Social Butterflies in the Midst of Canning Season

Canning season has finally started up at a real pace. We made 13 pints of salsa and four quarts of spaghetti sauce on Thursday. It's beautiful stuff --- even if that was the second hottest day of the year! Mom canned it all up on Friday, as the two of us weren't here. We went down to Buddy and Kay's house for the day. They needed Elizabeth's help with some electronic hook-ups, so we met up went down to their place early in the morning. Kay and Elizabeth worked on the technical stuff while Buddy and I just kind of watched and conversed with each other. They did so well that they were ready for Buddy to record into the track machine by the time we finished lunch! After a couple more hours they had everything up and running!

Buddy and Elizabeth went outside to throw his tomahawk. She did really well, and had her best streak yet --- 13 hits in a row! Kay and I acted as spectators. Cricket spent a very enjoyable time looking for frogs in the pond. She got so muddy that Buddy actually had to give her a puppy shampoo before she was allowed back inside the cabin. Ugh. Here she is on the hunt.

We stayed around playing music and having dinner together 'til late, so we didn't get back to our house until after nine! Buddy and Kay ended up staying another hour visiting with Mom and Dad, as Dad and Buddy were practicing some fishing knots together, so it was a pretty late (but fun) night for everybody.

The four of us were up early on Saturday morning to head down to the Farmers' Market. We got a bushel of "Strike" green beans and some wax beans, along with some edible soybeans, little pears, a few tomatoes and some cherry peppers. We spent all day canning three-bean salad and pickled pears. We also froze beans for soup and stir-fry. Boy, were we pooped by the end of the day!!

Yesterday evening, after church, we went up to the Keultjes's house for dinner. We hadn't seen them since Easter, so that was really tons of fun! She made some great food --- including her magnificent should-be-famous-all-over-the-world cheesy apples. Not to mention homemade pesto. There's nothing like friends who have known you forever, and the two of us are thrilled every time we get together. Mr. Keultjes is going to come down to give us some pointers on square-foot gardening this week if things work out. We're hoping to get some land "plowed up" and ready for a nice little garden next year.

We didn't leave their house until after ten o'clock, so it was another late night. Everybody's been dragging a bit today, but we got a bunch of stuff done around here. All in all, we've been little social butterflies lately! Looks like cool (almost cold!) weather is setting in. I'm not ready to heat with the stove yet. We're hoping to go up to Stan Hywet with Buddy and Kay before Winter sets in, but it sure looks like a really early Fall is just literally around the corner. Well, off to do some felting. More later.