A Glance at the Garden....

After many years of set backs and let downs, I am happy to report that my garden is doing really well!
This is some squash-like thing that came up in my compost. One of many. I planted it in this container and it's been going wild! I think it may be a seed from one of the gourds that we got from friends. They were a beautiful addition to the sukkah, the festival will be in early October this year and I'm looking forward to having some more to decorate with.


The tomatoes.

I just recently got some actual fruit but I have a TON of flowers.

My tiny little moon and stars watermelon. It took forever to come up. I've been giving it lots of extra water and it seems to be thriving now.

My first little pepper.

The zuchinni. This is what I used to make that fabulous relish last year. I made about 25 pints and just opened that last of it the other day. I sure appreciated all of the zuchinni I'd been given. Now I can make my own relish with my own squash!


Curly little green beans. We've had some for dinner already. So tasty!

Two of the four cucumbers.

We've really enjoyed the lettuce. It's just wonderful to run out the back door and pick some for dinner salads. Just between me and you, I'm running out in the mornings to snag some for breakfast smoothies too. With the red cherries and raspberries that have been going in to them recently, you can't even see the green color. And, the less they know, the better! :)

The Amish pie pumpkin. I can't wait to get a few on the vine.

Thanks for taking a peek. I just love looking at pictures of everyone else's gardens. It you have a recent post with your garden pictures please leave the link in the comments.

Huggies Diaper Deal

Do you buy diapers? Then you must get to Rite Aid to do this deal!!!

You know, even if you don't normally buy diapers maybe you'd consider buying a few packs to have on hand for baby shower gifts.... diapers are normally so expensive and this is that good of a deal.

I've even broken it down in steps for you....

1. Find all of your Huggies diaper coupons. If you don't have any google and find some. You'll need up to five. Try here and here.

2. While you are googling and printing, print off one of these too. It's five additional dollars off your $25 purchase.

3. Go to Rite Aid, armed with the coupons mentioned above.

4. Choose five packages of diapers. You should look for Huggies Supreme or Huggies Snug and Dry with a count of 34-60. The Pull Ups Training Pants (33 count) and the GoodNights Underpants (27 count) also work for this deal.

5. Take your receipt home. Go to this website and click on Sign up for SCR. Fill out the form and then enter in your receipt information. It will ask for the store number, etc. All of that is on the top of the receipt you just got with the diapers.

6. Wait for a check to come in the mail!

You will be buying five packs of diapers. They are on sale. With your coupons you will save even more. Then, with the rebates you will get a free package of diapers (coupon will come in the mail), a $25 Rite Aid gift card and an additional $2 off of one package.

Should I say I told you so?

My Biggest Weakness

I am procrastinating. And I'm not really a procrastinator.

I need to get ready for a little vacation and instead I headed off to Walmart after my little ones were in bed. Walmart with no plan and no list. What do you think I ended up with?

Matching clothes for my kids, that's what. It's all so cheap (relatively speaking) that I just can't say no to myself!

Now it's 11:43 pm and I still have dinner dishes to wash and a van to pack! But, my kids will all be super cute!!! Can anyone relate? :)

FINALLY Done with Cherries!!!

I realize that this is my third post about cherries but that is all I've been doing. And now I am celebrating, today was our LAST day of cherries! We ended up finding a FREE source and picked hundreds and hundreds of pounds. We canned over 200 quarts, froze about 20 gallons, dried a gallon and a half and are oh so tired of cherries! I feel like I've done nothing for weeks but pitting, pitting, pitting! I know I'll be glad this winter when I throw a few handfuls in the blender for smoothies or bring a warm cherry crisp out of the oven. All the hard work really pays off in the end.

Canning Craziness!

Since my last cherry post my family went through 40 lbs. of cherries (minus the 12 pints I managed to can). Forty pounds of cherries in two days!?

So, we got back in the car and went cherry picking again today.

After many failed attempts to find a free source for cherries, we went back to our original place and found that we could get them for 99 cents a pound today. Combined, a friend and I bought about 160 lbs.

Each of these boxes is about 20 lbs.

Then, the canning began, the washing, sterilizing, destemming, washing, packing and boiling.

Everyone worked hard.

We left their house exhausted, two hours past my children's normal bed time. Falling into the chair, I checked my email. I found this response to my freecycle wanted ad to come and pick fruit trees:

Jennifer,

We've got lots of Bing cherries here, and you are welcome to them.

Ron

I predict more canning in my future!

g

In Bee News...

I have a new excitement about my bees today. After much concern, I finally got a telephone call from the local bee expert. He laughed about my worries and told me to come down and open a few hives with him. I did. I got stung. Several times. But I'm sure hooked on bee keeping!

I found out the reason that my bees were swarming on the front of the hive all day was that the frames were chock full of brood cells. That's a good thing. That means the queen is doing her job. I was able to remodel my hive this morning in to a two story bee house, because of their growing family. :)

This afternoon I wanted to take a peek at how they were furnishing their new place. It was sure a surprise to see how many bees were on the frames.


While outside I enjoy watching my busy bees at work. I sit and watch them often, it gives me such satisfaction to see them all over the yard and even the neighbor's flowers. Here they are working on the lavender near the garden.

I love bee keeping.

Cherries

To me, when cherry season hits, it says, "We're off!" or "GO!" with out the ready or the set before hand. It sure seems to sneak up on me, but, ready or not, the fruit and vegetable season is in full swing. It's time to get outside and harvest the crops and then dust off the canning equipment and get to work.

As a family, we've enjoyed the process as well as the reward of home-canned produce. The children just love to pick fruit.

Today we filled two boxes at the orchard. The longer I live here in the valley, the more I appreciate the fact that right down the street I can pick fresh, sweet cherries for $1.25/lb. I've eaten more than my share of them, they are beyond description, so delicious!

We just couldn't keep them in our buckets!

I've canned 12 pints whole tonight and plan to make jam tomorrow.