Muggy Monday

Hello from the land of high humidity and burning sun! lol

  I am having a bit of a mental health day today it seems. Not doing too much, although I have picked beans and okra and tomatoes and blackberries, and not very much of any one of them.  And I did tend the chickens and clean out all 3 water bowls and throw some fresh straw into the little nesting area.  And I real;ly DO plan to do a little straightening up. But other than that, I finally finished the Iris Johansen book I was reading and have been chatting on the computer with about 5 different women. And eating.  lol

  Yesterday I did some cleaning and stuff, baked 3 loaves of whole wheat bread and one loaf of Martha Stewart's Zucchini bread recipe.  Then I made a nice supper of cheese raviolis with a vegetable laden marinara and a huge green salad , with slices of warm from the little oven (which did a great job, BTW) home made bread.  yum.  I also did laundry and all that good stuff. so...

 Today is [sort of]  my day off.  

  I did sneak out into the studio apartment and turn off the window air conditioner because it's running nonstop. I turned the ceiling fan on high and opened the french doors and slid the screen into place to air the place out some. It's already starting to smell like boy out there. LOL  It's a little musty from being closed up unused basically for a year...I did a tiny bit of cleaning and sprayed some disinfectant around.  I'll go back out there around 1 and see how it feels before turning the air back on if necessary. It's only about 90 today...

   I need to clean out my fridge...it's suddenly stuffed with...something...and there's barely room to even find anything. lol  Partly it's bags of beans waiting to have enough to can, lots of lettuce and chard...but I'm sure there are things that need to go away in there too...I do a pretty good job of using up leftovers, but from time to time something turns up that kept getting shoved to the back...I think I might bake some hamburger buns and have veggie burgers for supper,  with salad and corn on the cob.  Maybe. 

  Suddenly my day off sounds kinda busy, doesn't it?  It's tough...one of the bad things about retirement is that you don't go to work, so you don't have days off anymore. And if you're not careful that can turn into a constant string of days where all you do is work.

  I feel like taking a nap.  LOL

  Part of the problem is that when I sit down in front of this computer, I get sleepy.  Isn't that strange?  Doesn't matter what time of day it is either...so, I shall get up and away from here for now and figure out what to do. I have some odds and ends of peaches that need something done with--might be enough for another batch of peach salsa.  It will be only a few more days and we'll be picking peaches big time and then I'll be BUSY. The ones I have in there now were a few early ones and falls.

  My kitchen could use a little attention and if I mix up the dough for the buns that will be something too. I'm a hot mess right now and need a shower and looking at THAT list of things, I think I'll be busy until the Irishman gets home form work. lol

  TTFN----

Namaste.

 

A busy day on the old homestead...

 

[Peach salsa.] 

A busy couple of days, actually.  In fact--I DON 'T KNOW WHERE THIS WHOLE WEEK WENT !!!!!

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Except I do, kinda.  lol

My kitchen island is full of peach jam, peach salsa and 21 quarts of green beans that I have canned over the past few days. And I still don't have my tomato handout done for the canning workshop August 4th.  And my house is a bit of a mess. And outside...well...outside it is hotter than heck..it was still 93 degrees at 10:30 tonight. The heat index today was 109, real temps at 102.  The garden is hanging on, despite the brutal sun and high temperatures. Some of my flowers are starting to look a little worse for the wear. The lawn is ...not dead yet, but not looking it's best.  My deck pots are still okay, because I'm watering them every day and keeping them in the shade as much as I can.

  Today it took me most of the day to get the beans picked and then with the ones in the fridge, to snap and stem them. I put the first canner load in at about 2 and the next 4 hours was all about that. I finally started supper at 6...and had a bunch of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash my brother had brought me, so it needed using. My brilliant idea was to make a summer squash parmesan. Like an eggplant parmesan, except made in my electric skillet since I have no oven. Wouldn't have wanted to turn an oven on today anyway--the ac can barely keep up on days like this, and with the canner, teakettle, and pan of water for boiling lids going, it kept getting warmer and warmer in here.  So the zucchini parmesan was a hit, but we didn't sit down to eat until almost 8 o'clock by the time I got all those damned rounds breaded and fried. Once that part was done, it was pretty quick. And it was AWESOME!  All I did was put a little marinara in the bottom of the skillet, a layer of squash and some more marinara and then top with parmesan cheese. Repeat and repeat until all in.  I had just enough green beans left over that didn't fit in the canner to make a nice side dish. I was going to make a big salad, but I was just too dang tired to do any more than I absolutely had to! So I threw the beans into my cast iron skillet with a couple of small onions and some garlic and salt and pepper.

  My carnivore son pronounced the meal really REALLY good.

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My legs and feet hurt so bad tonight that I had to make a basin of hot water and Epsom salts and soak them for a while.  That really helps a lot. I need one of those thick fatigue mats for the floor in front of my sink. I think that would help a lot.  Mostly I just can't do so much time on my feet...a crushed pelvis screws that up, even after it's as healed as it's gonna get. lol  And lord--the heat this morning when I was picking beans almost killed me. It took me coming in the house to cool down twice before I was done. I was sweating so bad that bending over to pick the bush beans, the sweat was running onto the lenses of my glasses, making it nearly impossible to see what I was doing. So I came in and got a bandana and made a headband, and that helped some with that problem. But I'm telling you....it was hot. I may just begetting too old for all this,....

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Tomorrow we have to go to the farm store and get critter feed again. Seems like I just did that, but we're out of cat food, low on dog food, and low on both scratch grains and layer crumbles. So...it's off to the feed store we go.  I also need to pick up a housewarming gift for my dear friend who has recently bought a new house. We are going there tomorrow night for a little party--causal and low key, just a few friends and some snacks.  It'll be fun and I haven't gotten to see the new digs yet.

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I am way too tired to still be awake...maybe that's the deal. But I am starting to yawn and so there's hope. lol  I'm getting ready to mosey over that way soon...

  Goodnight, ya'all...I'm ready to drop.

Namaste.