Family Visit and Canning fun!

Al though we didn't do alot while the kids were here everyone seem to have a good time. Kristy's favorite thing to do was to take a book and read out on the back porch. She was amazed that she could sit out there and not sweat like FL. Plus she didn't have to worry about people always showing up there. They left to go back to FL on July 21st the house was sure quiet after they left. The cats that had been hiding out the whole 2 weeks that they were here finally came out of hiding. Two of the cats got out somehow one of which was gone for four days! Guess they don't like their routine being messed up! Talk about set in there ways! The cats learned to run whenever Lilly the 20 month old was in site! All except for the youngest cat Cricket.

Speaking of cats a long haired black female showed up and we didn't know that Kaylee and Jynna were feeding her! She is also pregnant. This was confirmed yesterday when we took her to the vet. We left her there to be spade. There is a male cat hanging around if we can catch him will get him fixed as well. I guess thats one drawback to living in the country!

I am still putting up vegetables. I sent Kristy home with Spagetti sauce, dill pickes and potatoes. Joe keeps bringing us veggies (excess from his garden). We have gotten tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and beans. I still have a few more pickles to put up this time sweet pickles. His tomatoes got some kind of disease from to much rain and they are rotting before completely ripening. We picked some green tomatoes and I made a couple of jars of sweet relish. Corn and pole beans went into the freezer as well as yellow squash from our garden. We are still getting cucumbers, tomatoes and onions and the potatoes should be ready to dig up. Joe says he will have about 40 bushels of potatoes and asked if he could store them under our house this winter. Chuck is in the process of building a bin for the potatoes. Joe has a wood stove in the basement so its to hot down there for the potatoes to keep. Hopefully, they will keep well under the house.

Thank heavens for my Ball books since I never canned before the books have been a big help.
I hope to put up more veggies next year.

Visitors

Well today our youngest daughter and her three daughters will be driving up to TN from FL. Its about a 12 hour drive and their air-conditoning quit in the van so they decided to travel at night. They will be spending the night at a motel between Atlanta and Macon. Hopefully they will be ok and won't have any car trouble. When they get up here we can take the van in and see whats wrong with the air conditioning. Hopefully it just needs freon. The two oldest girls are so excited. They drove up here in Nov. for Thanksgiving and now they will see how pretty it is up here in the summer. They want to hike in the woods and go swimming in the lake. We have a huge lake nearby. We hope to have a pontoon next year if they come back again which I am sure they will.

Thank goodness they like dill pickes I have so many jars made. I seem to get cucumbers and squash every day. Even a few tomatoes. Potatoes will be ready soon. Well I will write more later and post pictures of the family later on.

Garden Bounty

I have been busy the past couple of days canning pickles and freezing squash. Our neighbor brought over a bucket almost half full of cucumbers last night. I guess they must have planted alot but didn't need to can anymore. I went over to their house on Sat. and Joe's wife Jan was canning pickles. Canning is something that I have never done. She gave me a jar of sweet pickles that she put up last summer and boy were they good she also gave me the receipe. So I have spent the last 2 days canning pickles. I went out and got a canning pan with rack yesterday and its alot easier and it holds 6 jars at a time. The pint jars take 5 minutes and the quart 10 minutes to process. I also made some sweet zucchini pickles. Walmart sold packages of the kosher dill, reg. dill and bread and butter pickle mix. I don't care for the bread and butter mix so will use Jan's receipe next batch. The kosher dill and regular dill turned out good. I found a receipe in my canning book for dill pickles and made a batch today. Hope they are good. Now to find a place to store them all. I plan to make some pickle peppers to. Our daughter and 3 grandaughters are driving up from FL on Monday and they all love the dill pickles and daughter likes sweet pickles. My husband doesn't like sweet pickles. Can't wait till they arrive it will be fun to cook for all of them and the grandaughters want to learn to cook and sew. I hope that they will stay longer than 2 weeks though. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving.

We have potatoes about ready to harvest plus our neighbor has given us a bunch of red potatoes from his garden and green beans, onions and okra. We pulled some of the onions which still need to grow and the radishes are about ready. We only have 2 cucumber plants but are getting plenty of cucumbers. Lots of yellow summer squash and yellow crook neck squash and even have had some cherry and regular tomatoes and some cabbage. The peppers are slow growing as is the egg plants. The garden is doing well because of all the rain that we have had. I am surprised things grow this well in the hard clay ground. When the potatoes are done plan to put some greens, spinach and winter cabbage in. I think the garden will do even better if we get a load of top soil in there before the spring.