The Big One

Matt went Salmon fishing on the ocean in Fortuna over the weekend.

The limited out, which is two 20+ lb salmon each, each day. They also gathered 30+ King Crab. I spent a relaxing weekend, while he combat fished!

All in all, he got 4 huge salmon and our host filleted them for him to take home and freeze. You know Matt is in 'hog heaven'. I am not really sure what 'hog heaven' means, but it sounds appropriate.

My Birthday With The Kids

Connor before cake.

Connor after cake.

My sweet Heather with Connor and Grady. She is letting them play with her Iphone?!

Crystal, Heather, and Grady. If you notice Grady is waving at us!

I had so much fun spending my birthday with these precious peeps!

Love you all.

Road Trip

Matt and I are going North to Fortuna for the weekend. We are going to celebrate my birthday early. It is about a 6 or  7 hour drive through the most beautiful Redwoods. I will take pictures. We are staying with friends who live there and Matt gets to go out Salmon fishing in the ocean. He is so excited I can hardly stand him.

I will be out of touch until Sunday. Love to all.

Be Yourself

Aunt Judy

Aunt Judy is a friend of mine of facebook, but she has a picture of someone else as her profile picture...Someome posted this picture of her on facebook, so I copied it so Mom and Dad, and Trude and Gordon could see it.

It seems like it has been a very long time since I have actually seen her. 

July 24th

Happy Happy Birthday To A Very Special  Dad...

I hope you day is wonderful dad. I only wish I was there to actually make you these cupcakes.

When I come down to visit, I owe you cupcakes!

Love and Miss you, and mom!

Thunder, Lightning, and Rain

Amidst all the thunder, lightning, and rain there is our hummy feeding.

We must have a really calm feel at our home. They always come up and feed when we are sitting right there. Sometimes hey buzz right in front of our faces as if to talk with us.

Thanks Cin, I know it's you!

More Vegetables

Yesterday there were cherry tomatoes, serrano peppers, japanese eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, and bell peppers.

My tomatillos finally filled in. They are so interesting to watch grow.

Drying Basil and Lemon Balm. Lemon Balm is good for sleeping.

An onions, look at all the onions. Well, I know what one of my jobs is today, cut down the onions and start storing them.

Matt in His Garden Element

This is where Matt is the happiest! You can tell by the way it looks.

Those tomatoes are as tall as me.

Happy Sunday

Love this!

I hope everyone has a great day today.

My New Full Time Job

 Habeneros are a pretty lime color now.

Taking care of this garden has become a full time job. Between watering, picking, cleaning, canning, freezing, I am super busy.

This is the first time I have done it by myself. With Matt working 6 days a week, it is mostly on me. He fertilizes and stakes, and waters sometimes. There is an incredible amount of work involved in doing such a big garden.

But I know it is definately worth all the time, and I will be happy come winter and we are eating summer veggies!

Tai Peppers are still green, except you can see the red starting on some...these are to dry because they are sooooo hot!

Will have to remember gloves!

Row of tomatoes, flowers, and peppers.

Matt grew almost everything from seed, including all the flowers.

Okra, and several more piles of  onions for me to cut and store.

Tomatoes and  beans.

Another view of rows.

Matt has made all these really cool things of out different woods, for the climbing veggies...

pretty cool.

Purple beans.

 Japanese eggplant have the most beautiful purple flowers, first time for growing the japanese style.

Cucumbers, cucumbers, and more cucumbers. I have them coming out of my ears.

Watermelon, cantelopes, corn, squash, and more beans.

Pretty flowers.

The Truth

This is something I learned when I was in high school! I could never remember what I said when I lied, my mom told me so.

She used to say "atleast remember what you said before, if you are going to lie".

It used to surprise the heck out of me when I would be telling her I was a so and so's house...she would say "really? you said you were here?

Hmmmm? I stopped lying back in the day for just that reason.

Finch's Feeding

Yesterday, my favorite little birdies were feeding all at once. It is so sweet how they hang on the Finch Food Bag and eat. They all look out for each other as they are eating. I have never seen three eating at the same time.

I know the video is grainy because I was filming from a screen, that is the only way you can film them. Everytime I go outside to film, they disappear.

They are really fun to watch from my kitchen window!

Summer Rain

We woke up this morning to a really cloudy sky, and it just smelled like rain.

Shortly thereafter, it started to rain. It smells so good. It is funny to me that in the summer you love the rain, and in the inundation of winter rain, it is not really love you feel.

This is a nice change, but I know we will pay for it later in the day, when it is humid.

We have really had a mixed bag of weather this last week. From 100 to 50 degrees and everything in between.

Jason

The other day I decided to send Jason a Happy Birthday note...Wow did I get a page full of crap back. He is a bitter young man. I have always treated him like a son, and his words hurt. I do know that his wife has chosen for him not to be a part of our family.

So for now, I have to close the book and hope he finds his way back to us eventually. I could have said this or that, but his bitterness was too much!

Super sad.

Truth

I found this quote the other day, and I just loved it. It made me laugh, reminding me that I always loved the happiness Tinkerbell brought me. I have to say, besides my parents, and good friends, I miss Disneyland the most!

Remember, Dreams really do come true.

Hot Dilly Beans

I took Green and Purple Snap Beans, cut the ends off, stuffed them into the jars, added a fresh garlic clove, a head of fresh dill, and a 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper...

Then you  cook vinegar and water and salt, fill the jars and then process. I was surprised that the purple beans turned green. They would have been much prettier with the purple!

I spent 8 hours yesterday, processing 15 jars of pickles and beans. I wonder how women back in the day did it, without half of the technology I have?!

Pickles

Both the zucchini and the cucumber slices had to soak for 24 hours in salt water...

Then I added vinegar, sugar, spices, and then it sat for another 3 hours...this is the zuchini.

I added similar ingredients for the cucumber syrup, but added some different spices, and it also sat for 3 hours.

Finally, I was able to process them in the canner, after steaming my eyes with the vinegar. Wow did that hurt, and my eyes were blurry for hours. Note to self: Do not open lid and look in!

I ended up with 9 jars of pickles.

And, they are pretty good, they taste just like bread and butter pickles. I am not sure that was what I was aiming for, but it worked out.

Cloudy and Smoky

This morning on the way back from the gym I could see the smoke lining the sky towards my house.

Then I could see the cloud cover, it was 98 yesterday, and this morning it was 56, what a difference.

The old bod doesn't know what to think!

Then  there was this.

Wow, what a sight! That thing is like a huge passenger plane.

Low and loud!

Fire In The Sunset

Last night it was still so smoky that the sunset had fire in it.

It is usually pretty, but last night it was on fire. So pretty, this is from our bedroom deck.

Cucumbers

I have so many cucumbers this year, and there are two different kinds. So I have been looking through cookbooks for recipes, and how to preserve them.

Truly, there is no easy way. Pickling is the only way to preserve, so the next few days are going to be a 'pickling experience'.

Last night I took onions, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes from the garden and made a salad with balsamic vinegar.

It was great!