A Trip to Bountiful







I've named our Vegetable Garden this year. 

 

Meet Bountiful.

Bountiful has outdone herself!  Who says great and mighty works can't come from small things?  Not me.  (Not especially since I am not quite 5 ' 2". But since I'm vertically challenged, I have a good excuse for not cutting the prickly, towering okra.)
  

In fact, I can't take any credit for this garden at all.  My sweet hubby:

•  tilled it
• planted it
• gathers it
• He even grew the hay that he cut to put around all the plants that worked to keep out weeds and hold in moisture. 

So what do I do, you ask?  Help eat it?  Yes!!!

But...
      I also help can and freeze it.  The two of us have spent many, many hours in our kitchen so far this summer, slicing, dicing, and peeling.  Canning and freezing. 

Today was Tomato day.  Hubby picked the tomatoes (of course).

 

This is only PART of today's picking!

Then the fun (?) started.  I worked really h~a~r~d (really I did!), until I got hungry (hear the whiny voice here?). 

This Tomato Session actually put us over our projected quota (trying to sound business-like). 

    We are now the proud owners of:

•  52 quarts of canned tomatoes
•  26 quarts of frozen tomatoes
•  many, many gallons each of battered, frozen squash and okra

And hubby has also canned several jars of jalapeño peppers. (I stayed away from those.  Do you remember my Pepper Fiasco from several years ago?)

 

So after finishing my tomato peeling part of today's process, I stopped and made lunch.  Guess what it was?  BLT's!  What else?

 

It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.

                                                                 ~  Lewis Grizzard

 

 

 P.S.  Guess what I put in the slow cooker for tonight's supper.....   Vegetable Soup!!!  All I have to do is cook up a pan of cornbread and supper's ready.  

 

Soup's On!!!

Garden dreaming

I'm up early this morning with my garden gloves on and ready to get started!  Well, kinda, sortof...

 



Oh, no,

It's raining!!!

 

I do so want to update my late winter/early spring backyard garden.

 

This is what it looks like right now. 



The Dianthus plants (pink and white flowers on the left) are putting on a beautiful show right now.

They really like to show off in early spring and again in early fall  here in my little backyard garden patch.

 

And the Pansies have been such a happy sight for me all winter, but their season is almost over.

They love Alabama's Fall, Winter, and early Spring seasons, but those cute little faces can't take the heat when it gets here.

 

I love to keep this little flower bed cheery and upbeat year around because this is what I gaze at outside my kitchen window,

Lucky me!

It even makes dishwashing a happy task.

 

 

 

 

But, it's okay that I can't work at my garden quite yet.

I can plan, plan, plan it.

And dream, dream, dream about what I want it to look like while I:

 

clean bathrooms

do the laundry

and cook for tomorrow's family reunion

 

And who knows, the sun may peek out in a little while.

And if it does, I'll head out to the plant nursery and pick out some cheery blooms to liven up my backyard.

 

How about you, what's the view outside your kitchen window right now?

I'd love to take a peek.  :)

 

 

 

 



My week in review

This has been a week of every day ~ but fun stuff!

 

Bike riding

     

 

My bike was a special birthday gift from my special hubby five years ago.

He picked it out himself and surprised me with it.

I think he did a great job.

It is so Me.

I especially love the swirlies on it.

 

 

***

I helped sweet hubby give our camper her bath.

Can you tell she doesn't have any "shoes" on?

She's getting new ones for our upcoming camping trip.

One of our sons said, "You might be a redneck if you have a camper up on blocks in your driveway."

 



***

 

I've actually done a little more cooking this week than I have in the past few weeks.

One night I cooked chicken in the slow cooker and then cooked Aldi's Chicken flavor Vermicelli & Rice and stirred them together.

 



 I steamed some veggies and baked a loaf of bread in my bread machine.

And it was a quite tasty meal, if I say so myself.

 

 

***

 

I've done a little gardening.

 

And I had such sweet help with watering my flowers.

 



Grandchildren are such a joy!

 



***

Today finds me going out for lunch with my friends.

Life is sweet when it's filled with such sweet people.

 

***

Thank you, my sweet friend, for visiting me today.

Hope you leave me a message, I enjoy comments so much!

Working with hindrances

Our beautiful weather sure is making it hard for me to get my to-do list checked off. After my early morning walk yesterday I didn't want to come in and start indoor jobs. Looking out into my backyard made me want to be out there in the morning coolness and dappled sunshine, so...

