Thursday rides again!!

 The tail end of the 2012 peaches...waiting in my sink for me to get busy...

  And I am in here stalling. I have so many things to do today, I don't know where to start. My day was filled up yesterday with my neighbors (delightfully) and I didn't do anything here except feed and water the critters and get the garden watered all by 8 AM.  This morning, it's all staring me in the face, lol.

  I was up at 7...in bed at 11 too-so I got some much needed rest.  I've been operating on way too little sleep lately, getting only 4-5 hours per night, for one reason or another. We've been watching the Olympics, for some reason, lol.  And staying up too late.  And then getting up too early, to make sure I can get the gardens all watered before the day gets too hot. We've just had another long string of those 102+ days...sigh....it's getting really old.  Today is supposed to be 99-100 though, and then 90's for the next week. (Mid-high 90's, but 90's just the same). It will seem like Paradise. lol

  My son helped me pick the rest of the peaches this morning. Trees are both bare now. I have about a bushel in there between the ones this morning and the ones that have been being picked  the past few days. I should be able to get them done today and get some peach salsa made too. I have a lot of peaches in the freezer, and some jam and salsa already canned. 

  The two worst jobs of the year,  for me,  are the peaches and the tomatoes. Both are the messiest of all the fruits/veggies to work with. You wind up having to completely clean your kitchen by the time you're trying to finish up, wiping down cabinet fronts, mopping floors and wiping down the walls behind the counter. No matter how hard I try to be neat about it,. it just ain't happening.  lol  It's SO worth it--don't get me wrong, but it's a mess. And my tomatoes are still loaded with greenies out there, so I just may be doing tomatoes until October.  Grateful to have them--absolutely!!!  I've already dried quite a few tomatoes, as they were coming in sporadically, and I happened to have room in a dehydrator. That's the beauty of dehydrating...it's easy enough to get that little machine out and do a few. When you're canning, it's a lot of work just setting up for it, and you need to have X amount of jars to run the pressure canner.  So you need a bounty of tomatoes for that.

  That being said...I gleefully look forward to the peaches and tomatoes every year, because there is absolutely NOTHING in the world like fresh peaches from the freezer in the middle of February...or home canned tomatoes for spaghetti sauce.  And the kid in me probably LOVES making the messes...just wishes someone else had to do the clean up.  lol

 Guess I should put the dogs outside for a while...soon it will be too hot. They are spending lots of time in the house these days, preferring to go outside later in the evening when the heat isn't so brutal. Can't blame them. But 4 dogs under your feet gets annoying sometimes. And if I'm in the kitchen doing anything, believe me, they are under my feet, waiting for something--anything-- to be tossed their way.  lol

  I really don't have any more to say this morning. lol  But like I said earlier, I'm stalling.  Once I get up from here, it's probably gonna be nonstop until I quit for supper.  Well...I'll just put on some lively music and get moving--that always helps.  It also helps if I shut off my brain and just get doing and stop sitting here thinking about it. LOL

  Adios, amigos!  I'm outta here, baby!!

Namaste.

Monday again...and it starts all over...

 Yesterday I went to the garden and dug these red potatoes (about 4 pounds or more)  to make potato salad to go with the fresh catfish the boy caught earlier in the morning.  We cooked some corn on the cob and called it supper.  I cooked the big fillets with lemon and onion, fennel, baby carrots and a little butter, salt and pepper...folded up in foil in a baking dish. It was outstanding...and some of the sweetest, cleanest catfish I have ever eaten. We had a wonderful supper and it was a good day, all in all. The boy did his laundry and hung it outside to dry, went into town and picked up a few things, and got ready to leave early this morning to go to a job up in Peoria. He'll stay up there all week, because it's about 3 hours from here, a little less.

  SO..I'm home, the Irishman's at work, and all is well with the world.

 I've been busy already, trying to get some outside stuff done before it gets too hot, as it's headed for 105 today.  By 9 AM, I had watered the gardens, watered the flowers on the deck and a few others in the yard, picked tomatoes, fed and watered all manner of critters, cleaned the coop, and put new pine shavings in the floor and extra straw on top of that. The pine shavings really help keep the odor controlled, especially in this hot weather. I also fixed up a new nesting box and put it in the corner where I keep finding the pullet eggs. (OK--I've only gotten 2 so far...but STILL!!) lol  Hopefully they'll use it to lay in and not just kick out all the straw and poop there, which is what they've been doing...so I took it out for a couple of weeks. I weeded the garden a little and put the beautiful greens in for the chickens...and they were delighted. They also got a few small tomatoes that had blossom end rot, and they were squabbling over those too.  By now I was sweating profusely, came in the house, turned on the computer and poured a big glass of ice water...and saw that it was already 91 degrees.  I have the drapes all pulled and am trying to keep the house closed up as much as possible...yesterday the darn condenser line froze up again...I hope we can make it through the rest of the summer.  When that happens, I just shut down the AC and pray that it will thaw quickly.  lol

