More issues of Mother Earth News and Hobby Farm, Chickens in the Road, and my great great great grandmother's letters. We just found a box of them.

Our lovely holiday meals were: Specialty coffee with bourbon, chocolate cream liqueur. Very yummy. Not the healthy thing. Pancakes with fresh raspberries from my mom's garden, and black caps (black raspberries which are even sweeter) if from our yard. At noon, after a lovely morning sail on Lake Huron, we made burgers. Some folks had beef. I had black bean. Sauteed mushrooms, roast corn on the cob, salads with more snow peas from our garden, and radishes from the garden as well. I think this will be the last of the peas since it is getting so hot out. Raspberries and whipped cream on brownies for all the young people. I did not partake. Dinner - we ate a lot of the leftovers from the last three days of festivities. I made a large salad with some chopped turkey and provolone on top, the last pea pods, red pepper, black beans, chives, the very first chili pepper from the garden, and topped it with pureed picante sauce and a little Greek yogurt in the blender to make a zesty, creamy dressing. It really hit the spot. Then we all went for an evening kayak/float. We are now utterly bone tired. Contented, and had so much fun together. Reveling in the glow, but going to bed and taking it easy tomorrow. I will make pancakes before everyone takes off for their homes and job, topped with more raspberries, blueberries, black caps, and some maple cream for those that want it. Then Mark and I plan on eating very simply tomorrow, light and easy.

Sorry about that! So frustrating. We are socializing a lot now while the weather is good outside. I have enjoyed not getting flu, colds, sore throats, etc. in the winter from hunkering down in our pod - my mom, Mark's mom, our adult kids, and one couple - friends who are very careful - and masking inside public spaces if they have a bunch of people, like the supermarket. So we will be doing that again, and getting the fall updated vaccine plus flu shot. Right now Michigan, at least our area, is doing well. This is the season of backyard barbecue, beach, hiking, sailing, kayaking, and gardening. Everyone is outdoors, and stores are not busy because people just pop in, grab what they need quickly, and get back out there. The lack of being cooped up indoors is helping so much, but I am sure by the time winter hits hard, numbers will be rising. I had really hoped by now that covid would have mutated so much that it lost enough genetic information to make it far less virulent and dangerous. I guess that hope was misplaced.

Not a thing. I have been known to stock some glow sticks, glow bracelets, and glow putty for my grandsons. But that's it. I have never heard of this kind of holiday obligation.

Our postal delivery is so awful, literally the most incompetency you can imagine, that we cannot have a single important thing sent to our address. We moved every bill to paperless, and told health care providers that if they send bills to our legal address, they will never collect. We have cut it down to only a few things needing to be sent by mail, and those are delivered to our mother in law's address out of a different office. I send my packages through UPS. The only time I mail anything is state income tax and a handful of Christmas cards. I have forever stamps from 2019 still on my refrigerator waiting to be used. Rates go up, customer service just gets worse. It is frustrating for sure. Thankfully, we have pretty much declared our independence from the postal service. Mark goes out to the box once every other week to collect junk mail that made it through, and toss it in the fire ring or wood boiler to be used as fire starter. I am not sure if USPS can be profitable. I know a lot of people doing everything they can to NOT use them. The other issue is that I think having national mail delivery is n important part of democracy, and the goal should not be exclusively profitability.

That stinks!!

Cool! Now I know! 😁

This is a close up.

This is just delightfully pretty!

Thanks! I am going to do that this fall. After the 2nd weekend of September, we get so much cloud cover and rain that it is very hard to keep tomatoes ripening. Then we get frost by the end of the month. So there is always a large number of green tomatoes that have to be brought inside, put in a window sill, and hope they ripen, or a million fried green tomatoes to make. I need other things to do with them!

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I have been called out!

Aw! I just love Sid.

I have never tried pickling. I have a feeling that if I did, Mark would be in 7th heaven.

I am so happy for you!!!!

