Whoa... I better get to writing or I’ll never catch up. Last Sat (16th) was Seth’s 5th birthday. We were planning to have a gathering to celebrate the end of our pertussis epidemic and decided we’d kinda make it a party for Seth, too. We had kids of all ages and a number of adults. My kids and I made a piñata, which was a big hit (no pun intended) and we played a balloon game. Mostly the kids made use of the yard to run crazy with their friends, riding down the hill on the Big Wheels or in our big blue barrel. Oh, and cake and ice cream and all that. =) Here’s some photos.

At one point an older sister from the fellowship stopped by. She’s the one I mentioned that had brought me a bucket of pears when we first moved here. She hasn’t been here since that first fall (where DID last year go?). She was amazed at how much we’ve done. She kept going on about the garden and the barn and fencing and things. I looked around and ended up kind of amazed myself. We really HAVE done a lot. I was so encouraged. I spend so much time focused on the things yet to accomplish (and it seems like a rather large list). It was nice to be able to see it the other way around.

We’ve been enjoying the absolutely incredible weather. I can’t believe it’s August. Been bringing in about a 5 gallon bucket of tomatoes every 3-4 days for processing. I’ll do a couple buckets peeled and seeded and stuck in the freezer for pasta sauce later, then a bucket for salsa. Everything is doing amazingly well. I finally had to water my garden last week, which I hadn’t needed to do for about two months. Wouldn’t you know it would rain a couple days later, on and off for a couple days. Watering your garden is one of three ways that are likely to encourage rain, the other being washing your car (so I’m told - we wash our beat up ol’ rigs once a year, tops) and hanging out laundry.

Still bringing in some green beans from my Blue Lake 274 bush plants. Great variety. I heartily recommend them. From 64 sq ft, I’ve frozen about 8 gals. The Straight 8 cukes made a wonderful pickle, even if you let them get big. Did I mention how good my pickles came out? I used the recipe I posted about only I did them fridge style instead of canning them. I split them between two gallon jars, 1 jar for whole pickles and one for spears because I had so many different size cukes. I just poured the brine on and stuck them in the fridge. How easy is that? The spears were ready sooner and were crunchy and delicious after only a few days.

Got to spend some quality time the Raddest Family in Town, and how wonderfully refreshing!  I thank God every day for such perfect (for us) friends.  We've also been able to enjoy meetings again now that we're well and that, too has been refreshing.  Can't go as often as I'd like because right now the meetings are in the evening and conflict with my goat-milking schedule.  But this coming weekend should be great.  The annual "camp meeting" is upon us.  People come from everywhere for a weekend packed with food and fellowship.  It's kinda like what I enjoy about the feast of tabernacles...   Only it's shorter and missing the bit about the feast of tabernacles...  =)    But it's a good time.