August is Flyin' By!

        Our summer has been a busy one...

We used our own onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs to make salsa and

spaghetti sauce

(I had to use my big pot for these tomatoes!)

We canned some, and we ate some :)

We purchased corn from the Amish and froze some...and ate some

Brad made cookie bars for church fellowship..yum!

I made carrot raisin salad

My sweet neighbor and friend gave me a lovely pink rose as a thank you

What a blessing!

She's moving this weekend, and I'm really going to miss her and her family!

My two little darlings are enjoying their summer

Don't they look the picture of orneriness  innocence?

It's been quite hot out, and Bingley gets bored when he can't go for long walks!

We've had several rainstorms that were downpours!

(we're thankful for the rain!)

We had a particularly lovely day...so we snuck in a day-trip to the beach

We came back with an unknown extra passenger though...

This Ghost Crab snuck in via Bri's beach bag!

We have to make another trip back to let him go!

Bri and I set him up in a temporary home

So far he is still surviving!

Well, I'll try to post more soon.

We've had a lovely August, hope you have too!

Enjoy these last fleeting days of summer!

August Produce from the Garden

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Brad's garden has been doing quite well!

His cantaloupe was a whopper! It weighed 10 lbs (and was delicious!)

 

This Moon and Stars Watermelon weighed in at 19.6...but, it wasn't quite ripe :(

(We have tried all the "tricks" at knowing when to pick them, but, they don't seem to work for us!)

We have picked many buckets of tomatoes. Brad picked this basket (which holds less than the buckets)

and it weighed in at 20.6 lbs. I made salsa out of them. :)

How is your garden growing? I hope that you are enjoying the

fruits of your labor too!

Honker Tomato Plant Update...and other garden happenings

The giant tomato plant that I posted about previously is yielding HUGE tomatoes too!

That is a quarter on top of this tomato!

It weighed in at 1 lb. 13 oz.
Here it is next to a watermelon from Brad's garden.

I was cutting tomatoes up for freezing, and when I went to cut up this one, I saw a smiley face in the core. Isn't it cute!?

The tomatoes above look like a lot of tiny grapes--but they aren't. It's the angle it was taken. This was a grocery bag full of amish paste tomatoes!

“Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes

What would life be like without homegrown tomatoes

Only two things that money can't buy

That's true love and home grown tomatoes.”

John Denver, 'Home Grown Tomatoes'

Below are some more garden products (except those in the bags) :)

Brad has had a very, very good year for cantelope!

The peppers are coming on like crazy now! (Great for salsa!)

Brad's going to try and sell some of his excess produce.

Bri grew this lovely Calendula

Giant Tomato...from the giant plant

Vic asked how big the tomatoes are from the Giant Tomato Plant...
Here's the first one picked from it...I'd say it was big--how about you?

Serious Tomato Plant!

My son is growing a seriously tall tomato plant. At last measuring in May my son was 6' 1"...
& his tomato plant has passed him by on it's way up!

"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard