Friday night Lite...

 For some crazy reason, penguins always make me happy.

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  It's been a strange week. I don't know what's been going on, but I've zipped through this past 6 days or so and haven't the foggiest idea what I've done with it. Not so much, one suspects.  lol

  I did get all the information for my food preservation workshop completed. For the take home booklet that's being prepared. It's ridiculous-I should have had it finished weeks ago.  But, it's finished now and sent off to the woman who will publish it.  We're going to can green beans, but I will give presentations (and samples) of drying and freezing and fermenting as well.

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  Sunday will be extremely busy, it's our District Picnic and then work and then at 8 PM a birthday meeting where I'm giving out a coin for 3 years. I'll be a mess in a dress by the time I get home.

  Yesterday I took a 3 hour drive south to see my baby brother who has just had his 3rd back surgery. I loaded up Miss Roxie and we sailed off....she's a good traveling companion and did pretty well with my brothers cockapoo. Had a nice lunch with a Taco Soup she made that was delish, and then  sat around and talked . My niece got home around 3 from school and we played with her Wii and chatted about school.  They insisted that I stay for supper and so my plans of being back home by 8 got shot out of the water.  Skyler wanted me to stay all night, lol, but I said I had to go.  As usual, my SIL cooked a magnificent supper. She rocks.

  While I was there, I got a really sad phone call from my baby sister, telling me her daughter had lost her baby. She was almost 4 months pregnant. Today she went into the hospital for a D&C, and I'll go by and see her tomorrow...

  I have a splitting headache that came out of nowhere tonight.  It's only 11 o'clock and I'm ready to go to bed....

  On a lighter note,  I got the birth announcement for my great nephew yesterday, in the form of a beautiful photo that says "HI. I'M ROWAN   above his gorgeous little face. Hopefully I get to see him next week.

We harvested edamame today from the garden. There is a lot that dried on the vines, so I am going to try to keep that for seed for next year.  It was a real bust this year, compared to last year's harvest...

All for now..I need to lie in a dark room with my eyes closed. I took some Aleve  but nothing seems to be helping. (And no, it's not a migraine).

  Have a hunky dory weekend, all ya'll. I have to bake a coconut cream for my friends birthday on Sunday, as well as something for the potluck picnic. 

  I'm thinking of joining a book club that my friend goes to.  Have I lost my mind????????

  

Namaste.

Whew. Am glad today is finally over!

  I was awakened this morning by a certain new puppy whining outside the bedroom door. I foolishly thought she wanted to go outside. She only wanted company, she had already peed and pooped on my carpet. Sigh...To add insult to injury, it was only 4:45.  Needless to say, I am bushed tonight at 11:45 ! This is the picture the sun came up to while I was sitting on the front porch in my rocking chair with the dogs . I guess I need to put water in the birdbath! lol (And yes-I have a rocking chair. 2 of them, in fact, on my front porch.)

  I woke the Irishman up at 5:15 because he wasn't up yet. Curiously enough, he had apparently forgotten to set his alarm. (Thank you, Bella)  I made him breakfast and we ate and he left for work around 6:30. By 7 AM, I was out back in the garden picking beans, tomatoes, squash and cucumbers. By 8:30, I was sitting in front of a mountain of green beans, nipping and cleaning them to get ready to can.  I canned over 30 pints of green beans today and 6 quarts too.  I took the last batch out of the canner at 7:30 PM, just as we were getting ready to eat supper. We grilled a couple of the filets I had in the freezer, I cooked up a bunch of baby sweet potatoes in the bottom of the box from last year, and sauteed fresh green beans, summer squash, onion, and whole garlic in olive oil and butter.  I was starving. And exhausted.
 Here are some of  the fruits of my labor of love:

  Am thinking of setting up a summer kitchen out in the studio. A friend has an electric stove she wants to get rid of, and it would be great to have somewhere to do some of this stuff so that it doesn't overtax my air conditioning like it did today. Having 3 burners on (lids and bands, tea kettle, and canner) creates a lot more heat than you would think. Something I'm thinking about anyway....

When I was a kid, we lived in an old Victorian house that had a summer kitchen. It also had a smokehouse.  The house itself had turrets and an attic bedroom and was very cool, like an old castle.

