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