in praise of warm water

I love warm water in pools! This pool in McCall is easily (but rarely) 90 degrees. I love it! I love it! It's a rarity to see me with my head in the water, so I had a photo taken for posterity. Today, the outside temp was 64 degrees, but the water was toasty. I spent 2 1/2 hours in the pool!

Sunday Dinner

This is today's dinner! Looks good, doesn't it? It's mostly from my garden! Steamed Comstock green beans, Juliet grape tomatoes, bow tie pasta (okay, not from my garden), parmesean chicken (the sauce is from my garden, the chicken and mozzarella cheese are not), and zucchini! It was definitely delectable.

For the sauce, I just started tossing whatever was in my garden in a pot--tomatoes, a couple of onions, a shredded zucchini, a shredded carrot, fresh basil, oregano, chives, and parsley. I let that simmer all day without a lid, to reduce it to a wonderful chunky sauce.

Heavenly!

Hello?

Here's little R talking to "pa" (Grandpa) on the phone...she's finally graduated from just smiling and breathing hard, and actually saying something! Here's the conversation..."Ha (hi) Pa! (grandpa!) Ah uh u! (I love you!) Bah! (bye)"

This picture has absolutely NOTHING to do with phone calls, but those little feet are so adorable!

August Garden

It's August--time for a garden update...The zinnia are amazing!
I love gathering bouquets of these gorgeous flowers.

Walla Walla sweet onions...

Jalepeno peppers...

Green peppers...

Zucchini! We were gone for a week, and when we came back, we gathered several arm-sized zucchinis! Fortunately, we have a friend who really likes the big ones!

Victoria grape tomatoes--there were more ripe ones, but they got picked yesterday.

Candace red grapes are starting to turn...

Beans are interesting right now. I've picked a ton, and pretty much finished my canning for the year. Right now, they're in a regenerating period, so I'll have more soon...I hope!

Amish paste tomatoes. I'm canning tomorrow.

Super-Fantastic tomatoes. They are super fantastic!

Raspberry bramble--you can see where I just picked one that little R promptly ate! More are on the way!

All in all, it's been a great gardening year, and August is always great, since it cools down a little. See you next month for another update!

Huckleberries 2009

HUCKLEBERRIES! Now that we know what we're looking for, and what we've missed all these years, we're hooked on finding and picking these little beauties!There's one now!
Here's L, she is the fastest picker!

Yummmm! Here's K's fabulous peach/huckleberry cobbler!

We just took the lid off...can you just taste it?

Here's how we ate them the first night--just a handful on vanilla ice cream. Add a little homemake granola, and you're officially in heaven!

This little girl loves them!

Here's our first day's picking. All in all, K, L, and I picked three times, getting a little over 2 pounds each time, for a total of about 6 and a half pounds!