Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Monthly 9

Well the year is half over, today is one second longer than yesterday, and it is a good time to review.  Thanks to Linda at Greenhaven for hosting our monthly get together.  It is fun to see what everyone is doing especially since we have bloggers in both hemispheres, so we have opposite seasons!  It is probably due to the extra second in my day that I am not late with this post this month!!  We are in the midst of a record breaking heat wave with temps above 105F (40's C), this is really unusual for our area and we do not have A/C in our house - we are struggling to stay comfortable and drinking a lot of water!!
The sunflowers are loving the heat!!


Nourish - Ugh - when it is so hot we neither one feel like eating much.  We find ourselves eating breakfast after we have worked outside in the cool of the morning (such as it is), and then eating something light for dinner, salads with leaf lettuce and kale and sometimes some meat - but I am attempting not to turn on any heat producing appliances so we cook outside on the porch!
This was our bbq ribs tonight!


Prepare - So there it was, one of the hottest days so far and my friend calls and says "our plum tree has too many for us would you like some?"  Well I hardly ever turn down free stuff - especially food, so she and her hubby brought over the plums and I dug out the big cauldron canning pot and heated up the water (and the kitchen) and started working on the plums.






I tried something new and just canned some whole in a medium syrup, and then did up the rest in preserves.  I ended up with 6 pints of whole plums and about 7 pints of preserves and then gave one of the jars of preserves to my friend.  (just in case she has more plums someday!) I love fresh jam on hot bread in the middle of winter - it's like a little bit of summer in your mouth!




Reduce - This is the time of year I start getting out all my canning jars and lids and making sure that they are all in good shape, getting rid of any cracked or chipped rims and checking my supply of lids.  Someday I would like to try the reusable lids but for now I reuse the old fashioned ones till the seals look bad and only then use new ones!

Green  - Well the vinegar weed killer was a mixed result experiment, turned out to be good for things like sidewalk cracks and small weeds in the sun, but not so good for a huge well established weed bed (not that I would have anything like that!)  I posted pics of the results here

Grow -We are picking summer squash and strawberries, lettuce and kale and the occasional onion.  The peas have been pulled out and the herbs harvested (first harvest of the season I hope).  The corn always amazes me with how fast it will grow with a little heat!







Create - Creating this month was a wallet for daughter-in-law #one, she had asked for one to replace a previous gift and I was very pleased to have it turn out very well.  Posted here  Always nice to have someone appreciate the work and use the gift!!

Discover - We are discovering all the free places to go with air conditioning!!  The library in our town is new and lovely and very cool (temperature wise and fun wise!) and they have all the local papers!!

Enhance - I am working on a second genealogy for some friends of ours and having a lot of fun doing it.  Not only is it an activity that doesn't require that I move a lot in the heat, it is just so much fun for me to find the histories and stories.  These friends of ours had very little family knowledge and this has been a treat for me to be able to share this with them both.

Her momma's eyes and her daddy's dimples!



Enjoy -We have been enjoying the wonders of the internet, without which we would not be able to watch our Miss Lily grow up so much.  After she put that first birthday behind her she began to walk and due to the magic of facebook etc. we can be hundreds of miles away and still keep up on her goings onSeriously, could she be any cuter??



Enjoy the beginning of the end of the year and be sure to check out the other blogs in the roundup here at Greenhaven!





11 comments:

  1. Those plums look amazing!
    I live in a sub tropical climate, so we don't get things like plums and apples growing around here, and they can be quite dear to buy from the shops, sometimes I'd love to live in a cooler climate just to have a chance to play with some of those fruit and veggies...but then I don't do Winter well, so maybe not LOL!

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    1. As you can tell I don't do well with summer! I had not thought that with all those beautiful flowers and fruits anything would be missing! Learn something new very day!!

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  2. So much to comment on here! I had to re-read your section on canning and preserving because I was confused. What you call canning, we call preserving. We talk about 'preserved fruit'. Of course, we are also preserving when we make jams, relishes etc. Sounds like you mean jam when you say preserving.

    I love hydrangeas? but I can't grow them here. They're ok in this climate but need more water than I can provide. Enjoy growing yours!

    I enjoyed your weed experiment. I wonder if it would work if you kept re-applying the mix. Keep cool. It sounds as though you are managing to find solutions to get by.

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  3. I also meant to say, I put a link on my blog for the photography MOOC. It's not too late for you to start it. And yes, Lily is gorgeous!

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    1. Another new thing learned! Yes canning is the process. My 1945 Kerr Jars 'canning' book talks about jellies (the clear stuff), jams (some fruit pulp), preserves (lots of fruit pulp) and butters (all boiled down to mush). Not really a technical description! :) I hadn't thought about it but I do see the Australian blogs use the word 'preserving' which is actually more accurate. Thanks for the info! As for the weeds I do think it would work to re-apply, I also suspect the 20% vinegar would work better on the big ones!

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  4. Miss Lilly is just gorgeous, Kathy. Funnily enough even though you are having a heatwave and we are in the middle of winter we are both growing strawberries, lettuce and kale. I hope you survive the heat. We don't have aircon either and we had the same weather during spring last year which was hard to handle.

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    1. I do remember that! I have started carrying a wet washcloth around and then standing in front of fans! Oh well - this too shall pass!

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  5. hello,
    mmmh.....i love plums.your plum jam looks wonderful.
    blessings regina

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    1. Thank you - I had a jar that was only half full and so it went into the fridge and got used right away. Have to admit it tasted pretty good as well!

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  6. What a great month. We cook outside a lot in summer too or just use the oven one to cook a big piece of meat then have cold meat the rest of the week. Isn't the internet great for distant family members, I love skype even just for a quick catch up.

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  7. One of the things I love about reading other blogs is sitting inside on cold winter days reading about people on the other side of the world being boiling hot and eating summer fruits! I love our Australian summers so much, your post gave me a little glimpse to remind me that I'll feel like that again in a few months! I think seeking out places with A/C is a really sensible way to deal with those days that are just too hot. Our local council has started mapping such places to help people who need respite from the heat in summer. Hopefully you won't have too many really hot days to deal with.

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