 

... I pulled my cutting board and fabric out onto the patio and cut out my skirt there.

 

And when the outside temps got hot, I went inside and sewed it up!

(I'll try to get pictures made of the finished skirt soon.)

 

So, even with the call of the outdoors I've managed to get over half of my wish list  To-Do list done.

I have a haircut appointment for this afternoon and

hopefully, I can get my jelly made today.

I'm down to less than half of a half-pint jar!

 

And those peppers just keep shaming me for not getting them picked and into the freezer.

I can just hear their little voices when I'm outside, "Save us, we're getting old and tough hanging on these vines."

Mail Order Dog Biscuits?

When opening my mailbox I often find dog biscuits laying on top of the coupons and bills.

Our mail lady loves dogs and dogs love her.

Maggie usually meets her at the mailbox for her treats but if she comes during Maggie's naptime, she has started leaving them in the mailbox.

I'm talking about one little spoiled dog.



And now it's out to the garden for me on this dark, misty morning.  The ripe tomatoes are weighing down the plant limbs so I've got to get my buckets out and relieve them of their loads.  That means I'll be canning again today.

I got most of my Wednesday household chores done yesterday and we're having a simple supper tonight, sloppy Joes, since a canning job keeps me tied up most of the day.

The promise of a lunch out with my friends tomorrow keeps me moving today!

Canning Day

I spent half of the morning in the garden weeding it and gathering the tomatoes.
So, now I get to spend the afternoon canning tomatoes.
I thought it would be a good time to pull up the tomato canning instructions I posted in July 2010.


I have streamlined my tomato-canning steps and written them on a little card so that I can zip right through without having to think through each little step. Here's my :

Smart-Canner's Step-by-Step guide

1. Put jars in dishwasher and run through wash and sanitizing cycle.
2. De-stem and wash tomatoes while boiling a big saucepan of water.
3. Peel tomatoes. (Dip in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then dump in ice water and peels will almost float off.)
4. Quarter and core tomatoes and run through food processor. (We don't like stringy or clumpy tomatoes in our soups and chili.)
5. Put tomatoes in large soup pot and heat to boiling.
6. Ladle hot tomatoes into sterilized jars, adding:

Quarts: 2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
Pints: 1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt

7. Wipe off jar rims with clean dishcloth.
8. Cap with sterilized lids.
9. Add to waterbath canner and process:

Quarts ~ 45 minutes
Pints ~ 40 minutes

And TA-DA! The fruits of my labor!


Here's the link to the entire post.
And now it's back to kitchen I go for today's canning session.
 

Simple joys

We've been rewarded with a beautiful weekend ~ weather-wise~ after a very, very rainy week.
I've gotten outside and soaked up every little ray of sunshine possible yesterday and today. I think my vitamin D levels have been replenished!

I've been very good to myself today. My spirit was refreshed in church this morning. I've exercised my body with a nice brisk walk in the sunshine with my sweet hubby.  And I've ended the day with a wonderful good-for-me meal.

A Salad!

 

Not just any salad but one full of fresh vegetables, boiled egg, and homemade vinaigrette salad dressing.

 

 

I have spinach growing in my backyard barrels again this winter and picked the first leaves this afternoon for my salad!

 

 

 

On another note,

here's another craft I finished this week, just in time to give to a sweet girl in children's church for her 10th birthday.

 

 Ipod pouch

 

front

 

 

back



 

She got her Ipod for Christmas and is so happy with it.
I hope she enjoys her little pouch as much as I enjoy the one I made myself a couple of years ago.
I use mine for my walks when I don't have a pocket in my skirt. 
I slide my Ipod into its pouch, pop in my earbuds, put my house key in the back pocket of the pouch, slip the handle on my wrist, grab little Maggie's leash and away we go!

Color My World!

I'm over my whining spell about the time change and now I'm working on adding color to my grey surroundings.

I started out my colorful journey at the plant nursery where I bought some bright plants and flowers that can handle the winter chill.

I snapped this picture of the ornamental cabbage after bringing it home and setting it on my front porch where the afternoon sun was bringing out its colors.

Below is the same plant on this cloudy day (first large plant on the left).

It's funny how the sunshine affects the color, isn't it?

I think sunshine has the same effect on me...it just brings out my color.

ornamental cabbage, kale, and pansies

  

 I surrounded the cabbages and kale with many, many pansies.

Pansies always make me think of children's happy smiling faces.

I still have this brave, lone, little bud on my front yard rosebush.

