Have you seen my mother?

      I have several 'mothers'! Do you have any mothers? They are quite easy to come by! Oh, did you think I meant my Mom? No, I was talking about a mother of vinegar! They are really easy to make! All you need is some organic acv, or apple cider vinegar with the mother. I got mine at Whole foods, but you can probably find it at health food stores and some grocery stores. Measure  a half cup of acv and a half cup of red or white wine. Any wine will do actually, use what you've got. I wanted some red wine vinegar so I used red wine. It took a couple of weeks to get the 'mother' growing, but she finally got started and man did she ever grow! I now have several mothers from only two batches! I poured the vinegar into a vinegar jar and left the rest to keep the 'mother' company. While making the vinegar, put a coffee filter on the jar with a rubber band around it so the mother can breathe. Of course, I found the instructions while surfing the web.

      There's not really been a lot going on around here other than keeping Winterlynn a couple of days, and grocery shopping. I haven't felt so great for a couple of days, so that puts a limit on what I can do. I don't have any canning escapades planned for the neat future. However, I am on a mission to find some wheat berries so I can grind them into flour. I've read that it makes the best bread ever! You know me, got to give it a try. I will have to get the dry grinding attachment for the Vitamix if I do this. 

      We got a nice rain today, so the temps have been much lower than days before. The sun is out now, so they will climb. I'm just thankful for rain in August! Hopefully, we'll continue to get rain until the rainy season sets in. I am thinking about making some eggplant Parmesan for dinner tonight with the eggplants I harvested from our garden this morning. I'll keep you posted on that. It seems I'm not the only one who isn't posting much these days. I haven't gotten any comments in about a week, and that's very unusual! Guess everybody's getting ready for school, or taking a late vacation! Someone has been reading, at least, since I have about 9-15 page-views a day. Hope your garden is doing well! Have a great weekend! Blessings from Bama!

Meet 'mother'!

Can you see the layers? There are several 'mothers' in there.

Like my vinegar jar? I got it a long time ago before Linens and Things closed. That's been a long time ago! I knew they would come in handy one day!

Guess what? Apple butter! I received another bag of apples! It made four delicious pints.

I finally bought some more cucumbers at the grocery store, so I made some chopped salad cubes. I used the recipe for sweet pickle relish and omitted the onions. Recipe found on pick your own .org.

My sassy little 'sweet-heart'! Can you see how dirty she is?

She loves the rocking horse! The porch is a lot cooler than the yard!

Jack doesn't seem to be afraid of snakes!

He gets a little too close for comfort for me!

This chicken showed up at a neighbors barn. No one has claimed, it so he brought it to us. It looks like the kind that rides on chicken trucks. There is a processing plant a few miles from here, but I don't know how one of those chickens could make it from the highway to here!

Win likes the chicken too!

She didn't want to leave the slide!

August, already?

      It just can't be! Where did the last week of July, go? I like being busy, but really! I'm sure ya'll feel the same way that I do when another months rolls by. I feel like I just got started with the month, and before I know it, it's gone. Oh well, got to go with the flow! Everything is such a blur of this past week since I last posted. Did that sentence make sense? You know what I mean. I'm still running on adrenaline from taking care of babies all of those days! But we had a blast! I did manage to cut, peel, and chop a few things in between. I'll show you below. We have had a couple of good rains, but man is it still hot! I walked Tuesday morning after a nice shower, and that's what it felt like when I got through, like I'd been in a shower! The humidity was unbelievable at 76 degrees that morning! The temps have been in the upper nineties since that morning, and today there is a breeze along with it.


