everywhere have come alive,

Their new leaves reaching out in fans of five
From tangles overarched by this year's canes.

They have their flowers too, it being June,
And here or there in brambled dark-and-light
Are small, five-petaled blooms of chalky white,
As random-clustered and as loosely strewn

As the far stars, of which we now are told
That ever faster do they bolt away,
And that a night may come in which, some say
We shall have only blackness to behold.

I have no time for any change so great,
But I shall see the August weather spur
Berries to ripen where the flowers were—
Dark berries, savage-sweet and worth the wait—

And there will come the moment to be quick
And save some from the birds, and I shall need
Two pails, old clothes in which to stain and bleed,
And a grandchild to talk with while we pick.

Today, the picking was more like a stroll, where I would pause in my walk to pick a berry or two.  Most of the raspberries are dried up on the vines, but I found a lot of blackberries...and there will be more.  In the shadier areas, the berries were nicer and more plentiful, and if it weren't for the stickers, I would almost want to linger there.  It put me in mind of the Robert Frost poem, "Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Night."

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep./ But I have promises to keep./ And miles to go before I sleep,/ And miles to go before I sleep.

I must hurry off to work, since I have promises and miles yet today.  Enjoy this lovely day if you can:  the breeze is cool, the sky is blue and cloudless, and the sun is warm.

Moooooove Over!

We only had a half day of school today, the first time in the 4 years we've been doing cyber school that we ever had a half day scheduled! I was extremely glad to knock off early and defrost my deep freeze downstairs.

I have been working over the past 2 weeks to clean out this deep freeze a bit. The upstairs one is chock full of fruit and veggies: black raspberries, strawberries, peaches, applesauce, freezer jam, corn, beans and pumpkin. I had several 7 pound chickens that ended up too dry when I roasted them, so over the past several days, I cooked 2 of them in the crock pot, picked out the bones, and currently 8 pints worth of chicken meat and broth are pressure canning on the stove.

This morning, I removed the remaining items to ice chests, and defrosted and wiped down the freezer. All this was in preparation of the arrival today of a quarter of a steer, raised by a friend of mine in Greene County. Now my downstairs freezer is jam-packed with beef! I took inventory of my shelves of canned goods and the full freezers, and felt my chest swell with pride and satisfaction. I am thankful today for this ample supply of food that my family will enjoy for the next year.

In addition, I can't express how thankful I am for a break from Cyber School for the next 5 days! It is much needed and was much anticipated.

Now it is time to bake some pies. Have a wonderful holiday with your loved ones this week!

Beautiful Day

It is amazing how clear and deep blue the sky can get on these crisp Fall days. Unfortunately, I spent the better part of this lovely day inside at work or doing school with the girls until soccer time. I've been having delicious day dreams lately of life without Cyber School, where my time with the girls would be pleasant without wheedling, coaxing, or threatening for lessons to be done, and the sky is blue and breezy all the time. It will be better once the soccer craze is over with, right? Then I'll be able to stop popping the Zantac and Advil and breath deeply once again...right?

In the meantime, we've managed to squeeze in a few fun activities, and presently JP and my Dad are busy building the long awaited lean-to's on our garage and barn. JP poured concrete into an old tire as a base for the tether-ball set that has been stored in our garage for over a year. It is extremely stable now, but a bit too heavy to move around. By the way, it's no fun to play tether-ball with JP...he simply smacks the ball up so that it wraps around the pole about 2 feet above my head. He needs to play with someone his own size!

Several of our friends made a spur of the moment trip to Pittsburgh to attend the U2 concert this summer. JP was a bit sad, learning that he had missed his (possibly) last opportunity to see them. So, we did the next best thing...bought a live U2 concert DVD from Amazon, and played it on the big screen downstairs with surround sound. It was an incredible concert: Sept. 1, 2001 at Slane Castle, Ireland, and a great pseudo-concert experience. The last concert I attended (before Suzuki Violin recitals became part of my life) was Jimmy Buffet, so avoiding the crowds, the backpack margarita machines and vomiting was quite pleasant as well! The only down side is that the girls now sing "Sunday bloody Sunday" over and over again...just. that. one. line.