We are going to dinner and a movie tomorrow night with some friends. It will be nice to get out and socialize, not to mention eating at my favorite Chinese place and getting to see the new Tom Hanks movie--Larry Crowne.  I'm really looking forward to it.

  They said tonight on the news that the heat wave is coming back.  We just had 2 whole days where the temps were reasonable...only in the high 80's.  lol  Makes me think of the way they jimmy the gas prices up and down and now we feel blessed when we have gasoline for ONLY 3.69/gallon. Anyway, there's a heat advisory starting Sunday night at 5PM that is supposed to last until the following Friday. There have already been 2 deaths from the heat around these parts.  Scary.

  Alrighty...I am going to bed here in a minute.  I feel like I have been whipped, lol. I also got some laundry done and some floors vacuumed and so tomorrow should be a pretty easy day. Unless I decide to make jalapeno jelly.  (I do have kind of a lot of peppers out there....)

Sweet dreams, y'all.  Gabi--I am so glad to see you back blogging. Love ya, girl!

Namaste.

Septembers song...

Wow.

  This has been one busy month. The bulk of the canning and preserving is all finished at last. The 15 quarts of kraut turned out beautifully

I pickled sweet banana peppers in a variety of ways

Been working like crazy ... not really, lol, but it seems like it. I really miss the old days when I could do anything I wanted anytime I wanted.   (Except, of course, I didn't have the $$ to do anything.)  Life was simpler.  lol  But I'm not complaining...

  Anyhoo...we still have sweet potatoes to dig in about a month..and there are still bell peppers and tomatoes out there. Their ripening has slowed way down with the cool temps that have been upon us the past week or so. Last night the temps got down to the forties. Today I have sweat pants on. Yesterday we had a District picnic and it was cold and rainy...my nose was running and my fingers were like ice.  It was good to see a lot of people I have been missing.

  I will probably (maybe) make chow-chow with the green  'maters and stuff left in the garden. Or maybe I'll make some batches of vegetable soup to can...that's always a good thing to have on hand. I'm trying not to buy any more lids or jars...well...maybe just one more package of lids of each size..but no more !!  I do want to cook up and can some pinto beans and great northerns to have on hand, and a jar or 3 of black beans would be  good too. Sigh....this could go on and on, couldn't it?  lol

  Baked an old recipe cake last night for a birthday celebration...it's an  Oatmeal Cake...the recipe given to me by an old neighbor almost 40 years ago. The recipe card is old and yellowed and the ink is faded so you can barely read it. lol   I was amazed at how many of the men loved that cake. 2 guys asked for the recipe!!  lol  It has a broiled pecan and coconut frosting on it.  yum!

OKay--have to run. Just got a call from the boss and she needs me to meet her in town before I head down to the noon meeting for another birthday celebration.

  I'll get back here soon....I hope.

 Namaste,

 

This is what it's like now...

Green beans, before and after. lol  I wound up with 6 quarts and 6 pints of these bad boys out of the first picking...as well as one big pan of beans stir fried with olive oil and fresh garlic. Not bad for the first haul...and there are tons more out there as well as flowers, so it's going to be a good green bean year. yippee!!!

  These are the ivory peppers. Pretty, huh?  Also had some okra and quite a few Roma tomatoes. This was next on the agenda...

Not sure if I'll dry more okra, lol..it shrivels away to nothing. Tastes really good though.....I generally grow it to pickle it, and freeze a bit for gumbos and stews.  Just thought I'd try this though.

And just for you, my darling Prayer Girl...here are some shots of the peach tree this morning in the already too high humidity. The heat index today is supposed to hit 110...advisory for folks to stay in and be careful...

See how the branches are weighed down to the ground?? (Click on picture to really see!!)

 The peaches are only about the size of  baseballs...but they are incredibly sweet. I picked about a dozen so far...mostly off the other tree behind this one...it's always ripe earlier.

   Ok.  I still have more to do this morning before I head off for my "visit" with  that darling little 80 year old woman. I'm going to take her some new potatoes, if I can dig some without keeling over. It's very hot out there...the dogs won't even go out, lol.  So far I've vacuumed, done laundry, talked on the phone, swept down the front porch and sidewalk, put chicken legs and thighs in the crockpot and fed all the assorted and sundry critters that I serve. Have to leave in 2 hours, but it's only a little more than 15 minutes away, so...I still have to time to dig, and then shower.

  Off I go....

Namaste.