Holy hell. How did it get to be Tuesday already???? And where was I ???

  I've been in a canning warp, I think.  Let's see..the last time I posted was Saturday. Sunday I canned more tomatoes and salsa.On Monday I took a trip to Broom Orchard to see about peaches. They were outrageous...due to the price of gas, I'm guessing. 42.00/bushel this year for the freestone peaches. I bit the bullet and got them because they were gorgeous and I wanted to can some peach halves. Aren't they pretty?  I wound up with 10 quarts and 15 pints of peaches canned today. Our trees don't have much on them this year due to the bad storms during blossom time. The next batch that I get will be seconds from Calhoun County (a serious apple and peach growing area here along the Illinois River delta)...those are the ones I will freeze/can for pies and make jam from. They will be a lot cheaper (I hope). That will be sometime next week, I think. Tomorrow I will make Peach Pit Jelly. It's really good and uses up the peach peelings and pits to the very end of their usefulness. I love that.  lol  I've already got the pot of them cooking away..

  I have been freezing bell peppers, and a little okra. Getting ready to plant the second planting of green beans if the ground will ever get wet enough to get the seeds in. The Irishman has been cleaning up the beds of burned and battered dead plants. We are in our third week of record breaking heat. We have had more days over a hundred degrees than we have had since 1988...the heat index today was 116.  You can't do anything outside for more than about 10 minutes, the chooks are heat stressed, the dogs are heat stressed and the cats seem to be loving it. My front porch looks like a pet cemetery...all the cats laying around looking dead (and loving it), under the rockers, hanging off the rails...it's crazy.

I made a tamale pie today for supper in my electric skillet. Still haven't had the oven repaired, but I can manage for a while longer...property taxes are coming due and and had to replace my dryer and blah, blah, blah. It's okay. It makes me  do what I do best...IMPROVISE, BABY!!  lol  I wasn't real sure about the cornbread topping, but it cooked perfectly and all I did was add a little extra buttermilk to make it more easily pourable across the top of the ground beef ingredients. My husband loved it and ate more than half of it. He sheepishly said "It was really good--and I was really hungry!"  I think I'll put the recipe on my other blog...

 My 8 year old niece is coming next week to stay for 4 whole days. I am excited!!  I'm thinking up fun stuff to do...you know, the stuff old ladies need a kid to go do??  lol  I'm looking into The Magic House and the Butterfly House and any number of things going on across the river. I may see if she's interested in going to see the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield...she just might. It's way cool, and I'd love to go there again.They have a part where there's a holographic President Lincoln and some Civil War soldiers and it blew my mind when I saw it the first time.

 I am working an extra day this week to make up for the 2 extra days I am taking off next week. I am tired already, lol  It's been a long day and my feet hurt and my pantries are filling up, so it's all worth it. I worked on my canning workshop booklet today and decided to put in a section of finding the place for a pantry in your house. It's coming along...I need to get more disciplined and make myself work on it for a prescribed amount of time EVERY SINGLE DAY.   sigh...it's hard to learn discipline at my age. lol

  Looks like we are going to put in some more kale and some turnips and green beans and maybe one more thing. Husbandman is talking a big talk and I just sit by and nod.  We'll see what happens....stay tuned.

Namaste.