Hot, Hot, Hot and More Hot

As I sit here at the computer I can look out the front door and see my hummingbird feeders, my pretty, red flowers, some of my chickens and a couple of saddles that are on the hitching post waiting for me to clean them. The trees on the hillside are bright green but today, there's no wind blowing through them. Indeed, the temperature is supposed to hit 107 degrees by 2:00 this afternoon. I think it's hotter here than it is in FL...?

I picked tomatoes, beans and cucumbers yesterday and there are a few more cucumbers to pick today but other than that, I'll be inside avoiding a heat stroke. The grass needs rain so badly, it crunches when we walk on it. The chickens drink from a cooler filled with water and they must really be thirsty because we have to refill it every day. Well, it gets hot too so refilling it with cool water probably makes them want to drink even more.

I've got some homemade wine fermenting, some plum and some blackberry. It takes a few weeks for it to get "winey" tasting so I'll keep you posted on the progress. So far it's only been 2 weeks and it still tastes like fruit juice but it won't be long now. Funny thing is, I don't even like wine hahaha but it's different when you make it yourself for some reason.

I planted some 4 o'clocks and they grew nice and tall and started to bloom. I was excited to see that they were blooming white and red flowers and I was awaiting the first drop of seeds. Before that could happen, the chickens ate the plants! I now have 4 o'clock stems instead. It reminded me of my bean plants last year when the rabbits ate them down to the stems... lol! Life in the woods.

As the almanac instructed, I planted another row of beans yesterday morning. I pulled out the old plants that had died or been eaten and just rolled another seed into its place. It didn't seem like there were very many new seeds so I planted another row between the cucumbers and the okra. With any luck the rabbits will leave them alone since they'll be surrounded by spiney cucumber and okra. hahaha we'll see.

Today I'm going to can the tomatoes; some diced, some whole, some roasted. I have plenty of bloody mary mix from last year so I won't need to make anymore of that. The roasted ones will make a nice soup from a recipe I found on the P. Allen Smith website. I can't wait until it cools off so soup can be an option again.

But once the tomatoes have been roasted and canned, I can just add the cream whenever we're ready for soup! Like maybe when the temps are in the 80s hahahahaha

We had Lizzard's Famous Meatloaf for dinner last night and it was fabulous as always :) We had fresh from the garden green beans and fresh from the farm (basket) steamed and buttered cabbage. Next batch of green beans is going to be pickled - the recipe sounded pretty good so what the heck? It seems you can pickle almost anything these days and I've been reading through my new pickling book pretty quick so I can get all geared up for action!

Pickled beets (if I can find enough of them) and pickled eggs are next on the list after the beans. I promised Bruce I would send him some and he said he would buy a jar of each. I'll have to remind Kelly about it, Bruce might have had a couple beers that night... lol!! Just kidding!

Okay folks I'm off to the canning trailer! Stay cool!

"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling." ~Mirabel Osler