I was overly proud of myself last night for finishing up the last of 2 bushels of apples into sauce. JP brought me down a notch when he told me that his mother canned 110 quarts of applesauce yearly. I'm still apparently not quite Mennonite enough!

I passed up the opportunity this past weekend of taking a road trip BY MYSELF. Yep! It's official: I'm nuts. My 20th college reunion was held last weekend down in VA, and JP was willing to let me go, while he stayed home with the girls. I bailed though, because the van has been making odd clunking and squealing noises of late, and I was a bit nervous to drive it 5 hours South by myself. I would rather stay home and make applesauce and tend to feverish children than sit by the highway somewhere in West Virginia, waiting for a tow truck.

That's the story of my life lately: blue skies to balance the black holes where I think I can't possibly make it through this school year, U2 concerts in the privacy of my own home against the auto repair issues and missed parties, tether-ball inadequacies and applesauce abundance. Through it all, I have a good man by my side, and 2 lovely girls who look a bit like me. Life couldn't be more beautiful.

Life Lesson #2,764

No matter how enticing it may be, do not, I repeat DO NOT, put a basket full of chard in the washing machine.

Yeah, like many life lessons I learned this one the hard way. Before you say, "Well, DUH...", hear me out. I have many, many times in the past put my greens through the washer: spinach, collards, etc. It is a fantastically easy way to wash and spin dry lots of greens at once. I have never, however, tried this with chard until this morning. The leaves are much stiffer than other types of greens, and the stems are much more substantial.

I ended up with a washer full of tiny bits of leaves and chard stems. It took me half an hour to clean all the bits out of the crevices of my washer. Now I have to wash everything again, and see if there is anything to salvage besides the stems.

I guess stems are better than nothing, right?

Outing of the Week 10 - Idlewild

We did our annual trek to Idlewild today, as did plenty of other people...although it was not too terribly crowded. Can this really be the 6th summer we've gone?

JP has a vertigo thing for the past several years. He ends up doing a lot of people watching, while I try to figure out how to get an odd number of people on rides...it means that sometimes I end up going twice, because BOTH girls want to ride with ME. (I should feel special for that, right???) JP says he was astounded by the number of obese people he saw...he thought they numbered well over 50%!

Even though we only stay for about 4 or 5 hours, we get to go on lots of rides. The girls always want to walk through their favorite Storybook Forest first. Tonight, J told me "I had SUCH a fun day today!" L said that EVERY ride was her favorite.

On the way home, we passed a produce stand selling peaches. Although Mom and I have already canned a bushel of peaches, I bought another 2 bushels.

After dinner this evening, the girls, JP and I sat and watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while snapping 3 gallons of beans from the garden. I canned another 7 pints of Dilly Beans tonight, but have another huge bowl of beans to deal with.

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?

Outing of the Week 5 - Trolley Museum and Ephrata Water Park

It has been a hot week. Hot. Hot. Hot.

I dabbled a bit in the garden some mornings, but mostly we stayed in. I worked an extra half day on Monday, and by the afternoon, the girls and I were ready to jump in a lake. Or a pool. We choose pool, and went to the local water park, which used to be the local pool (and was a lot less expensive to get into back in the day!) J swam like a fish, and L did things that she never had before, like go down the water slide and swim under water under the raining mushroom. So we finally made it to the pool by the last part of July. Whatever.



On Thursday, our designated Outing Day, we scrapped the idea of outside touring for the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, just 40 minutes away. We got to take a 30 minute ride on a restored electric trolley through the countryside, then quickly walked through the Children's Garden right next door. We continued on to do some back-to-school clothes shopping and went to Toys-R-Us as the girls had saved up for a toy that was currently BOGO.



