One Little, Two Little, Three Little..................

Spiders. We have found 2 black widows under the house and 3 of them in the garage. At least they are not in the house.

Kids say the darndest things

Some unnamed person had the nerve to reprimand me for neglecting my blog during my canning season. I just have this to say, "Whoever you are, MELONIE, if I'm not blogging, it might mean that I am so busy and tired with projects and I sure could use some help!" Just kidding. It is fun to know that people actually read this and it challenges me to try to make it interesting.

Molly called me Sat and asked me to call her back (it's cheaper for them that way). So I called and my sweet little Isaac answered. We started talking and he said, "It's Grandma Simmons." He doesn't talk for very long any more but we had our visit and I got my grandma fix. Then I talked to Molly and she told me that she had been making lots of phone calls and Isaac wanted some time on the phone also. She asked him which grandma he wanted to talk to and he chose me.

The story continues....... The next day was Isaac's birthday. I called to wish him a happy birthday. I started talking and the little brat said, "Mom, who is it?" She said, "It is Grandma Simmons" (I have a big smile on my face). Here's where the brat part comes in. He has the nerve to say, "I no want talk Grandma Simmons. I want talk Grandma Maxwell." (Exit smile on my face). I said, "Those presents sitting there for Isaac...............well take them away until he can repent and be nice." Actually I laughed and skyped them later. I'm glad he has 2 grandmas to love and spoil him (grandpa's also).

The thrill of accomplishment

I'm exhausted! The weather was so nice today that I had to get some outside chores done before it gets cold. I finished painting the dog house. My motivation there was I didn't want 1/2 a can of paint sitting around all winter going bad. And, yes, the dog house does look better.

Then I decided to haul all my canned goods under the house. I ran out of daylight so they are not organized under there, but at least they are out of the house and the hard part is done.

I got thinking that if we still had our old house, today would have been the day that I climb on the roof and winterize my roof. I would also be winterizing my deck about now too. NO, I didn't miss doing those chores this year.

My motivation to get some stuff done was that I get to have lunch with my friends tomorrow. And we all know the rule; you have to get your chores done before you can play. I am stiff and sore and tired but won't feel one ache when I am enjoying lunch tomorrow.

Grand Total

This is my pile of canning for the year. Now I need to haul it all under my house. But at least I got it this far.
Here is my grand total. I hesitate to post this because then my favorite vultures will know what I have, but of course I don't mind sharing.

Green Beans 36 pints; plus 5 pints dilly beans
Peaches 54 pints
Swiss Chard 3 pints (it's a trial to see if we like it)
Pears 77 pints
Salsa 27 pints; 11 --- 1/2 pints (That's the one that I will have to keep hidden)
Tomatoes 20 quarts; 28 pints
Tomato Juice 10 quarts; 6 pints
Grape Juice 17 quarts
Applesauce 10 pints
Apple Jelly 3 pints; 7 -- 1/2 pints
Grape Jelly 9 pints; 6 -- 1/2 pints
Strawberry Jam and Peach Jam. These went into the freezer before they got counted but there were several batches.

I need to can some dried beans. I have 2 ---- 25 lb bags sitting here looking at me. But I need to get some pint jars emptied to put them in.

I'm done.................

I think. I finished my canning today. I think I am done at least for now. Wheew!

I was surprised that it has been so long since I have blogged. I had appts in SLC last Tues with my GI dr. and my nutrition support friends. I went to Steph's Monday night for a short visit. Then Tues morning it was off to Salt Lake. I had no idea that it would take 5 hrs with my medical people. Guess they were all glad to see me. Everything went well. It's kinda scary to hear the nutrition support team tell me how shocked they are that I have been on TPN for so long w/o complications. Yep!. I have been blessed.

The Dr ordered a test for bacterial overgrowth (too much bacteria in my gut). I did that Thur. I was told that it would take 2- 2 1/2 hrs. I had to breath into a bag. They put my air in a machine that did it's magic. I was to repeat this every 15 min for a couple of hrs. After 15 min, the nice lady came in and said, "Oh! Your numbers really shot up. We don't need to do any more. You have bacterial overgrowth. So I got to head for home 2 hrs quicker than I expected. That was nice.

And now I am on an antibiotic for 10 days. I'm not convinced that it will make a big difference, but we will see.

I brought peaches, pears, apples and grapes home with me. I made grape juice and jelly last week. This week I canned pears, made fruit leather from the pears and peaches. I was so ready to clean things up. But then realized that I need to finish my apples before I clean up. So today I made applesauce and apple jelly. And now I'm pretty sure that I am done........... at least until I bottle some dried beans. But there is no rush on that.

Here's my funny story for the day. Someone called and asked if they could talk to Michael Simmons. Well we all know how obvious this call was. I said that he wasn't home. So she asked if there would be a better time to talk to him. Well I thought that was quite obvious. I told her it would probably be best sometime when he was home. She said OK and hung up. Maybe I'm smarter than I thought I was.

Stay tuned for my totals for this years canning.

Oh and I need to report the winner for the weight of the hubbard contest. Steph won. She guessed 50 lbs and it weighed 50.5 lbs. And yes, she will eat her share of it.

More construction AGAIN

My original contractor friends showed up again. They are going to pour my front steps and fix my crawl space. I didn't get a picture before but the dirt was the height of both sides all the way across here and we had a metal window well thing in front of the crawl space so we could get in. We also had a huge pile of dirt left over from digging a hole for the garage and driveway.

See I do have a little food storage.
This is the pile of dirt from digging out the space for the crawl space. Oh and the contractors left their bobcat in my yard for the weekend and a pile of dirt and a space that needs dirt. And the keys were in the bobcat. The temptation was too much. I had lots of fun playing. Clint did give me permission and even showed me how to make it run.

Here's my first load. You can see how much dirt I needed to bring in. It was a whole lot more fun using the bobcat than using the wheel barrow.

This is when I was done. Yah. I think I over did it a bit but it will settle some and there are some spaces that need filled in. The only thing is that I want some good mulch on top so I will probably have to take some dirt out by hand. Hey, it was fun filling it in. You can see how interested Mike was in my landscaping venture.

This is where someone did doughnuts in my heretofore smooth yard. And they left tire marks on the sidewalk. I know my contractors will laugh Monday when they come see my damage. I will work tomorrow to smooth it out a bit. By the time I got done, I had several spots like this and the guys really did have it nice and smooth. What you can't see is all the rocks in the dirt. It might take me forever to get all them out. I must admit that it took several runs to start to figure out how to get the bobcat to do what I wanted it to. Sometimes it didn't do what I wanted it to. My project was a success when I quit and I still had a fence standing and I didn't hit my house or break any windows. Wheew!!! I knew Mike would probably never speak to me again if I had hit the house.

We need to take some more dirt out in front of the crawl space. I tried to dig some of that out but it was beyond my beginner skills.

More pictures tomorrow? I still have one more day to play.

Another contest

Here is what was hiding under all the leaves of my pumpkin and squash leaves. The giant pumpkins did not mature so they didn't get to be in the picture. (They were about the size of the medium squash in this picture, but their skins were not hard enough to survive the frost.) I have a total of 20 lbs of pumpkin. The small pumpkins will make yummy pumpkin pies.
The orange hubbard squash total weight was 31 lbs. The total weight of the green hubbard squash was 103 lbs. . Anybody want some? Here's the contest of the week. Guess how much this big squash weighs. I did help you by giving you the total weights. I would award the winner with the squash, but I don't want to pay to ship it. I guess the winner could come collect their prize.
I hope dinner tomorrow is a family favorite when I was growing up. Baked potato with baked squash and meat loaf. YUM!