It has been round-about five months since my last post. Jeez, time flies. What have I done in that time? Hummm...
Well for starters L started to walk, which in and of it's self is enough to flip my world upside down. She is into everything! I finally have all the outlets plugged, and the cabinets under lock and key. Yet, still she is fearless. Her favorite place to hang out in the whole world is standing on top of E's doll house. It still gives me a mini-heart attack on occasion.
I also have done quite a bit of canning, which makes another one of my "to do" list items done. Yeah me!
We canned about 80 lbs of tomatoes in various concoctions, salsa, spagetti sauce, tomato juice and whole tomatoes. We had to supplement a bit with goods from the farmers market. We got 20 lbs. of onions and two cases of peppers from a produce auction. In addition to the tomato goodies we also roasted and froze peppers, shredded or sliced and froze zucchini and squash, and I still have a few onions hanging out in my garage. We also made tons of pesto and froze it into cute little cubes.
We ended up canning about 2 dozen quarts of peaches. They are beautiful. I so sincerly wish we had done that earlier in the season, so that I would have had time to realize that 24 jars is not nearly enough to get us through til next season. Damn the luck. They are going so fast I can hardly beleive it. Everyone in the family loves them and I am inclined to hide a few jars so we can enjoy them after the first snow.
Picking apples was quite a treat. The orchard we choose also is home to alpacas. It was awesome seeing the girls get to pet them and learn about them. Plus, we scored some cheap wool socks. The trees were dwarfs so there were no ladders involved, huge bonus. We ended up coming home with 100 lbs. of apples and quickly turned them into super yummy applesauce and apple butter. We also chopped and froze some for pies. They keep for quite a while, I think I still have about 20 lbs. in the fridge that will just get eaten casually throughout the next few months.
I have also fallen into some absolutly delicious pears. Twice this week friends have shown up at my door with large bags full of pears that they basically found on the side of the road. One of the friends works for a gentleman that has trees on his land, but he doesn't do anything with them. I think I am headed up there this weekend to see what I can find. There is also rumor of nut trees....Yum.
All in all it has been a bountiful fall so far. I am mourning the last weekend of the farmer's market. Our CSA was officially over two weeks ago. The market has still had quite a few brave souls, but the selection gets more and more grim with each passing week. We shall see if there are any sweet potatoes or peppers left this weekend and I will be sure to stock up on that delish goat cheese, then that will be the end of it. Poor me.