Experimenting

I've been trying to find new ways to preserve food as well as finding ways to use my greenhouse for as many things as possible.

I figured herb drying was a no brainer.

I couldn't figure out why they were taking so long to dry until I left my gloves in there overnight.

When I got my gloves the next morning they were very damp.

It was reasonably hot during the day but we were having cool drizzly nights and the greenhouse kept cooling off and getting very damp.

Hmmmm. . .

It looks like more experimenting in in order. . .

Strawberries

What do you do with the pounds upon pounds of organic strawberries you picked in the rain?

You make strawberry jam!

Happy Birthday Mom!

It was mom's birthday on Saturday and since she was working, we had a lovely birthday dinner for her on Sunday.

And lest you think I have any Martha pretensions. . . !!!

I spent a good part of Saturday in the garden after running errands in the morning and taking Jada and Diesel on an hour long walk.

We finished up around 7:30 and I figured after having a quick supper I'd jump up, clean the house, put together a lasagna and whip up a cheese cake.

At about 11:30 I woke up in my chair.

I decided to go straight to bed and do a quick tidy in the morning and make the lasagna and cheesecake in between church.

As we walked into church we were enveloped by a cloud of cologne.

I spent the morning service coughing. And coughing. And coughing.

By the time we got out I was exhausted.

I decided to make lunch before I got started.

When I woke up in my chair it was almost time for church.

I stayed home.

I had lunch.

By the time I woke up in my chair I had an hour before church was done.

Martha would have been horrified by the state of my house.

I was horrified by the state of my house!

I managed to tidy the living room but the lasagnas took quite a while to put together and my kitchen looked like a bomb went off.

Ding, Dong!

Mom was there!

Ack! It's pretty hard to feel special when the home you are having dinner at looks like a pig sty!

The only solution I had was to tell mom not to look in the kitchen.

It did not occur to me that she though there was something extra special going on in there.

Gulp!

The only thing that saved me that night was the fact that Morgan had just picked up two Mr. Bean DVDs which kept mom laughing hysterically for hours.

And I do mean hours!

I used a new lasagna recipe and the top layer of noodles curled up and refused to bake (as Lisa pointed out there wasn't enough sauce)

I cleaned the kitchen while everyone else laughed at Mr. Bean.

Someone ate the hard boiled eggs I was going to use in my spinach salad.

I no longer had time to make cheeses cake. . .

In the end everything turned out fine.

I took the top layer of noodles off the lasagna and added extra cheese, boiled more eggs, and for dessert I thawed some of the peach slices I froze this summer, thickened the juice with cornstarch and made peach crisp with ice cream.

It was all delicious.

We ate at eight o'clock. . .

Martha Stewart I am not.

Sigh.

I sure hope I can do better next year. . .

It's going to be the big _0 (If I put in the actual number she would KILL me!)

Lisa ,Tamara and I bought her the beautiful flowers you see at the top of the post.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Made the Lord grant you many more. . .

A New Look

I stayed up until one thirty in the morning revamping my blog.

It still said I was 43!

I hadn't read anything on my list of blog favorites in at least a year and a half.

Tamara's blog wasn't on there!

Neither was Ev's!

As I have committed to blogging regularly again, I figured I may as well do it right.

(Sorry about the picture Ev, it was the only good one I could find!)

I should probably change my profile picture too as it was taken at Colleen's wedding and considering she is now the mother of two some might think I was trying to look younger than I am.

However, since it's next to impossible to find a good picture of me (just ask Tamara) this is going to have to do for now.

I am sleeping in tomorrow which means all poopy work will have to wait until a little later in the day. (See post below. . .)

Good thing Jesse said he'd help me.

Let me know what you think of the new look. . .

One Of Those Days

picture found at english202c:technical writing

Well, it's been one of those days over here and I'm winding down with a Barq's, All Dressed chips and a good book.

Tomorrow's going to be a long day in the garden as I dig in cow poop, plant garlic (in the cow pooped dirt), pick the rest of my apples (and throw out the ones that fell on the ground on the off chance that they fell into dog poop), scooping dog poop and (hopefully) heading over to Ev's with my wheel barrow to pick up a load of chicken poop and straw to get my compost pile going.

So if you find yourself having one of those days tomorrow, remember this:

I will be pushing a wheelbarrow full of chicken manure down the side walk of a busy street.

It's going to be a poopy day!

The Strawberry Bed

Summer Fun

I'm Back!

When Aunty Nancy left a comment today, I thought it was on an old post.

And it was.

August the 5Th.

But that was also my most recent post!

Good grief!

I mean, I knew that I had been busy, but some how, in my mind, I had actually posted about what I'd been up to once in a while.

I was sure I had posted about the huge amounts of strawberries Ev and I picked (with a little help) at a local organic U-pick farm, but as I look back through my posts I see that story was not there.

I also couldn't find the post about the awesome party we had to both celebrate Henry's 50Th birthday and to say good bye to our dear friends Bart and Jurrina who moved back to Holland with their kids this summer.

I mean it took weeks to get ready for this party and not one bit of it is documented on this blog!

Ev and I made 40 matching cloth napkins, I bought 40 white dinner plates from the Dollar store ($ 1.50 each), we set the greenhouse up with all the buffet food, set tables all through the garden, had people fishing in the park across the street for prizes and I even made party favours!

But when I look back there is nothing there.

I couldn't find a post about the 20 pints of green beans that mom pressure canned from the beans out of the garden, or pictures of the enormous beets that became 27 pints of pickled beets, never mind the look on mom's face as she peeled and sliced the gold and striped beets which, after cooking, looked like peaches and turnips. She kept saying ,"I don't know Rose, I don't know. Maybe if I close my eyes the first time I eat them they might taste like beets. . ."

Then there was the day we harvested over a 100 huge leeks along with a modest amount of carrots. . .

We had bought lots of celery and chopped everything up to make soup veggie packets.

She went back outside later that day to discover a hidden carrot patch which she decided to can. In a water bath canner. I thought she had done it before. I decided not to get into another discussion about up to date canning methods. (She thinks I'm crazy.)

Only God's Providential care saved her. Some of the jars went a bit cloudy. She decided to try one of the other jars. It had a strange grayish snot like growth in it.

She threw it out. Before she ate it

I asked her if she had ever had that happen before.

She told me she hadn't ever done carrots before!

We looked up the correct way.

ONLY pressure can carrots!!

For crying out loud!

Did anyone see the post about all the painting I did? The hallway? New shelves Henry built for my china and glassware? Kitchen cupboards inside and out? Ceiling? Walls???

Sigh. . .

Me neither.

And we haven't even talked about all the gardening!

I'm not surprised there's no post about melt down I had over the many cases of peaches when they started to mold.

I would have thought I would have said something about the lovely visit I had with Lisa and her family and how much my house guests loved poor little Katie whom we were dog sitting at the time. . . (cough, cough)

Well, there's no doubt about it! I've really dropped the ball.

Let's see if I can pick it up again.

Stay tuned for the Zucchini Saga. . .