August

I can't think of anything more creative to title this post with but "August" - one of the busiest, fullest, most stressful and wonderful months of the year.  There is no way around the fact that three major things for me collide at this time every year - preparations for new student orientation, Kali's birthday month (turning TEN in 4 days) and tomatoes.  That, combined with the fact that I still am a little hesitant to take pictures and a bit blog-shy ever since the picture mishap, has made it such that I haven't felt very inspired to do much blog updating recently.  Also much of what I took time to report on in previous years is starting to feel like a daily occurrence around here.  Most of my days at home are a combination of picking things, processing things, and cooking things, with various other activities interspersed.

Some of the recent food processing highlights include refining my pasta sauce "recipe" with the newest addition of grated winter squash (adds smooth texture and sweet flavor), enjoying filling the freezer with gleaned corn from our neighbors, eating fresh red and yellow raspberries, and just this morning I filled the solar dryer with sage (now if the sun would only shine it might dry!).  I should not even consider complaining about rain, but what an unusual August!  This blog post has been interspersed with picking amaranth and tomatoes and then spending time exploring ideas online for what to do with green tomatoes and an abundance of purslane.  There is no shortage of ideas for either.  I find it particularly satisfying to find good uses for things often considered to be weeds but are highly nutritious and add new colors, textures and flavors to our meals.  It is also so very satisisfying to have a two year old who can identify more plants that I could when I was twenty.

It seems that even without the huge abundance of tomatoes that we normally have (bummer for the two late freezes) and with the bean beetles taking more than their fair share of the beans, things are growing and growing and growing and as we expand the variety of things we grow and harvest there is no shortage of things to tuck away for the winter months.

Alida isn't slowing up on her growth either!  Right now as I try to type this to her jabbering in the background she is playing with Candyland, her current favorite game (along with her obsession about talking of going to a candy store and buying pink candy for her and purple for Kali)...And I've been interrupted so many times already that she is now clambering to get on my lap and complaining about her itchy bug bites!  Anyway, here she is enjoying her first ear of corn:



She loved our recent weekend in WV (she was not disappointed with the abundance of candy snacks provided by her great uncle from Canada).  There were lots of new people for her to warm up to and many fun activities to take part in.  But I think by far her highlight was the hour spent in the river at Senaca Rocks.  The river play clearly tuckered her out and she didn't get to see the view from the top of the mountain this time around.  I was thankful for the cooler WV temperatures but I was still pretty well drenched in sweat by the time we got to the top!



Kali enjoyed four additional days in WV with my parents and her cousin.  There clearly was not enough time to do all they wanted to do, but we were happy to welcome her home a few days back. Alida seemed to enjoy being an only child in some respects but was happy to have Kali home again.  Okay, concentration time over.  Time to get my brunch contribution going to enjoy with our household (corn fritters are a must the day after corn freezing).  Here's a few other pictures to enjoy:

Goats enjoy when their pen gets moves as they get to go for a walk and find all sorts of treats!

Jason must have taken some flower pictures on a day I was working!  This is always a favorite - orange butterfly weed - usually at its prime around the anniversary of Nora's death but much later this year.

The goal that both Jason and I have is to savor life such that we notice butterflies on flowers.  I'm not quite there yet!

Here are the girls savoring each other. Alida kept wanting to give Kali hugs as we walked down the driveway to check the mail.  So very, very sweet!