Tag Archives: summer

Y’all It’s Hot AF

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Kansas is currently set on “Devil’s armpit hot” and we are all melting away. We were gifted a pool from the next-door neighbor who is decluttering and no longer has littles. So after a quick dinner we all hopped in the pool last night and swam until bedtime. That counts as a bath right?

I pulled Victorian Mauve Vanilla Socks and started up the leg. I finished the heel a little while ago but stalled on working the leg. My sock got a few splashes but I think I added about one inch to the leg?

Now I’m off hide in the basement, the only place where I can stand to be these days. Happy Knitting!!

First Garden Harvest

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Our garden has been a little slow this year with unseasonably cool spring that immediately shifted to boiling hot summer. Everything is plodding along but we picked our first produce, a very health zucchini!

I should have a second squash in a week or so. Our yellow squash plant is not far behind but it has more blooms that is spreading out the resources of the plant. Our tomatoes are LONG way from producing. I guess we will have to be patient, lol.

Happy Gardening!!

Last Throws Of Gardening

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My garden is on its last legs but we are still getting some decent veggies. Last night’s picking included some tomatoes, poblanos and jalapenos.

My tomatoes are HUGE and none are smaller than my fist, lol.

Right now we are just cooking what we need for recipes and freezing the rest. I think Jellybean wants to try to make ketchup at some point. But that can be a good mid-winter boredom project.

Happy Gardening!!

Soaking In The Last Of Summer

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I snapped this photo a week or so ago. I was soaking in the last heat wave before temperatures started falling towards more Midwestern Fall appropriate range. We had a week of 95 degree plus temperatures and I was melting outside with the kids as they swang and swam merrily along.

I decided to do a little self care after the kids went to bed I headed back to the kiddie pool with wine, a good true crime podcast and SOLITUDE. I spent 45 minutes floating and watching the sunset. No one was screaming “MOMMY!!” or climbing all over me. I may have scared the neighbors with my true crime obsession but I came out the other side much more relaxed.

Happy Self Care!!

Summer Canning

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Our current temperature in Kansas is roughly the surface of the sun with like 1,000% humidity. So why wouldn’t I want to haul out all my canning supplies and heat up my kitchen? I was having some anxiety related to world events and general unrest so I felt the need to make something. That feeling turned into one batch of strawberry rhubarb jam, two batches of blackberry jam, two batches of peach jam and one batch of strawberry jam.

Jellybean helped me off and on saying that he “didn’t like the hot and sticky parts”. Which we all know is almost the whole process. He did like how dark and ruby colored the blackberries cooked down into. All this fruit, except for the strawberries, was homegrown from my families gardens. To me this gave me a grounded feeling and a connection to people I can’t visit right now.

This project did make me feel a bit better. I did have a tiny bit of frustration when my peach jam didn’t set and I had to haul all the supplies back out to re-cook and add more pectin. But the re-do process did seem to work. Now I have some jelly stores for the next year and enough to give as gifts this holiday season.

How is everyone else coping lately?

Knitting Poolside

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We are in the middle of a long heat wave in the Midwest right along side big increases in COVID cases. So my family and I are doing our best to find ways to have fun and stay safe at home. This week’s adventure had water balloons, lots of driveway swimming pool time and me knitting in the shade.

Modified version of Helen Stewart’s Habitation Throw

This photo was taken 10 minutes before I dropped a stitch and made a huge hole in my Rainbow Habitation Throw. I literally spent the next hour tinking back two and a half rows to fix my mistake because it just wouldn’t ladder back down and back up again correctly. So that means I’m still in my fourth color of twelve.

But the good thing about knitting garter stitch is that you can just knit and knit and eventually you look down and a blanket has popped out of nowhere!

P.S. I completely see the irony of knitting a lap blanket during a heat wave. I’m a special kind of crazy!

Happy Knitting!!

Tomato Sauce

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When one has access to A) free babysitting and B) large volumes of tomatoes…..you make sauce!!! Here are my happy three pots of sauce bubbling away on the stove.

I only managed to burn myself once, spill a million times and actually finish the day with 20 pints of pure tomato goodness. My house uses this all the time instead of store bought sauce. Note: I don’t season my canned sauce. I prefer a blank canvas to be spiced up later.

How do you like your sauce?

Inattentive Gardening

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Between keeping up with a two month old and doing some late summer traveling….we sorta lost track of some of our garden. Our tomatoes and bell peppers aren’t doing diddly squat and worms ate our jalapenos. But wowza our zucchini went nuts and we didn’t notice…..

Here’s my hand for scale….

These were too woody and tough to eat but we made a nice vegetable dice for the deer in the nearby woods, lol. And fingers crossed we can salvage some more produce yet this summer that isn’t ginormous.

 

Garden Goodies

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My husband and I have been taking turns in the garden this summer. Okay, to be fair he’s done most of the work because Jellybean has been in a “mommy only” phase that has absorbed most of my time. But this morning I snuck out before Jellybean woke up and picked these beauties.

We planted basil, tomatoes, jalapenos, green bell pepper, cherry tomatoes and onions. All but the onions are thriving! I believe we will either have BLTs or fresh chunky garden salsa for supper tonight!