    I have a bushel of peaches to do today.  Saturday I did 20 pints of beautiful salsa.  All the ingredients grown right here at Honeysuckle Hill, except the cilantro that I got at the farmers Market. I cannot grow cilantro to save my life. Here a picture of the finished product:

  So...today I'll do the peaches...make another batch of peach salsa, dry some peaches and make some more jam. There's probably another bushel and a half at least still on the tree out there. I almost have enough okra for a batch of pickled okra too.  And enough tomatoes to can diced...I'm on the fence about whether I';m going to peel them first or not...Any step I can skip, I do. But the skins do sometimes get tough and stringy in the jars of diced tomatoes, and I don't like that either. I never peel them for  salsa, though. Never ever. It's so much more nutritious to leave the skins on...

  I have my tomato canning workshop out at La Vista a week from this next Saturday. That will be fun...I just hope we can still get tomatoes. They were crazy expensive (I thought) at the Farmers Market at 1.50-2.50 per pound. And I'm sure it's going to get worse as the whole coming week is going to be in the triple digits, and folks' gardens are burning like Rome in the time of Nero.

  This Thursday, we have a vegetarian potluck at our discussion group at La Vista--not sure what I'll take, but can't wait, as there's always so much good food that people bring. YUM!!

  Okay...I guess I've stalled about as long as I can.   I have to get going on those peaches...did I tell you I went to Walcrap and got a package of rubber fatigue mats for exercise equipment?? They interlock and were only 19 dollars. I am using only 2 of the 6 that came in the package as a mat in front of my sink...when I am standing there for hours on end peeling and chopping, my legs and feet hurt so bad from the wood floors. I used them doing the 25 pounds of tomatoes for salsa and I think it really helped.  (It was the boy's idea...apparently they had purchased them before for their family room).

  Ok-Ok...I'm going.  Have a great day, stay cool and drink lots of water.

Namaste,

A quiet and relaxing Sunday....sort of....

These are garlic chives flowers...aren't they remarkable ?  If you click on the picture to biggify it, you can really get a glimpse of their beauty.

  I was up at zero dark thirty this morning, and I have to tell you...I feel like taking a nap right now. (It's 2:30 in the afternoon).  I keep leaning over on my hand and closing my eyes. lol  After I had put the dogs and the chickens out, I walked around the house...lord!  At 7 AM it was already 80 degrees and the humidity was through the roof.   I started watering after I picked another gallon of green beans. At about 9:30 I stopped and came in the house to cool down...made a couple of egg sandwiches for my son and myself and then went back out. I've been piddling around out there off and on ever since.

  They are calling for a bit of a cool down...which means that today it is only getting to 99 instead of 103. Possibility of some isolated thunderstorms starting around 4 PM. We'll see.  I've become a skeptic around the idea of weather forecasts lately. lol  This heat wave has been brutal...and no rain.  The garden is hanging ion there, but some things are looking a little bedraggled from that heavenly halo beating down on them relentlessly.  The potatoes are looking the worst, and so this afternoon, I started mulching them some more. They should have been done last week, but I'm here to tell you that it is really hard to get motivated to handle straw and straw bales when the temps are in triple digits. Never mind, though...they are almost done now. I have maybe another 3 feet to finish up the bed. Had to stop because I was sweating so hard it was running into my eyes and I couldn't see.  Since I had finished up the bale, I decided to wait until this evening to finish. I came in and laid down on the couch a bit...and it was all over then.  lol

  It occurred to me that maybe I was hungry, since it's 3 o'clock and breakfast was at 9:30...duh...I'm now eating a bowl of leftovers..quinoa, red onions, fresh tomato slices and a bbq'd hamburger patty. All cut up nicely and peppered and with a little salt for the tomatoes. Why do I have leftover hamburgers, you ask ??  It's a long story...

  Yesterday my baby brother and his family came up from southern Illinois.  And then my brother and his wife that live about an hour from here, decided to come  too. They called and said they were going b y the meat locker and bringing burgers and brats and what else should they get? lol So I spent the better part of the morning super cleaning the house.  They started arriving around 1 and we spent the rest of the day laughing and cooking and eating.  The last of 'em left around 9 and I fell into an exhausted heap. lol

 And that is why I have leftovers of the meat persuasion in my fridge.  lol  I made a big jar of lemonade and am sipping it now...so beautiful with the lemon slices in it.

