Simply Practical: garden harvests

Hey ya'll! Hope ya'll are enjoying the hot August days! Yes, it's gotten hot here again! 90's and almost 100 yesterday! Whew! What a change since the last post I wrote! It's muggy too! We did welcome some much needed rain last night since we haven't seen any in a couple of weeks. Our garden is drying up and so are the raspberries! Hopefully it will perk up after the rain. More rain is predicted for the weekend and next week. I always welcome rain! The only time I hope it doesn't rain is Saturday for Lulu's birthday! They are back from Morocco and we will have her party here then. She turned 4! She and Yasmine will be going to the Muslim school in Birmingham starting Monday! Yasmine will start kindergarten and Layla will be in the pre-school class. They are growing up so quickly!

I purchased more tomatoes last week. I also got a basket of peaches. The peaches were so wormy; plus I had to wait a week for them to ripen. They tasted good so I made a couple of cobblers. (No worms in my cobblers, however!) The tomatoes took that long to ripen as well so I made sauce this week. I'm really getting the hang of using the Vitamix to make the sauce and cooking it in the Nesco. So easy! Then I just waterbath can them. Using the Vitamix, there is no waste of the tomatoes. The whole tomato, sans the bad spots, is used. I like not having all the waste with the peels. The sauce cooks up nice and thick. The sauce I made this time separated. The sauce I made before didn't separate. I wonder why?

I tried to milk the girls. FAIL!!! They did not want to be touched! I'm going to keep trying but I don't know how to be successful without a milkstand. Have ya'll got any advice to share about milking? I sure would appreciate it!

After going some time without laying, the hens are laying again. I love gathering eggs from their nest! I don't love opening the door and seeing a snake devouring the eggs! I caught one in the action again yesterday! I get so mad when that happens! One day, I'm going to learn to shoot that gun!

I'm anxiously awaiting the time when I can sow fall seeds! I'm giving the fall garden a shot this year. I think I'll use the raised beds for some of the planting. I will utilize the greenhouse for later plantings. I'm going to grow all kinds of greens and beets. I'll keep ya'll updated when I get started.

I hope ya'll are staying cool! School has started here already, what about where you live? Poor little kids! Riding the bus in this heat! Oh yea, school started the first day of the longest yard sale! They said there were major traffic jams because of the school traffic, buses, and yard-sale goers! I'm so glad I didn't get in that mess! We may go to the sales Sunday since most of the traffic will be cleared out by then. Then again, maybe not. I've found that those sales are much higher priced than regular yard sales. So unfair, taking advantage of people that way! Oh well, if you like that kind of thing, go see what it's all about. It will be hot, so be prepared! Thanks for reading the blog! Leave a comment and let me know you were here! Blessings from Bama!

These tomatoes are from our garden.

I only made three jars of sauce this time cause there weren't enough tomatoes ripe enough to make more.

I love making pickles, and this bag of lime has the recipe on the back that I use. They turn out great every time! You can add hot peppers to make a sweet-hot pickle. I did that, and man are they good!

The guys went deep-sea fishing while we were at the beach. These are some of the red snapper they caught. Randy cooked them on the grill after he put way too much Duck Commander seasoning on them. They were spicy!