Summer Finally Got Here!

I'm pretty sure I mentioned some time back that when it got hot I would be moaning, so here I am-moaning!  I am drinking so much water I can hear my stomach slosh, I have the urge to eat salty foods, and I do not wear makeup as it will just run down the side of my face!  I am one of those people for whom summer is not fun, I am a naturally warm person (body temp and heartwise!!), I have reached the age and weight that although I can put on enough clothes in the winter to stay warm - I cannot decently take off enough in the summer to stay cool.  (people would probably pay me to put them back on!)  We do not have air conditioning in our home, so the constant hum you hear is the multitude of fans.  The good thing about having active sweat glands is that if I stand in front of a fan I become my own evaporative cooler!  :)

almost big enough for sweet pickles

OK - I got that out of the way, I love what the heat is doing in the garden!  June was pleasant for me but too cool for huge growth in the garden.  The past few days of heat have just made things pop!  I have 6 cucumbers and a large turnip in the fridge waiting to be eaten.  The corn is growing at a noticeable rate as are the beans, the peas are like me - happier when it is cool, but the sunflowers are getting tall.  This year more of my herbs came up but I am not sure my dill will get big enough before I need it, may have to buy some for the early pickles.  I cleaned out the pickle supplies when we went to California as the kids were all out so I am hoping to have

Waist high already

plenty of cucumbers for both sweet and dill this year.  I would also like to get enough red beets to pickle a couple of jars so we shall see.

The cherry tree was loaded this year and we ended up with a total of 5 gallons of cherries!  They weighed about 25 lbs and at the going rate in the stores that is between $80 and $100 worth of cherries!  (organic cherries were as high as $6 a pound this tree is definitely organic borderline wild) That from a tree we don't even water!  Thank goodness the cherries are done now so I can do a new manicure!  The pitted cherries filled 9 quart jars and I added medium syrup (2 cups water and 1 cup sugar) I water bathed for 20 minutes and they all sealed!  Two years ago I did some pie filling and some in heavy syrup, this year just did the one thing which is perfect for ingredients for many desserts.  I have learned my lesson, this is much easier and gives me more options when I am ready to use them.

So now I am going to drink another glass of iced tea, focus the fan on me and try not to move enough to sweat!!  Oh and by the way kittens are little heaters!!!  (And they both want to sit on me! It's some kind of conspiracy!)

What are the 'Lazy' Days of Summer?

There I am reading one of the newsletters that I get by e-mail and the lady who does the organizing hints newsletter (I do read it, and make notes, and if I ever find them...) was giving tips on things to do during the "Lazy days of Summer".  I don't remember a lazy summer, at least not since I was young enough not to be conscripted for chores.  (is conscripted a bad word to use?  It's not like I volunteered!) When I had kids in school they may have been lazy but I was busier than ever because they were home, and now, with the garden and all the projects around the house that are 'fair weather' jobs (as opposed to the foul weather jobs that are best done inside when it's cold) we seem to be very busy in the summer!  Our days are filled with activities that can be checked off of the master list in the evening and we sit down to supper and sigh and compare notes and discuss the next things we plan to do.  Don't get me wrong -I'm not complaining, I would rather have lots of projects than be bored, a little work never hurt anyone (although it doesn't seem to lead to weight loss either - sadly), and I really am happy with my life overall....it just makes me think.   I was raised on the 'Ant and the Grasshopper' story, western movies where the pioneers struggled to survive, that whole eat everything on your plate and be grateful - there are children in " fill in the blank" who are hungry.   In my growing up years "lazy" was a bad word, it sort of went with shiftless!  When I think of a lazy summer day my mind goes to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and the sort of weather that they have in the Southern US where the heat and humidity make it hard to even move in the middle of the day!   Maybe these days my 'lazy day' is sitting down in the afternoon with a cold glass of tea and writing on the computer?  Except I do that in the winter with a hot cup of coffee!  (the lazy days of winter?) One of the many relatively unimportant thoughts that bounce around in my head!

In the realm of being busy so as not to be thought of as lazy.....I now have two gallons of pitted cherries in my freezer!  There will be more, so I am freezing them until we are done with the tree and then I will can them all at the same time.  I do not have a cherry pitter so my fingernails and hands look hideous!  Cherry juice stains pretty good and it is a lovely reddish brown.  Maybe for Christmas this year?  Since I know there will be at least one more picking I am not doing a whole new manicure til the process is over!

Before - nothing done yet

The big project I got done this week is my kitchen cupboards. I have just put this off because I was intimidated by the job.  Once I got started I was pleased with the progress I was able to make.  I did not completely sand and re-stain them, I lightly sanded the parts that had issues like the paint drops etc. and then used a 'scratch cover oil' from 'Old English' brand.  The scratch cover oil is rubbed in and covers the sanding and blends the whole thing together. 

After - lemon oil and all

Then I lemon oiled the whole thing, let set, and lemon oil again the next day and I think they turned out pretty good.  It makes a huge difference in the look of the kitchen.  

Someday it will be a complete sand down and refinish but for now on my current budget....this is fine!

Discipline!

