Farming in the shade

Yesterday we turned some Roma tomatoes and peppers into salsa. We had a regular production line going--two food processors whining their high-pitched song, two soup pots full of bubbly salsa cooking. Red and green stuff splattered everywhere... It's a nice job to have behind us, and I'm sure we'll enjoy the salsa all winter long. Salsa -- 2007 8 cups chopped Roma tomatoes 4 cups seeded chopped sweet peppers 2 cups seeded chopped hot peppers 2 cups chopped onion 6 cloves chopped garlic 2 tsp. salt 1 cup cider vinegar 24 oz. tomato paste Process all veggies in food processor. Mix all ingredients together in large soup pot. Cook together for 20 minutes. Put in pint jars and seal (15 minutes at 5# pressure).

Last Friday The Farmer and I took our oldest daughter off to college. She wanted to leave by 8:30, so that she could have plenty of time to meet her new roommate and get settled in the dorm room before her orientation meetings started. We knew that, and prepared by getting up early enough to get all the chores done. Feed ewe and ram lambs--check. Feed rams--check. Feed horses--check. Feed cattle--check. Run feed in automatic feeders in chicken coop in preparation for Saturday's baby peeps arrival--check. Make compost--check. Shower--check. Wait! We forgot to turn the heat on in the chicken coop to warm it up for the new babies. (They need it to be 90 degrees when they are a day old.) Run back in the coop to start the five furnaces. And only one starts. What can it be? Is it the tremendous humidity? We accumulated over 5" of rain last week, more than all the rest of the summer put together. Or just the bad luck that seems to haunt us whenever we have pressure and need something...

Today we brought our oldest daughter off to college. It's a lovely place, with wonderful people. Her roomie seems great. The dorm room is huge! The food wasn't bad. She will do fine. Yet...where did the time go? I remember just yesterday holding my little "peanut" and realizing my life would never be the same. Now she is a beautiful young lady, self-assured and confident, with her life before her. God be with you, my dear.

Tonight I had two women in my house. They came at my invitation to help me organize my space. They asked questions. Like, "How often do you use this thing you have on the counter?" "What bothers you about this space?" "Do you actually read all these magazines?" They asked to see potential storage spaces in my house (a.k.a. the closets). Ack! When is the last time you let anyone see in your closets? They took pictures. And measured things. And asked more questions. As I walked through the house with them, seeing my house through their eyes, I felt vulnerable. I had to face up to some things. I can't remember the last time I rode the exercise bike that takes up a large corner of my office. I have no idea what is in some of those boxes in the library. And probably a quarter of my earthly possessions are things that have been given to me or to my children that I don't even really want. Stay tuned for part two later next week.

It's quiet in the house. Eerily quiet. My children are camping with my folks--a last fling before school starts. It's also my last chance for planning, purging and organizing. I've visited a couple of blogs of homeschooling moms with lovely before and after photos. I would like to do that too, but I'm stuck in the "before". A saddle in the middle of the room with a plastic bag and some bridles. A spinning wheel and some escaped wool. A perpetually busy refrigerator front. A shirt draped over a dining room chair. Six months of reading material, backed up like traffic during rush hour. A quilt gift balanced on a recliner, waiting to go with my oldest to college this Friday. This is the stuff of my life, and it's not really photo-worthy. I'd love to live in a peaceful, ordered environment. But I don't know where to start...

No pretty photos today. I've been dealing with the consequences of my decisions. You see, I've ditched dial-up and gone with DSL--for less money than I was spending on dial-up! To see if you qualify for AT&T's $10 DSL deal for new customers, click on "See if you qualify" under the Basic DSL heading. In case that wasn't quite enough change for one week, we had to find a different place to host our company's website (through which we get our email). That wasn't too hard. But I have not yet found my way out of the maze of changes to all our software that this little switchero produces. So, if my blog goes off line, my emails bounce and I or my family members don't get back to you like we normally would have, please forgive. We're stuck in a technological no-man's land.

The countdown is over and they're here! Liz, if you're reading this, you've made one young girl VERY happy today. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.

About a week ago, our son climbed on top of the little brown horse barn to right the weathervane, which had been misaligned for quite some time. I'm happy to say that South is South again. The little brown horse barn hasn't held horses for YEARS. Since we have lived here, it has been pressed into service mostly as a cattle barn. And cattle are hard on barns. Soon we will need to work on restoring that little barn. Tomorrow afternoon, two horses will come to live with us. They will temporarily stay in a pasture next to the big old barn, while the cattle spend one more month in and around the little horse barn. When they head off to freezer camp, we will muck out the barn, repair the holes kicked in it and fix the leaky waterer. And the little brown barn will house horses once again. These two horses are a dream come true for one of our daughters. You'll be hearing more about them in days and weeks to come, to be sure...

This is a mud puddle. I know it seems rather boring to include here, but I wanted to take a photo of something we've so rarely seen this summer. "Drought" is the word they've been bandying about on the evening news. I can vouch for the accuracy of their terminology. So tonight, when this mud puddle still remained after this morning's glorious rain, I decided to capture it and post it here. And here is something else we haven't seen for a while--water in the ditch. While I was out tonight I snapped a photo of the end-of-day sunlight. G'night!

The Farmer's folks came home with 3 bushels of "seconds" peaches for us yesterday. We laid them out on newspaper on the basement floor (not touching each other), and proceeded to pig out on the softer ones for lunch. Today we got out the canning jars, lids and rings, and put up 21 quarts of sliced peaches. We like to thicken the canned, sliced peaches with corn starch and eat them over waffles.

I know there are a lot of jokes about zucchini left on porches and in cars by the bagsful. But it's one of my summertime pleasures. I refuse to buy it in the store in winter, but I'll eat it as fast as I can in the summer. Here's one of my favorite ways to eat it... Zucchini Patties 3 cups grated zucchini 2 eggs, beaten 1-1/3 cups Bisquick type baking mix 1/2 cup chopped onion Lawry's seasoned salt, to taste 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese bacon bits (optional) Stir ingredients together; don't overmix. Drop by tablespoonsful onto hot, oiled skillet. Flip. Best served hot.