Snapshots from the Harvest

• Vats of applesauce
• Scads of potatoes (115 lbs) - the fingerling, La Ratte!
• Tomatoes up the wazoo - sauce, salsa, soup
• Green tomatoes under paper in the root cellar
• Shelling the dried beans from the dried-up pods
• Sore wrists and fingers, work-worn
• Shorter days and a frenzied pace to get everything done before cold weather
• 9:00 pm evening meals
• 5 quarts of salsa fermenting on the counter
• Tru-babes potty-training all the while (it is going so well)
• Sweet Diego helping, and being of actual assistance, on the potato dig - so sincere and happy in his efforts (with the added joy of finding worms)
• A slowly-filling root cellar, the scales balanced with a steadily-emptying garden
• The feeling of true anticipation for winter -- snowed in with nothing to do
• Looking at the root cellar and feeling a sense of accomplishment and pride
• Happy, the end (not really)
• 1 more month to go!

Queen Victorious

After a pleasant work day with a friend - with an evening break for berry-picking - 60 lbs of tomatoes and a variety of peppers and garlic and onions became 16 quarts of salsssssssa and 3 quarts spicy tomato juice. It pretty much rules.

Needless to say, I am very pleased with myself.
Now . . . shower, and bed.

But it was so fun

Did I really just spend over an hour perusing Facebook while my children were sleeping when I should have been hanging laundry, making breakfast, and prepping for salsa-making?

Oh yes, I did. And that, my friends, is why I only go on Facebook once a month. It becomes my own personal black hole.

Harumph!

I don't know how he does it

Some how, some way, this little turkey wakes up an hour and a half into his nap, pretty much on the dot. On the dot. How?? But the better question . . . why???

There are no 2-3 hour naps for this kid (which is what Diego always did, and I see how wonderful that is now). It's an hour and a half -- one-point-five. He sometimes goes back to sleep if I snuggle with him, but not always.

And it has been that way from the start.

I wish that blessed nap was longer --

Good thing he's so cute.

♥ Trubies ♥

Megajam

The stats:

• 20 lbs of Concord grapes, now grape jam (done with Pomona's Universal Pectin with 1/4 of the amount of sweetener, so you can actually taste the grape-y-ness of the grapes - totally tubular)
• 10 more pounds of grapes, waiting to join their jammy-brethren
• 60 lbs of tomatoes, now 15 quarts of tomato sauce
• 30 lbs more tomatoes sitting in the kitchen, waiting to become tomato soup to go with our grilled cheese sandwiches this winter
• After that, salsssssssa
• 4 trays of apple leather in the dehydrator, drying
• 1 gallon of apple wine fermenting
• 10 lbs crab apples picked
• 100-ish? lbs of apples picked
• 6 guomi bushes discovered, loaded with berries (1 pint picked before twilight, mosquitoes and a crabbing 2 year old put a stop to the festivities)
• 1/2 pint raspberries picked
• 1/2 pint dessert gooseberries picked
• (All the fruit was picked from our neighbor's place: the Polish beekeeping bare-footed 82 year old beauty queen, Walentyne . . .)

Yessssssssssssssss. It is so satisfying.

Jamming

My cousins' cousin plays the upright bass in this stringband, Pert' Near Sandstone. I've been listening to them the last week and this here is my favorite song. It's terrific, and hearkens back to a period of time in my and Squeeze's relationship that felt very much like this. (We just couldn't get enough of each other, though.) ♥

Oh, and I spent 12 hours in the kitchen yesterday processing and canning 8 quarts of Barbara Kingsolver's tomato sauce (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and 5-ish pints of grape jam (picked at our neighbor's place, the beekeeper). It started out as 30 lbs of German Pink tomatoes and 10 lbs of Concord grapes at 2:00 PM. I went to bed at 2:30-ish AM, but it was well worth my efforts. Delish.

Where I've been these past two weeks

My brother and SIL were here all last week, with Meeeeeeeellllviiiiiiin; with another brother and cousin here last weekend. Their visits overlapped on Saturday. It was pleasant visiting and good quality-time with my kinfolk.

Other than all that, I've been up to my eyeballs in grapes, tomatoes and apples - converting into jam and sauces - and we have started the process of bare-buns potty training with Little Truen. He is taking it very well, extremely responsive and totally pumped about his new Star Chart.

We've been crazy-busy. Now look at some pictures.

Melvin, obsessing at the Prairie Preserve

Andrew and Brenda about to disembark

The boys were not cooperating
(but snuggles o'plenty after the picture)

Looking off into the wild blue . . . corn