August Garden Harvest

Hello, friends.  The organic oats I recently ordered came in, and my husband picked them up on Monday.  Golden Paste was made for the pups.  Tromboncino squash and beans were shared with a friend.  We were gifted cucumbers, and shared beans with two more friends.  Another two rounds of elderberries were gathered and dried.  The week has been very hot, with lots of highs in the 90's, and very humid.  After the morning walk, and chicken and garden tasks, I devoted the majority of two days to number crunching and paperwork, enjoying being in the a/c.  I was woefully behind on paperwork for SoulSeeds and my checking account.  Now it's all caught up, as well as bookkeeping for J's business.  That feels like a big relief. 

 

While in town to get groceries, I stopped to check out the food at Marshall's, and got raw honey, olives and a lb. of walnuts.  At Aldi's, I bought avocados for .69, some pecans and other groceries at the usual prices.  I stopped at the library to return The Four Winds, and picked up The Paris Library.  Gas was .10 less than locally, which saved .75.  I then headed to visit with my sister, who is healing well.  While there, I borrowed an extra fitbit she had.  Several years ago, a friend who had a fitbit walked with me, and calculated his steps were around 3 miles.  Well, it turns out it's less than that, at just over 1.5 miles, so my two daily walks are only 2 or so miles, instead of the 4 I thought they were.  I wore it most of the day, and when I took it off, it registered 6.4 miles on just an average day around the homestead.  A full shredder bin was added to the compost.  

Noticing spikes of dock seeds, I harvested several, with the intention of cleaning and using them in baking at some point.  With rain in the forecast, I planted the marked down marigolds and blanket flower.  Except for one in the window box at the SoulSeeds shop, I planted the rest around cucumbers, squash and eggplant, as it supposedly helps them grow.  From the garden, tomatoes, beans, yellow squash, a pepper and eggplant were harvested.  Apples, hazelnuts, figs and pears are also being gathered as I see them.  Our new freezer is set up.  I brought all the food from the outside refrigerator/freezer inside, and unplugged it.  I used baskets I already had to organize the freezer.  Another round of potatoes that needed using were steamed, and two jars of beans that didn't seal were made into garlicky green beans.

We'd gotten so dry here, I noticed wasps, ants and yellow jackets fighting on the beans, I suppose for the moisture.  Interestingly, I didn't notice anyone bothering the bumblebees.  I spied a large praying mantis on them one day.  Laundry was hung on the line two days.  Warm up water and dehumidifier water were used to water plants and for flushing.  One night, I made a dish which used jasmine rice with our canned butter beans.  This, with sliced tomatoes, was good on a hot night.  As I'm finishing up this post Sunday night, we're getting a heavy rain, which we're so thankful for.  There wasn't much sleep last night, due to one of the pups and some other reasons, so I'm pretty fuzzy and think I'll end here.  I'm sending thoughts for a peaceful week for the world and you, friends.  Be well.