Eighty-one degrees on the 29th of July?

      That may not be odd where you live but for here in the Heart of Dixie, that's extremely odd! It has been the nicest day since May! Cooler temps with low humidity makes for one happy girl! Tomorrow should bring more of the same! I hope to get in the garden tomorrow and put down manure and bags over the weeds around the winter squash plants and pumpkins. The weeds are taking over the pumpkins and butternut squash. Some of the leaves are turning yellow. They might need a little drink since it hasn't rained since last week. The days have been in the nineties until late yesterday. Then the weather just changed suddenly! It was so nice to be out in the evening gathering squash without sweat rolling in my eyes! I hope these cooler temps last the rest of the summer! Even the animals are happy and jumping around! The new babies, that is.

      We've really been enjoying the green beans harvested from our garden! The rattlesnake beans have produced phenomenally! And I didn't even plant them! They came up voluntarily from last year's seeds. That's really amazing! The Blue Lake green bean is just about done, although I did get a few yesterday. I will plant those again along with the rattlesnake and wax beans. The tomatoes haven't produced much. Something eats on them before I can bring them inside. I think there's a rabbit hiding out in the tomato garden. Something eats on the cucumbers as well. I bought another box of tomatoes to can and will get started on the sauce tomorrow. I also got a basket of peaches that are not ripe enough to eat yet. I don't think they will be as good as the Chilton County peaches. Those are the best peaches! But I have a peach pie recipe I am going to try with them. If it's not good, I can always make peach cobblers!

      With the rising cost of meat and other items, I've been trying to find ways to spend less on some things to cover the cost of other things. An example of this is switching to Magic Jack for the home phone and a Trac phone for my cell. Together, these will cost approximately $10 a month. A savings of $20 dollars a month by switching from Straight Talk. Of course this means I still won't get a Smart phone, but I've lived without one this long; it doesn't even phase me! I use the laptop for everything anyway since I'm always home. What little I'm away from the house, the Trac phone will suffice. Since I don't work to bring in money for the homestead, this is the least I can do. If I worked outside the home, things would be different. In about 3-4 months, these will pay for themselves. Plus, I want to invest in a good cordless phone. I will have to put the base upstairs, so it will have to have good range. I saw an At&t phone at Walmart for about $50 I'm going to save up for. Too bad we got rid of ours a few years ago! I don't talk on the phone much anyway so the only thing I'll miss is texting. Sometimes that's a good thing to have. Oh well, talking takes up less time, usually.

      I had two precious girls here this past weekend! Riley and Winterlynn! It was so good to see them after going several weeks without seeing them! I miss my two in Morocco! They should be home next week! Yay! We'll be celebrating a birthday as soon as they get back, Layla! She wants a princess party! That should be a fun party!

      I hope ya'll enjoyed this post! I love reading your comments and hope to see more of you leaving them. You keep me inspired! Let me know what's going on on your homestead in the comments. Have a great week! Blessings from Bama!

These are the six peach cobblers from last time. They were put in the freezer.

Another box of tomatoes.

Another bushel of corn. I like the size of this corn. It's not sweet but still tasty. I cut the corn off and after microwaving and cooling it, put it into bags for the freezer.

Squash from our garden. So yummy!

I got eight quarts from this sauce.

Winterlynn and Riley playing in the pool.

They play well together.

She has such a personality!

Riley loves to swing! Her left foot turns in pretty bad and causes her to fall a lot. She fell and hit her head on our table and it left her with a bruise on her eye. I felt so bad!

Randy has put another puzzle together! It is adorable! It took as long as the other, even though it has less pieces. There's a lot of dark pieces that were difficult to piece together.

I hope to put most of these tomatoes into the sauce pot tomorrow! Peaches will be ripe in a few more days.

The bucklings surprised me by getting on the dog houses already! They are so small!

They play sweetly together.

Such a nice day! I hope it lasts!