Where oh where can she be ???

 The garden is still giving me presents.  This is a big basket. and the whole bottom of it is full of tomatoes. The rest of it is full of bell peppers, Jalapenos and Anaheims.  

 The carrots are doing well. I am only pulling as many as I need on a given day.  We planted some regular old Danvers and the rest of a packet of Parisiennes.  They are a small little globe carrot that has the sweetest flavor and are great for putting whole on salads or antipasto plates.  The carrots aren't real long this year, but they are thick and very tasty.

 I got my hands on about 15 POUNDS of beautiful organic kale. (That's a LOT of kale, y'all).  lol  I washed and removed the stems and then dried it all (except for a little we ate).  I wound up with 2+ gallons jars stuffed full of dried kale. All ready to use all winter in soups and stews and smoothies and anything else I want to use it in. lol 

 I got a deal on prime cut boneless pork roast at 1.79/pound and bought a boat load of it. I canned 12 quarts of it cut into big chunks and froze 3 or 4 little roasts They came out to about 4-5 dollars apiece and turned out beautifully.  All ready to use for carnitas or Caribbean stew or pulled pork.  Convenience--yay !!!

 The weather has cooled down enough to start doing a little baking now and then. I made some yummy pumpkin bread--you remember the pumpkin saga, yes ??
http://dragonwomansmysticalmeals.blogspot.com/search?q=canning+pumpkin

 Still have plenty of pumpkin. lol


  So, as you can see...I have been busy. And today I got blindsided by a nasty little cold. I don't think I've been sick in over a year and this is knocking the snot out of me (no pun intended). Hopefully it will go away as quickly as it came. 

  I have a good friend here visiting (not at my house, but here, in the area) from St Croix in the Virgin Islands, where she has been living for the past 5 years.  We got to spend 2 days together and it has been awesome.  I spent today with her again, and it will probably be the last time I see her before she leaves. I know how hard it is to  see all the people you want to see when you visit..so I am thrilled that I got as much of her as I did.  lol  I was supposed to go to a birthday celebration tonight, but I got sick out of the blue this afternoon, and spent a chunk of the evening in bed. The Irishman even made supper for me. I was supposed to go to a women's retreat tomorrow, but I have cancelled that too. I refuse to spread colds and flu and when I get these things, I stay home until it's over.  I just hope I didn't unintentionally contaminate anybody today.  I saw a lot of folks that I don't see all the time, and there was lots of hugging going on.  I guess it will be what it will be...

  I came over here and looked at the blog and saw that it has been 2 weeks since I posted last. Heavens to Betsey !!!!!  I have had a woman come over a couple of times to help me with some cleaning and so far, we ALMOST have that spare room done.  It was a disaster. The pantry/closet too.  I made a list of things I want to get done while I have her services...things that are too hard for me to do alone, like scrub down all the cabinet faces and shelves, the high ones and the low ones. It's really hard on me getting up on a ladder...or down on the floor, for that matter. I have a lovely teapot collection on the tops of the cabinets Probably in the neighborhood of 25 or 30 teapots. As you can imagine, they are greasy dust magnets and all have to come down several times a year and get washed clean.

  So, as you can see...I have been busy, but still having some fun. I have a big basket of stuff to get into the dehydrators as soon as possible.  Any minute now, it will be time for canning beets.  I need to get in the garage and see if there are any more canning jars out there. Believe it or not,  I have used almost all my jars this year. When I canned the pork roast, I broke into the last 2 new cases I had in the store room, because they were wi9de mouths.  I still have a few (less than a case I think) of regular mouth jars here and there, unless there are some in the garage I have overlooked. I thought I had gotten them all, but.... I never would have guessed that I would be buying jars again after I hit the Mother Lode when my cousin gave me all her old canning jars (about a hundred and fifty jars!!).  I'll be drying the rest of the tomatoes, but if there are lots of green ones when the frost finally comes, I'll need jars to can chow-chow.

  We're having a short lived warm up again. It was about 80 today. It's cooling off at night though, and I need to get my butternut squash cut and into the garage to cure a bit before bringing them in for storage.  It looks like a pretty good year out there.

  Okay. Letting you know I'm still alive...but taking my sniffly, sneezy butt to bed now.  I'll try to be a little better about posting.  

  Maybe.  lol




Namaste.