      My garden looks OK, but the tomatoes still do not taste very good. The cucumber vines have lots of blooms, just no cucumbers yet. Do you think they will produce some? The pumpkin vines seem to be thriving, and I got a nice small harvest of okra, today. I'm looking forward to a fall garden, but it's a bit early to plant turnip greens and cabbage, I think. I was gifted with some pears this morning that I think I'll can in a light syrup. Yesterday, I canned tomatoes with peppers (ro-tel). I hope it tastes good! Today, I've been chopping cucumbers and bell peppers I bought at the store. They are going to be sweet salad cubes. It takes a couple of days for the process. It's actually called sweet pickle relish, but I'm not putting the onions in it. I hope that won't mess it up. I use the recipe found on pick your own .org. I would like to have recipes on my blog one day, but I just don't have time to do that right now. I hope ya'll are staying cool and enjoying the summer! I'll be back next week! Blessings from Bama!

Tea time for these three!

I usually have one or both kids under me while I cook.

Terriyaki chicken stir-fry, Skylar's favorite.

Inside where it's cooler. Birthday party people.

They had such a good time!

All shapes, sizes, and colors.

Layla is opening her presents. She'll be two.

Got to have a drink  when it's hot outside!

Yasmine pushing Eden.

A passion flower! The vine just appeared and is taking over!

The passion vine is taking over the irises.

The wisteria is blooming again!

I love the way the wisteria flower looks and smells.

The tomato plants are getting very tall.

Maybe these tomatoes will taste better!

Pumpkin vine in bloom. Hopefully it will produce nice, big pumpkins!

A beautiful night sky!

Chopped jalapenos.

Tomatoes waiting to be put into jars with the peppers.

Tomatoes and peppers in jars in the canner.

These boots are as long as her leg!

Trying on Skylar's shoes.

Chopping peppers for the cucumber pickles.

Chopped cucmbers.

This is all that is left of baked ziti from last night!

I finally got these finished!

Sixteen jars of peppers and tomatoes! Pears that were given to us this morning. What shall I do with these?

Okra and a tomato from this morning's harvest.

Pickling red onions!

      Yes, I pickled red onions last night! They are delicious! They remind me of my pickled eggs. I love pickles with cloves and these have cloves in them. I am previewing a Southern Living Christmas cookbook, so that is how I discovered the recipe. I don't plan on keeping the book because it would cost about $18, so I'm just trying recipes to see if I like them. I will copy the ones I like. Written or whatever. Aldi has their red onions on sale this week: .79 for two pounds! That's pretty good so I bought them and sliced them and made the pickles. They look pretty, too! All red, like Christmas! Guess that's why they are in the book!


      We thought we were going to be in the 'honey' last night! When they looked into the frames, they weren't capped off yet. It will probably be another 3-4 weeks before it's ready. But I think it's great that we will get honey our first year! Now I'll have to modify recipes using honey instead of sugar! But I like the idea of using something to sweeten that is natural, and that we 'grew' ourselves! Now mind you, I don't have a problem with sugar, I'm just excited about the honey! I'm sampling some honey the guy down the street 'grew' and it tastes wonderful! I know ours will too!


      I think I hear a rumble in the distance! I hope we get rain here today! It hasn't rained all week! Surely it would cool things down! I was blessed with more tomatoes from the neighbor's garden this morning! It will probably be into next week before they're ready to can, and that's fine since I'll have Amber, Jasmine, and Layla until Wednesday! We're having Layla's 2nd birthday party here tomorrow with lots of people! We're cooking burgers on the grill and making homemade ice cream! The children will swim in the little pool since the big one isn't ready yet! I may not get a chance to blog until after Wednesday of next week, so ya'll stay cool! Have a nice weekend! Blessings from Bama!

Opening the hive.

Checking the frame.

Look how calm hubby is with the bees, he's smiling!

Look at these beautiful red onions! It wasn't as bad as you might think peeling and slicing them!

Pickle brine.

A glimpse of the recipe. I halved the recipe and still got a lot!

See how pretty? Six pints, four half-pints.

Here's the book I mentioned.

The neighbor blessed us with more tomatoes!

My tomatoes are before the peaches. They don't taste very good! The peaches were given to us by another neighbor! Can't wait to try one!