Chained to my Stove

Or....I hate my bushel basket!!



This will be my weekend:



These will be made into tomato juice (Todd likes it for a morning drink with something added - but I forget what), more tomato sauce and some whole tomatoes.

These I will make pickles out of - I'll post the recipe the next time I blog.


Plus the 10 dozen ears of corn I picked up from our Amish neighbor to freeze, and the bushel of peaches I need to pick up tomorrow to can.



And if all the tomatoes that are out in the garden ripen, I will have about 3 more bushels to do something with at some point. Too bad the weeds aren't putting a damper on my tomatoes.



But I'm not thinking about that just yet.

Kris

P.S. - I forgot I also have a dozen or so rather large onions to do something with - any suggestions??? (I'm thinking dry them in the dehydrator)

Soccer and Calves

Those 2 subjects really don't go together, do they? But that is what we are up to lately.

Soccer started last night. I got the calls from both coaches that practice was Wednesday night at 6:00 for both of them - at opposite ends of the county. The lady who assigned teams really wasn't paying attention, as Tyler's coach has 2 teams - and Jessie could have been on his older team. But no...she must think I'm superwoman.

So Todd took Tyler to practice and I took Jessie. Jessie will have practice 2 nights a week for 1 1/2 to 2 hours each night. I was a little worried - she moves up into the next age group and they actually play soccer - not just running around kicking the ball. She still hasn't been running very good at therapy, gets tired easily...

But what was I worried for? She ran, she kicked 100 kicks probably with her previously broken leg, came out super sweaty and so excited. Her coach was phenomonal with them - you could just tell he loves soccer and explained it in 8, 9 and 10 year old language.

Then we had to rush home as the girls were coming to walk their calves. They are doing so well. Friday night we are walking them again, with show halters on and Todd will start showing the girls how to use their show sticks and set them up.

And I asked Tyler how he liked soccer when I finally got home (Jessie's practice lasted almost 2 hours). I had fun fighting for that ball - we had a BIG FIGHT. Well then.

Seems Tyler is a lot more mature than last year at this time playing, and will probably get reprimanded by the referree for being to rough...

But I'll take him that way. For the kid who last fall would cry every practice that he didn't want to play - he's having a good old time this year...

And I'm canceling therapy after today - they want her to go until the end of September, but playing this much soccer will be much, much better for her.

Kris

It's ALL Todd's fault

Sounds good....doesn't it???

Last night at 10:00 I'm looking through the fat quarters I'm going to send for the Vintage Sheet Swap - I have 20 cut, and I thought that was a good amount to send (the number you send is how many you will receive). I can send up to 50.

And he asks me if that is enough since I pretty well depleted my supply of vintage sheets...

So I had to go to Goodwill while at lunch today and get these:

I think the one above is is actually a duvet cover made of sheeting - it will work for me!

17 sheets. All for $22. And all so I can make quilts for my kids for next summer like this and this. And pajama pants. Plus put a few more fat quarters in the ones I want to swap.

See how I rationalize - the quilts I have made both of them end up on the floor for the hot summer nights - if they have quilts made out of sheets, they should be cooler and will actually keep them on their beds.....

Excellent thrifting = one happy momma. And yes, Sara, I know you will say ICK - but this is such fun..... quilts on a budget without buying quilt quality fabric....

Kris

This weekend past

This weekend must have been the kick off for my food preservation weekend.


I froze 3 dozen ears of corn (I have 10 doz. more on order from our Amish neighbor - the racoons found our patch and demolished it):


A gazillion sweet peppers were frozen:


And made tomato sauce:




And Sunday I made a batch of soap and finished up the tomato sauce (I let it cook Friday night from 6-10 p.m., Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. and today cooked it from noon until I canned it in the evening). Unfortunately, so far my soap is not looking the way it normally looks (at least the last 2 times I've made it) - but from what I'm reading on the web, I can re-melt it and it should be better than before - so that will be tried 1 night this week. Todd thinks I'm just panicking because I took it out of the mold sooner than I normally would which could be, as I do tend to obsess about things like this.....

This week I hope to get peaches canned, another batch of tomato sauce (I picked almost a half a bushel on Sunday) and next weekend will be sweet pickles.

Yummy, yum....

Kris

A little chicken love

The chickens are growing....






And flying....


You can see here they like to be on the other side of the fence - until the scary human (namely me) comes in to mess with them!

And climbing...

Do I need to clip their wings? How do I do this? Hopefully tomorrow we will have the chicken run done enough they can go outside....

Kris

Lilly comes home

Well, actually, Lilly came to our house last weekend, but Jessie was away at camp for a couple days, and we gave her a couple days to settle in with the other 2 horses. So Friday night we brought all the horses in so Jessie could walk her in peace and quiet.

Still a little nervous, but her friends are up in the barn calling for her.

Then she wanted to groom her, so I got out my horse, Kiara, and rode her. Still pretty untrained, but she was good. She is an incredibly lazy, slow mover. And big. I cannot see over her back (heck, my eyes aren't even level with her back) and I'm 5'6".

Then the kids wanted to ride, and rather than saddle up my old show horse, Shamy, I just put them up on Kiara. She's never bucked, jumped or done anything equally stupid, so I figured as long as I kept hold of her, we'd be okay.

Yes, I make the kids ride without stirrups pretty much all the time - for 2 reasons - gives them great balance and safety - if their feet aren't in the stirrups, they can't get dragged if they fall off.

And she was. Guess I ought to start riding her more often...

First Major Garden Haul

This afternoon, I started out for the garden like this:




And came back with this:




The kids have already ate 2-3 tomatoes each. Off to make tomato sauce (and dry some more herbs:))! Guess my baskets from the Amish neighbor have finally come in handy.

Herbs - 2 types basil, cilantro, mint
Roma tomatoes, green peppers & sweet banana peppers
Kris