After work on Friday, we loaded up the van, stopped by the Hex House for Grandmom, and started our journey to Ephrata in the 95* heat. We arrived at the home of my Aunt sometime after 9 PM. The following day, my Aunt hosted myself, 4 of my cousins, another Aunt, my mother, and 8 cousin-and-a-halves for brunch and water play. She had set up a virtual water park in her back yard, complete with Kidwash, pool, slip-n-slide, water guns, bubbles and water balloons. By the time the temps were nearing 100*, it was time to shed the wet clothes, climb back into the HOT van, and drive 10 minutes to my Grandpa's apartment.

We talked with Grandpa about birds, gardens, house projects, my brother's imminent move, my job, the girls' school, blue crayfish and coal mining. I hadn't seen him since Grandma's funeral back in October, and I thought he was actually looking a bit better since then. It was good to see him smile again!

We kissed Grandpa goodbye and dragged our tired bodies out to the even HOTTER van, and turned South and West toward our corner of the world. Once we made it over the mountains in Maryland, with a brief stop at Sideling Hill, the temperatures dropped 10 degrees and everything looked pleasantly greener. We returned home to discover that it had rained significantly in our absence and cooled things off a bit.



Today was humid and hot again...typical for a Pennsylvania summer. JP and I picked beans this morning, and snapped them (with L's help) while watching a movie this afternoon. At the moment, I am waiting for the pressure canner to cool off, so I can see if my first attempt at canning beans was successful.

Thus ends another full summer week!

The Great Pumpkin Massacre

This morning, I finally decided that it was time to do something with the last pumpkin from our garden. It has been sitting on the counter in the kitchen since last Fall.


After 4 minutes in the pressure cooker...


After going through the food mill, I ended up with 5 cups of lovely pureed pumpkin, and a pile of seeds to roast.

Pancakes

My Dad has been teaching the girls about making Maple Syrup this year. J especially, is thrilled with the whole process. I am thrilled that they are able to learn to do this!

We started by marking several Maple trees in the Fall before all of the leaves were gone. All of the trees are bare this time of year, and it would have been difficult to distinguish the Maples from everything else otherwise.

Early in February, the girls went out with my Dad and helped to pound the taps in...



...and hang buckets on them. On most of the days since then, they have helped with collecting the sap daily. We collect the most on days where it was freezing or below overnight and warmer during the day.



Dad dumps all of the sap (after picking various insects out) into the canner and starts cooking it down on the camp stove out under his deck. The ratio of sap to syrup is about 40 to 1, so there is a lot of cooking to do!



So far, he has made this much syrup (minus some for various meals)!



We brought a couple of bottles home this weekend, and ate home made pancakes with home made Maple Syrup on them for breakfast yesterday! Deee-licious!

Blessings

A friend who was recently in my storage room commented on how pretty my jars of canned food are. I agree with him, and finally got around to taking pictures of the bounty from our garden and local orchards and farms this year.



From top to bottom: local peaches, dill cucumber relish, mild red peppers, pepperoncini peppers, sweet cucumber pickles.



From top to bottom: more peaches, Serrano peppers, local cherries, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, bread and butter pickles, cucumber dills.



I can't forget the winter squash wintering down there too: acorn and butternut.

The freezer is pretty impressive too!



Top to bottom: strawberries, peaches, sour cherries, sweet corn, wax beans, green beans.



And of course, my strawberry freezer jam.

It's quite impressive to look at it all together and know that we will be enjoying this delicious food when the winter snows are flying.

We experienced some more blessings today: these lovely people who came to celebrate J-bird's 8th birthday today.



My lovely daughter, who loves fairies, making art, and reading books...who doesn't love it, but makes beautiful music on the violin anyway...who loves History and Science, but dislikes grammar and math...is getting to be such an amazing young lady!



She wanted a cake that looked like an eight dollar bill, with her picture in the middle. This required experimenting with food color in order to recreate just the right grey-green color of money...interesting.



She and little L, are truly my greatest blessings. I am extremely grateful to be their Mom. I hope that one day they will get a similar joy looking at their own jars of canned food sitting neatly on shelves...but not too soon.