Just off the phone with the Irishman...says it's in the upper 80's there, near Rice Lake, Wisconsin. They are having a ball and the family reunion festivities were yesterday, with about 90 people in attendance. Am really glad he's having fun.

  SO, that's about the size of it here.  I will be canning green beans tomorrow, I have over 2 gallons in the fridge now and more to pick by tomorrow I'm sure.  I also need to get out front and pick peaches. Am thinking peach preserves might be the way to go. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG0-iWCKjsw&feature=related

 Those babies are so sweet and juicy !!!!!!  I usually make jam, but...I guess I can do anything I want, huh?  lol  My brother and his wife brought me 2 big plastic bags of zucchini and yellow summer squash and some cucumbers from their garden down south. They said everything is pretty burned up down there...So, I guess I'd better figure out what to do with those too...I'm going to grill some of them for supper tonight. My son has been fishing and has quite a bit of fish in the fridge that he wants to grill tonight, so I'm thinking, grilled squashes, some leftover quinoa and grilled fish sounds a lot like heaven. He's with his dad's family today, his aunt from Washington is here and they are all gathering at the nursing home his grandma is in for a family get together.

 It's been a blessing having him here...he's done all kinds of trellis making and stuff for my garden and been a big help when he's not at work. The sad news the other day was about him, as you've probably guessed...he is heartbroken, as his wife has decided they need to be apart...and I am watching him go through the stages of grief at the demise of this 10 year relationship.  Trying to not say what I think any more than necessary...he hates that he has nowhere to go and is back staying with his mom, that things are the way they are for him right now, etc etc.  Time will heal things, but I think the damage may be done. I am just so grateful that I have a place he can stay (and he is too--just that his pride is balking, which I think is a healthy thing) and figure out what he's going to do next. I want him to be happy....life is way too short. He has already (IMHO) tried way too hard for way too long, and the best thing for him to do (IMHO) is to cut ties with her and let her do what she needs to do...but take care of himself. They have no children together,  and have pretty much kept separate lives financially, so that will make lots of things easier. But his heart is broken and he is suffering, and that is the worst thing for a mother to have to watch. When there is nothing you can do.

 Ah...life.  Tomorrow there are 2 memorial services/viewings for the people who passed and I really don't want to go to either one, but feel that I should. The truth is that I hate those things, and hate the way we handle death in our culture. Plus the fact that it stirs up all the old unresolved grief I have for the deaths of my own mom and dad, who died when I was 27 and 32 respectively.  I have processed most of it by now, don't get me wrong, but it triggers that old cell memory I guess.

  I may just stay home, say some prayers for transitioning souls, and can green beans.  No one will notice my absence, most likely, these things are always such a blur for the loved ones.  I'll see how it feels in the morning...

  Stay cool, you hotdoggers.  It's supposed to stay hot for another week at least.  yuck.

Namaste.

I am so tired tonight....

Busy, busy morning. Errands to run, beans to can...

 Tomatoes to dice and can...

 Busy time of year.

 My son was at a job today and got himself stung when he grabbed a hornets nest that was behind a fascia board on the house. He said he thought he was going to pass out. The lady he was working for gave him a benadryl and he lay on the cold basement floor for a little while. He said he isn't usually allergic, but maybe he got stung more than once. He's not sure. He seems to be fine now, except for his cartoon sized hand. When he was finished working for the day, he picked around 30 gallons of peaches for me from this same woman's trees. They're small, but look fairly good. Sigh...guess we know what I'll be doing tomorrow... I'm grateful--don't get me wrong.  I'm just tired. The hardest part is finding a way to sit so that I don't have to stand the whole time I'm peeling and slicing and dicing. I have a tall stool that goes to my island and I use that, but it still isn't quite comfortable.

  

  Guess I owe that boy of mine a peach pie....

  

    Wanted to stop in tonight, because I will going full tilt tomorrow and probably not have any time to get on here until after I get back from MissB's house at 9PM.   On Thursday I am going to a friends house to do corn for the freezer. I am off that day (hallelujah!) On Friday morning, I am going to visit another friends new house for the first time. So,. I need to find the perfect housewarming gift to take with me. It might be a gift basket, filled with homemade goodies and Useful Stuff. hmmmm.....

  

    Sweet dreams all.  I'll be back tomorrow.

   

  

  

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.