I found this picture in a store yesterday while out and about in town.

It's very large and took the saleslady and me quite a while to squeeze/wedge it into the backseat of my car after my purchase.

It took even longer to get it out once I got home, even though I had help from my son!

Sweet hubby hung it over the living room couch last night and I think it carries on the Color My World theme quite well.

And last, but not least, I went through some of my many pounds of cotton scraps with ideas of making some colorful throw pillows for the couch.

Below are pictures for happy-scrappy throw pillows I found on Cluckclucksew.com.

(The links below the pictures will take you to the tutorials.)



Sprocket Pillows



Petal Pillow



And today?

Well, I should be cleaning house.

But.....

I may go out in my backyard and walk around barefoot instead.

The day has started out warm with just a little peek of sunshine here and there but

thunderstorms are expected later today and then cooler weather behind that.

So I think I'll just play hooky from housework and enjoy this "snappy new day!"

A Fall Tour

My happy little friend and I took a tour of the flowers that are still blooming in my yard.

We thought you might want to join us before Jack Frost comes and steals the beautiful blooms away.

 

Earth laughs in flowers.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson~

Thank you for joining us.

I hope you have a happy day!

~Sherry~



Don't Try This at Home!

Please, come on up and join me on my front porch. 

I have a story to tell you. 

It's a story that taught me some lessons.

See this beautiful, innocent jalapeno pepper? 

 If you look closely you will see what looks like dew drops on it.  But really? They're tears.

The tears are for what its brothers and sisters did to poor me this week.  Being so proud of the bounty from my little square-foot-garden, I gathered up all the full-grown pepper pods from my two plants and carried them into my kitchen where  I washed them, cut them open, took out the seeds and membranes, then chopped them into tiny pieces for the freezer.

A little voice in the back of my head said, "Sherry, when you were a little girl, didn't your mother have a bad encounter with a sink full of peppers?"  Searching back through my memories, I remember coming into our house one summer day and finding Mama fanning her hands around and groaning because they were burning so bad after having them submerged in a sink full of peppers and water most of the morning.

"Oh yes," I said to the little voice, "but she had them in a sink full of water and mine aren't in water, and anyway it won't happen to me.  Besides, I cut them up all the time with almost no burning." 

And back to work I went. After chopping all the peppers up and putting them in a freezer bag, I washed my hands.   

That's when the trouble began!  Such intense burning!

I sluffed it off, put my bag of peppers in the freezer and fixed a sandwich for my lunch.  But wait!  Now my face is burning!  My lips are on fire and I haven't even touched them!  I did, however, touch the sandwich that touched my lips.

I'm thinking I may have a real problem now, so what do I do?  I Google it!  I found much advice, and was comforted (just a little) to know that I am one among many sillys that have cut up peppers without heeding the warning to WEAR GLOVES. 

I found one very entertaining blog post with almost 300 comments full of advice. I tried MANY of them: rinsed my hands in alcohol, rubbed them with a baking soda paste (this helped my burning lips but not my hands), slathered them with calamine lotion, washed them with very HOT water and dish soap (TORTURE!), rubbed them on stainless steel, rinsed them in lemon juice, soaked them in milk, rubbed them with aloe gel, and poured witch hazel over them (my own idea). I drew the line at peeing on them~yes, one of the commenters on the blog was adamant that it would help, but I never found out. 

Nothing I tried helped. Finally giving up on the treatments, I just laid my hands on an ice pack for rest of the day to wait it out.  In fact, I melted down several ice packs we had stashed in our freezer. 

Sweet hubby cooked supper for the family while I groaned. 

Oh, and did I mention, our air conditioner had quit and had been out for two days when this happened?  The Alabama heat and a sweltering house didn't help cool my hands any.

I was afraid that I would be up all night cradling my ice pack.  This burning lasted about twelve hours, then it slowly subsided. So sweet!  Finally, I was able to fall into a peaceful sleep, with an ice pack on my nightstand ~ just in case.

At least I learned some lessons from my pepper encounter:

• Listen to others' advice to wear gloves when chopping up even ONE hot pepper.
• Never think, "It won't happen to me."
• Listen to that little voice in the back of my mind.  God put it there for a reason. 
• Appreciate any day without pain!

Thank you for sticking with me through this story. 

Now, with a little help from my plants, I want to wish you all a very happy

Red, White, and

Blue Independence Day weekend,



our blueberry plants

with a big splash of Pink thrown in for my Pink Saturday friends!

Enjoy!

~Sherry~