Gardening and Stepping Out

 

Despite the crazy heat of this week, my cantaloupe and watermelon plants are looking great.  When I harvested the potatoes, I planted cantaloupes, watermelons, some herbs (see the basil on the right?), and a few beans in the bed, and they are doing very well even though it's been 95 every day this week.

See that cantaloupe?  It is still a ways off before any of the fruit is ripe, but they are doing fantastic, so I hope to harvest several melons from the plants before frost.  I may be enjoying cantaloupe in October, but that would be fabulous.

In other news, Nathaniel and I got dressed up for an event with the archbishop:

I had a lot of fun dress shopping with my friend for the gold dress.  I've never much liked shopping, but my friend and I had a great day together.  She also loaned me a clutch to use.  So Nathaniel and I were appropriately attired for a cocktail event, and we had a great time with a very friendly couple there.  

Back to School

 It's back to school time, so the big boys are all back at college, Lydia is at the high school, and the younger boys are into homeschooling for grades 5 & 6.  We had a field trip to meet an author at the library:

The kids really enjoyed that.  Author Brittany Thurman really did a nice presentation in addition to reading the book, and she took time to talk with all of the kids.   And of course I bought a book, which they were excited to see the author sign to both of them.  

Also, I broke out the soap and pocket knives for them to try whittling:

Emry has been wanting to try whittling for a while, and so I finally let them have at it.  Neither of them made anything particularly recognizable, but they had a lot of fun and were very proud to be allowed to use knives.

I've also been busy with more canning.  I used up the rest of the peaches on another batch of peach salsa, and I canned a double batch of tomatillo salsa.  I grew the tomatillos, so that was particularly rewarding.  I've not had a ton of produce from the gardens; between the deer attacks and the weather, it's been rough.  But I am getting cucumbers now pretty regularly.  I fermented some into dill pickles, which are delicious.  Also in fermenting, I made some sauerkraut.  I keep planning on making a batch of fermented salsa and fermented hot peppers, but I haven't actually done those yet.

peach salsa

Projects

Happy Feast of the Assumption!  It's been a busy day around here, and both Malachi and Pilot moved back to college. 

I went to the orchard and bought 2 bushels of seconds peaches, so I've been canning all day today:

Left to right, honey peaches, peach jam, blackberry peach jam, cinnamon peach jam, and peach salsa

The peach salsa is a new recipe I'm trying.  I also made a peach cobbler and put several bags of peaches in the freezer. I still have about 1/2 of a bushel of peaches in the fridge, so I still have more to manage, but I'm really pleased with how everything is going so far.

We did make it into town for a quick visit before school started, and we took our youngest boys and our nephews for an arcade day:

I also was invited to a fun mom craft day, where I made this cute pouch:

The kids also had their own crafts to do while I was busy making this.  It was a really fun day.

July Harvest Totals

 Well, things are starting to look better on the harvesting front.  

Beans, crescent - 9.1 oz

Carrots - 7

Cucumbers, Edmondson white - 9

Cucumbers, green pickling - 2

Cucumbers, NC white - 2

Cushaw, harvested as summer squash - 3

Eggs - 275

Lettuce, Red Merlot - 2 c

Potatoes, red - 10.8 lbs

Potatoes, yellow - 2.1 lbs

Radishes -2

Tomatillos - 1.3 lbs

Turnips - 3

Also, cherry tomatoes (scant), basil, thyme, parsley, mint, sage, and oregano

Also, while we were at Camp HALO, Lydia said, "Look!  Our family prayer is on the wall."

We have always told the kids that this was the prayer Papaw liked to sing before meals with the family, and she didn't realize that it wasn't literally only done by our family. We still say it periodically, in thanks to God and in memory of Papaw.