Garden

I am ridiculously proud of a plum jam/sauce I canned. 7 lovely jars of plum stuff. I didn't have enough sugar to make jam so I made a sauce. We have had so many plums from our tree coming off and they were rotting. So I had my neighbor come help me can them. Amie is amazing. She cans 33 jars or strawberry jam and tons of tomatoes and peaches every year, but I'm proud of my 7 jars at the moment. We ate all our peaches fresh because they were so delicious but I want to do peach jam or canned peaches.

I have gotten a small crop of cucumbers from the garden and boy are they weird looking. Fat. I think I need to pick them sooner.

Peaches

My father in law gave us a big bushel basket of peaches. They are heavenly. I made a dinner for a friend who just had a baby and for dessert I made a peach tart. I also made one for us except when I pulled ours out of the oven it slipped and all the peaches in the tart slid right into our conveniently placed garbage can. I almost cried. Instead I cut up some fresh peaches and placed them on top of the naked pie crust with some lime juice and sugar . It was still delicious.


Our plum trees are almost done producing. I want to try canning the last bit but I'm not sure I've got the energy to do it. Here is a picture of some of our plums.

Interesting

I read this quote on Doug Wilson's blog and thought it a fascinating thought. I wonder if it is true it will make oral history relevant and valid again. We must tell our children all sorts of good stories.


"Faking of the words and pictures to fit the theme has been particularly prevalent in compilation programmes which purport to reconstruct out of stock footage some historical scene or happening . . . The accumulated documentation of our time will be so vast, and for one reason and another, so slated, that posterity will know nothing about us for sure. The first Dark Ages are lost in the mists of antiquity, with virtually no records; the coming Dark Ages will be equally lost in the blaze of studio lighting, with a superabundance of records, almost all falsified" (Malcolm Muggeridge, Christ and the Media, p. 66).

The Garden Part 2

I was having trouble writing on my last post so it is just pictures and here is the lovely text. My garden is growing. I took off my first zucchini tonight. very exciting. We've been eating plums from our plum tree every day. I collect them each day and think,"I'll preserve this bunch as jam or something," and I wake up to find them all eaten. Humph. Giant husbands. (that sounds like I have three) I'm feeling punchy tonight. I just finished making a stick trellis I had high hopes for and it looks kind of....silly. Humph. I used these old baby gates I got at a garage sale for a $1 as trellises for my cucumbers and I really like how they look. Little tomatoes are forming and I have a few hot peppers on their plant. I want to make salsa this year. I bought jars and a canning pot at the thrift store. I'm determined.

In other news, Joffre Jr's leg looks good according to the doctor. He even said he could walk on it if he wanted to. He has an appt. on June 30th to get it taken off. Yeah! We are having some kids over for a pizza and movie night tomorrow. They can all sit on his bed and watch it with him.

School work is going well too. I started teaching the kids drawing from Drawing With Children and they love it. Renata's drawings look really good. Joffre has a hard time still because he's only 3 and doesn't have the motor skills but he loves me to help him a bit. It's such a good beginner program especially for little kids. I am amazed that some schools used it for their entire art curriculum for elementary school though. It's limited especially in media.

Well that's all for the moment.

The Garden

These fun pictures were on Etsy's main page but I closed the page and forgot to get the seller's name. I'll try to find it and post it.

A friend of ours took this picture while on a trip to Basel, Germany? . It makes me really happy that places like this exist. I love all the shades of green.
Speaking of green. Yesterday I smelled something funny in my kitchen and finally found the source. I had put brussel sprouts in a tupperware container and the stuck it back in the tupperware cabinet instead of the fridge. Yuck! I also found my son had been storing his used sippy cups in there and in the pantry cabinet. He loves to carry them around then put them "away".

I made these cinnamon rolls 2 days in a row and ate at least 5 each day. The joy of being pregnant.

I also did this drawing of our bedroom and I think I like it. George was very curious and checked my progress every 5 minutes or so by yanking down on the top of the drawing. Then he kept trying to grab an oil pastel and add his own interpretations. Cute but terrible annoying when you are trying to draw. Luckily bed time arrived.

My garden is growing and I am eagerly awaiting fresh tomatoes and basil. I found over 24 tomato "weeds" and some cucumber "weeds" growing up from my composting of the old plants. I have about 10 tomatoes already so I'll try to get someone from church to take the plants. I hate to yank them up as weeds.
It's been hard not to be able to go out and weed like I used to when the kids played outside. I can't lift Joffre Jr with his cast while I'm pregnant to take him out. It also might make him sweat and have an itchier cast. Poor little guy. He's doing really well. Some trouble at night but otherwise he is pretty content.

I have also started homeschooling Renata and Joffre. Joffre is still pretty young for most of it but he does some with her and it is a nice distraction for him. I'm still trying to figure out how to distract George while I teach the others. He's not the type to sit quietly in the corner and color. He wants to be doing what we are so it is tricky. Renata is taking to it very well. She doesn't like to do the writing much but it seems very few children like that part at first. She's asking for more work at nap time and that is rewarding.

Well I think I updated enough for now. I'm off to eat some delicious Guava paste my father-in-law brought me from Brazil. (Life is a lot about food right now.)