~HAPPY 4th OF JULY~

  In the words of Herbert Hoover, "My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope."

Sincerely,

~Mary-Ann~

  Bring on the midnight canning!

  It got much to hot here today to finish the canning in our non-breeze kitchen, so we have put it off until it gets darker and cooler, so that is what I like to call a midnight canning. That is were you can until all hours of the night because you would rather go swimming during the day, and save what really should be getting done late at night.

  So in my spare time I thought I would share pics from yesterday.......

That is a lot of cherries!

Me pitting (I hate pitting)

Sarah cutting the cherries up.

Yum!

Making the goo.

Sugar!

Boiling the jars

Jam!

31 pints of cherries went up yesterday! That is a lotta work.

 In the words of Joseph Addison, "I value my garden for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs." 

~Mary-Ann~

My parents made it here safe and sound.  We are so happy to have them here.  We went and saw My Sister's Keeper yesterday afternoon.  It was a tear-jerker for sure.

The same old things have been going on around here in the day to day.  The weather has been a little cooler during the morning and early afternoon then warming up mid afternoon.  Here is a picture of our weather station thingy that tells us the indoor/outdoor temp, how to dress, the time, and the humidity.

My daughters are busy baking cookies and boiling homegrown potatoes to make a homemade potatoe salad.

We are going to visit my sister today and have dinner there.  I better get things in order.  Write more later. 

   Ugh! we are only half done with cherries and already I never want to see another cherry again. It took all day! and I still have four flats left to pit and chop up! SO guess what we will be doing today?......If you were going to say soap, you would be wrong.

  When we are done all together I think I am going to paint my fingernails, just until the stain is gone from them.

  Well, got to get to my cherries.....

Sincerely,

~Mary-Ann~

   Well......we did not make soap......again. Instead we went and picked cherries yesterday.....a lotta cherries......67.8 pounds of cherries! So, I don't know if we are going to can today or make soap today, I am kinda hoping for soap, but that does not look likely.

   I am really in the mood for making soap, since we now have enough molds to justify making shaped soap (instead of the old tray that just makes ugly square bars) and I finally talked mother dear into using soap colour dye, and oils! Unfortunately we keep putting it off.......

   In fact! This would be the perfect day to make soap, because Kristina will be here and we can finally teach her how to make it.....like she has been asking us to do (hint* hint* mom).

  Oh! we could can cherries now and make soap this evening! Or not........

  Well, I geuss I will go and find some breakfast, I need to feed this broken hearted child who's mother refuses to make soap with. Sigh*

  In the words of Sir Walter Scott, "He that climbs the tree has won right to the fruit."

Sincerely,

~Mary-Ann~ 

   I thought it was time to start writing on my blog again, so here is the first post in a hopefully long series. So, um, what can I say? Let's see.......

   Well, we finally got the garden in (I need to get pictures so that I can post them). Now we are working on the front flower beds, weeding and getting new plants in. The veggies are doing great in the big garden, but the corn got torn up by Sarah's baby goats (Ugh!), so that needs to be re-planted along with a row of peas (also lost to the baby goats).

   We are making soap this week, LOTS of soap. We planned on doing this on monday, but time just slipped away from us. SO hopefully we will be doing that today or tomorrow (I will be sure to take pictures of that too).

   Sarah and I will also try a hand at candle making with bees wax this week. We have made candles in the past, but never dip candles and never with bees wax, so this should be interesting and hopefully successful.

   What else can I say?.......

   My book is going rather well, but I am having trouble with a few parts, as it is hard to explain something that you have never done or tried.......like eating a squirrel.lol (don't ask).

  Um.....

  We put up several jars of jam last week, strawberry and strawberry/blueberry mix (neither of which I can eat). 21 pints of strawberry and 20 pints of the mix. Thats a lotta jam for us, and we still have cherry, blueberry, blackberry and raseberry jam to put up through out the summer.

  Okay, I have offically run out of things to say. I will try to post again very soon. Oh, I lied, I forgot to mention we got a pool and got to swim in it for the first time yesterday (that is,  first swimming in it where it was actually full and clean)

   In the words of Celia Thaxter, "There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart."

Sincerely,

~Mary-Ann~