Summer living :)

Celebratin' 4th of July!

 Cats trying to stay warm during our brief and somewhat cool early summer

 Still gotta mow the lawn though!

 Summer living means lots of garden work, food preserving, and outside time. Whenever we were in town we manically tended the garden and the crops. It was an abundant summer for us and we are super thankful! Not all of the items are pictured but we made: bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, tomaisins (sun gold tomato “raisins”), apple butter, pear-plum-apple jam, pear-plum-apple fruit leather, tomato bisque. Not to mention, our onions are hanging to dry and three different types of potatoes are in storage in the basement, we have boxes of pears still and another pear tree that is ready for being harvested… in addition to ample plums waiting for us. Zucchinis are eaten at every meal, strawberries every morning for breakfast, and green beans once a week or so. We have more zukes and cukes growing up, as well as a plethora of tomatoes of different varieties. The winter squashes are getting stronger and the leeks look great too, as autumn approaches.

Food processing and summer abundance

With the abundance of a garden and fruit this summer we had to process (and are in the process of processing!) so much food. How lucky we are to have had so much allotted to us this year... and a small reward for the toils of hard work too. But this is a tremendous amount of work as we spent all day in the kitchen without even eating all that much yesterday. Some exploits from the summer not already mentioned: MORE pickles, pear sauce, dehydrated pears, salsa, prunes

(More) Garden Bounty & Food Processing

Lots of food to preserve this summer. We harvested over 30 cucumbers and Michelle is turning them into pickles! Yum! And a box of peaches (for sauces, pies, and jams) and a box of tomatoes (for Marinara) too.

Garden bounty

The rewards of tending a garden is fresh veggies for some of the year :) --- Red Cabbage, Beets, Carrot, Cucumbers galore, Tomatoes, Potatoes aplenty, Lettuce, Zucchini. Not from our garden is the chicken, pesto ingredients (cheese, walnuts, olive oil, etc.). Yum!

Strawberry box

We'd prefer not to grow our strawberries in the ground because then we'll have to bend over to pick them. So we fashioned a strawberry box to pick them at waist level :) Thank you Miyazaki-san and the lessons you taught me in Japan some seven years ago... I finally can put to use what you shared with me! Here are some pictures of the raised strawberries at dusk. We have been having some gorgeous sunsets here lately too. Wow!

Dedicating a Cherry Tree to Grandma Lily & Summer Solstice

My grandma was an awesome lady. Among the many great things to say about her is that she developed into a keen investor. So, we thank her for investing in us so that we were able to invest in a home for our family. As such, we planted a tree for her.

When she made money in the stock market she used to giggle and say, "Well, now I don't have to wait for cherries to go on sale." Well, now neither will we. We'll just have to wait for them to be in season :) This is the least we can do to pay tribute to a wonderful woman and a positive energy in the world. And it was another way to honor and celebrate the summer solstice too!

Speaking of the solstice, the moms were here to celebrate and we made pizzas on the barbecue which was supper delicious.  And we put up our hammock!! And we had a fire and let our wishes and gratitudes rise into the air to be spread all around. Oh and we had s'mores.... but the pre-chocolate-coated kind of marshmallows are NOT the way to go... better to do it the real way and let the hot marshmallow melt the chocolate in the graham cracker.

More garden, more stairs

Anniversary in Victoria

One year.... wow. Awesome. Let's go to Canada to celebrate: