Apple pickin'

The Honeycrisp apples were in at Lynd's today. I say were as they are picked out! We got a few bags before they ran out and they are good! There are little hands here who want o make caramel apples. I just remember the goodies I came up with to use the left over caramel. Oh so good!
We got to go with some friends from church. My discipleship partner has a love of good fresh produce as I do so we make a great pair. A few weeks ago we went out the the farm and got sweet corn, peaches and pick your own berries. I came home, made jam and canned my first peaches - oh so good. It was the first year I did freezer corn too. That is alot of work! The peaches seemed worth it but the corn, not as much. I tried to get more peaches todaya nd someone took the last basket right before my very eyes! Bummer! I think the 40 # of apples should hold me over for a while though.

Been making tomato sauce straight from the garden peppers, tomatoes and zuchinni too. Oh man is it good! Even the girls are helping lately to blanch and smoosh the tomatoes to get them ready. Freezer jars are my friend this year. Now if I just had a spare freezer, I could do so much more.

Reilly and I are taking a digital photography class so maybe I will learn how to post photos. I switched my sd card so it does not get automatically sucked down into out secret storage lock down back up system. I will just have to make sur I don't lose these pics as they won't automatically get backed up. I'm looking forward to all my new knowlege!

FYI

I wanted to talk about my family reunion... I was so excited to see my cousins! So my cousin, Amara, and I met up the second day and went to the pool with everybody. I went off the diving board! Also I played with my younger cousin, Jacob. I asked Amara if I could use her snorkeler. I swam underwater to my Grandma. Now it just so happened that I had a loose tooth. So I bit too hard on the snorkeler AND MY TOOTH CAME OUT!

Olivia

We Be Jammin'

Olivia had a friend stay the night and we were looking for something to do. Despite the gloomy weather we decided to head over to Jacquemin Farms and get some pick-ur-own strawberries. They are not plentiful this year but those that you do get have great flavor! So delish. The girls are in the kitchen as we speak, hulling two quarts to make jam. I'm trying a new recipe and will send some home as a thanks for letting us keep Lyndsey so long today. If it really tastes good, we may have to give more away as thank you's for all the people who helped my kids this year!

Off to cook up some jam - YUM!

getting caught up..........

Hey guys Olivia here




sorry I haven't blogged in a long time, I have SO much to do . Anyway you know that hair wrap I had in my hair my mom cut it out, I mean cut cut it out. I'm saving it, I'll take a picture of it and upload it..........out of my hair. Moving on..............i graduated Girl scouts and Awana. I finished my book so I get the plaque. oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh shiny!



Got to go, off to Yutzys.........bye!

Finally a garden!

In true-to-us form, we have created a garden this year. A little late, but better than never! I know it is a little late due to the poor slection of plants at the store. With all that full sun in the back yard, we will catch up in no time. I let the girls select what they wanted to plant and both of them seem very happy. Reilly wanted carrots! She got them. We will be sneaking in a few more rows where ever we can as the weeks go by.

Olivia went with me to the store so her list is more varied. She requested yellow pear tomatoes. They will look so pretty in salsa a little later this summer! We got a purple pepper plant just for fun. We also got 4 different heights of sunflowers. It seemed so right to plant a small army of sunflowers. I must read up on how to enjoy eating them up when they are ready!

Something else that is special about our garden is the shape. We have a large center garden that is a circle. Then two smaller side gardens in the shape of rectangles. I have been reading alot lately about how to be successful with a garden and one idea is that you make sure you can reach everywhere in the garden without too much trouble. This encourages you to keep up with weeding and tending. This is the part where we have failed in the past.

There is much more buy in this year from my whole family! Richard worked very hard at digging the entire thing up before we borrowed the neighbor's roro tiller. He did a fantastic job! The girls and I worked very hard at getting all the sod off and collecting all the rocks. We probably dug up 3 good five gallon buckets worth. When we were done Richard felt like it was too small. I am perfectly happy starting off slow this year. we have 5 different tomato varieties, 5 pepper varieties, cukes, a zucchini - don't know if we like them and they take up a bit of room.

All of my reading has said to mix in some flowers either in the garden bed or nearby to invitet he beneficial bugs in to take care of the not so beneficial ones. We've got a few gerbera daisies, marigolds and a few others about now.

I am up at this hour (4:30 am) because my body hurts so much from all the bending, pulling etc. Off to get an Advil and hopefully some rest!

Morning Stroll

For anyone who might be interested... Took me a while but I'm finally getting around to blogging about the Half Marathon. What a great weather day and lots of energy too! This is a map of where the course took us. I've decided that 13.1 miles is a long walk! In talking to my nephew, he says that the average person walks a 12 minute mile. I am way above average I guess because my best is about 14.5 minute miles.

This will hopefully change soon! The person who coerced me into walking the Half is now getting me to try to become a runner by the end of summer. We have a goal of doing a 10 K in mid August. The run is through King's Island! Sounds like fun to me! Not the training or the running but going to King's Island.

"What a Shame" soup

In an effort t preserve some of our favorite recipes that I've thrown together, I'm including them here as we discover them. This is a soup we threw together to warm up and use up some leftovers.

"What a Shame" Beef Soup

3 c. Maggie brand Vegetable broth
1 1/2 c water
1/2 # ground beef cooked
couple of carrots - sliced small
couple stalks of celery- sliced small
1 potato - cubed
diced garlic - at least two cloves
sprig of rosemary
salt and pepper to taste

Brown the ground beef, add it to the broth.
Throw everything else in the pot as you chop.
Allow to simmer for about 20 minutes. The house should smell great!
Allow to cool completely, refridgerate overnight and scrape off all the fat that collects :)
Reheat and enjoy the smell throughout the house again!
We served this with rosemary garlic bread covered in provolone cheese - toasted of course.

If you try it, let me know how you like it.