I decided to try to discipline myself recently, I do not know why I think this might work for me when it never worked for my mom and she is much tougher than I am!  I am going to try anyway.  The impetus for this was me trying to find my sewing machine under the stack of 'current' projects.  I realized I am sort of ADD about my projects, I start something and then I see something else and think ooh, I want to see if I can do that, so I start it to see if I can and voila(!), another 'current' project is born!  For the next few weeks then I am not allowed to start anything new, I can only make lists, when I have finished all the projects currently underway, I can then start something new if I want.  (this does not include the long term stuff like the quilt - but it does include all the currently begun crocheting and sewing)  I hope I am slightly more successful at this than the weight loss or exercise programs.  (sigh)  If nothing else at least it got me to inventory the 'in progress' works and making a list of them automatically made it more organized...yes?

It has been beautiful here this week and we have been out in the yard enjoying the weather, I know it could freeze still, but it sure feels like this may be the real thing and winter may actually be over!  (knock on wood)
So here is a little of the recent week activities.

 The cherry tree is loaded with blossoms and you could hear the bees going to town on the pollinating, the hum was just a little unnerving for those of us even mildly allergic to them.

 This is my new best friend taking a break from tilling the front planter, I can't help it I just am thrilled at the ease of getting the ground ready with this guy - Hubby is almost jealous!

 Rhubarb, Columbines, Lavender, and Salvia enjoying the sun and the mulching.

Today the apple tree started humming as well and the blossoms are about 3/4's open, the pink undersides and the while petals are so pretty!






Happy Easter to all!   Wishing you all a blessed day!

What Were We Thinking!? (It is a good thing God is in Charge!)

I have not posted here in quite sometime, our daily lives have been taken up with our 'new' old house and all the resultant work. 
Our original goal was to live in an apartment for a year and get used to the area - make sure we were in a place we liked, and and then buy a place we could pay cash for, live a semi - self sustainable life style and be prepared to welcome our kids and relatives if things got bad in other places.  When we hit March and started actively looking for places to buy we got an education!  Seems that there is a 'list' price on homes and then investors come in and start bidding wars and the selling price can be as much as double.  This left us out in the cold, we couldn't get the place we had thought we wanted and needed.  We began to look at smaller homes, with smaller lots, in towns, in the not as nice part of town, we kept praying though, and we kept praying for the home we thought we had needed.  We had just decided to look at mobile home parks, thinking maybe God wanted us to be there, maybe we were being told to narrow our goals, I looked online and a home that had been on the HUD website before was back, it had issues, but we would go look at it, it certainly wouldn't be the first dead end or unproductive trip.  Our real estate agent (a lovely LDS lady also a prepper, who knew what we were going for) met us at the house and we looked around, when we walked out onto the back porch we were hooked, none of us could believe that this house had not been snapped up, she called for sure - "no, its not eligible for a conventional loan, plumbing issues, roof issues, electrical issues, HUD is not offering a loan."  So we made a cash offer of exactly the amount they were asking, 4 days later they accepted our offer and we had to wait the standard 45 days for HUD and then it was ours, we  signed the paperwork on May 27th and got the keys on the 29th.  After all of our looking and praying we got the house we wanted in the first place, 1/2 acre in a rural/residential area, 1600 sq. ft. (big enough to have extra people live with us), private well and septic, sheds and shops, large mature trees, garden space etc.  Just one problem - we would have to fix our issues ourselves!  We had a contractor fix the plumbing leak in the main line that required a backhoe and crawling under the house, but then the rest would have to be done ourselves as the money was available, we had enough cash to buy a refrigerator - after Hubby rewired most of the kitchen, we moved in on the 1st of July and had electricity, and walls and a leaky roof and the refrigerator!  But we also knew this was the house the Lord had led us to.  We still had a microwave and the pump was pouring out pure clear water, it was just outside and cold!  I have had much reason to thank the Lord for my handy Hubby who spent years working with electrical machinery for aerospace, and who can figure things out in a mechanical sense, he has so many useful skills!  He managed to finish the rewiring of the rest of the kitchen (the 220 part) and now we have a stove!  Yippee!  Amazing how my standards have gotten a little lower now on what makes me happy.  Did I mention - no air conditioning?  We are still taking 'bucket baths' (heat the water, mix with cold, lather up, rinse), and still boiling water for dish-washing, but the cold water now comes out of the taps, and as soon as we (not me of course) get the plumbing fixed to the water heater and purchase a new one we will have hot running water.  I am anxiously awaiting my first hot shower in nearly a month!  I may have some kind of celebration!
I have not been idle - while Hubby is working on his projects I have painted the entire inside a clean white on walls and ceilings, (I celebrated the last painting day by giving myself a manicure and picking the white paint out of my hair, my hair is not gray it is Clairol 6G!), I have nearly unpacked everything out of storage and apartment, and have begun to replace the curtains from another house that don't quite fit with curtains made for each window.
In the middle of all this moving in and roughing it (smile), the cherry tree on the back side of the house produced a beautiful bounty of "pie cherries" (sour) before I had the stove to can them on! Sooo 15 lbs. of cherries that had to be hand pitted (red streaks down my arms) and then frozen, at least until I can find the box with the canning jars, so I currently have a pound of chicken and 15lbs of cherries in my freezer!  However I also have this wonderful view from the back porch, 11 tomatoes ripening on the vine, 8 or 9 cucumbers looking like small beans right now and several green pepper blooms in my "pot garden".  Hubby and I go to bed tired and happy and alternating between pinching ourselves that we have the place we dreamed of (some assembly required) and laughing at ourselves for doubting - not God of course- but doubting our interpretation of his plan for us.  We are so blessed and He is so good to us!  I will try to get back to posting more recipes here pretty soon and if the new cherry pie filling recipe is any good - guinea pig husband will let us know - I will also post it - Kathy