We had scrambled eggs yesterday morning (Saturday), and then sub sandwiches heavy on the veggies, but also everyone was quite cheese hungry. This is what happens when you have the empty legged bachelor sons home for the weekend! 😂 Then we had tacos for supper. Lots of beans which are my favorite thing. Today, we each ate a couple of boiled eggs for breakfast and then downed what seemed like a gallon of coffee, but probably was not. This was a safe thing to do because it is raining today so no sailing! It is a bad idea to drink quite that much caffeine prior to the 2-3 hour trip on a sailboat with no bathroom! 😁 For lunch, we had a break in the rain, so Mark got a fire going in the fire ring. I washed and cut up, potatoes, green beans, broccoli, carrots, onions, and asparagus. I had a small amount of chicken breast. Every person got to make up a packet according to what they enjoy eating and then put 2-3oz of chicken in each one with a little butter and all the good herbs and spices. We rolled them in two layers of aluminum foil, and tossed them in the coals. Mark turned them regularly while I sauteed mushrooms inside and also fried green tomatoes. We also threw corn on the cob in the coals, roasted in their husks. Either absolutely divine! We had seven people at lunch, and I think every single person ate a minimum of 5 servings of vegetables, some of more than that. This was followed up with strawberry/rhubarb pie, berries and rhubarb fresh form my mom's garden. There were also raspberries with cream. At this point, we have an amazing Sunday food coma going, and we will not be cooking anything at all for dinner. There are leftover veggies from the packets, and sliced cheese. So if anyone gets hungry, I am warming the vegetables, and putting out a cheese tray with the sourdough bread left from yesterday, and folks can just graze.

I have seen the stare of death. Cats are excellent at this! I also think our dog knows the word vet, and so does the cat. Start talking about the vet, and they go hide.

I am not a person who likes the texture of eating raw tomatoes. So all of middle be are cooked in some way. But fresh made salsa is good if the slimy part of the innards are removed. I also make fajita vegetables with fresh tomatoes, but again, remove that part. I slice it thin along with bell pepper, jalapeno (after removing the seeds which is ya, know, yikes...yes, the very first time I cooked with a jalapeno I did not do that because I was not a well informed cook at that time, and we paid the price for that folly), drizzle taco/enchilada sauce on them, and then toss under the broiler or on the grill in our stainless steel grill basket. If you don't have a grill basket, aluminum foil with some hole poked in it to let the smoke through works just fine.)

Okay. It will do that. It is raining wildly outside right now. But when it dries up, I will take a pic.

Do you like fried green tomatoes? We fried two of the green, beef steak tomatoes today. Sliced thin, dipped in gf flour, and fried. So yummy! I am a big fan of making sauce and salsa. It is just so much better than store bought. It's an convinced from the difference in taste that store bought has no fresh herbs used, and the tomatoes are not fully ripe, or varieties that are prolific producers but not particularly sweet.

I have some sort of sweet basil. They were seedlings from the nursery. I didn't start them from seed so I am not sure what exact variety. I will say that I read online that basil and tomatoes are companion plants and that basil helps ward off pests because apparently a lot of insects do not like the smell. They struggled at first, but once the tomato plants gained some height, it was like a lightbulb. I think that they love the canopy of green. Those Amish paste have become gigantic in spite of their constant acting like I am attempting to grow tomatoes on Mars 🙄🙄🙄. The basil underneath is lush. I have to fight my way through the rainforest of Amish Paste in order to find them! 😂😂😂 But I love it. Basil is my very favorite herb next to garlic. The more the merrier! I will happily share basil with anyone who wants some. Would it help if I took a picture and posted it? Do you think you could identify the variety from that?

Once we taught our rocket team about navigating the big city environment, what to do if they got separated and felt concerned about that, reading the subway maps, etc. we would take them into DC. (The Smithsonian stop),turn them loose in pairs or groups, and have them meet up at X time at the subway, train platform for our return to the Vienna Station. We also told them that if they were late, we would remain at Vienna Station until they caught up and not to panic, but for goodness sake, attempt to keep an eye on the clock and judge how long of a walk they had to get back. Some kids hung around Smithsonian Air and Space for long periods of time, others tried to hit all Smithsonians, some wanted to see as many monuments as possible, and some want to climb those blasted stairs in the Washington Monument. Mark and I were always exhausted and just plopped down at the Ait and Space or out on the grass. One year I think we took a long nap under a tree on a blanket I brought with me for that purpose. Everyone had money for lunch, and we told them they could find a diner at Natural History, the McD's at Air and Space, and there was a Subway shop somewhere that I can remember at the moment. I am fairly certain if their parents had known prior to us making those plans, they would have squawked. Many of the kids had parents who have never been to Detroit, much less somewhere like D.C., and they feel very unsafe about the whole idea of going to a big city. But the security and police presence in that area of D.C. is rather vast. It is probably safer than walking around our home town of 200 people. It was just a matter of reminding them to cross only at the crosswalks, keep the money and train tickets in their front pockets or in a pouch under their shirt, be aware of surroundings, stay with your friend, watch the clock, when in doubt, anyone who works at these places will answer questions or point them towards someone can assist. This is the land of every 8th grade class east of the Mississippi seems to go to D.C., and despite five adults or so managing 100 or more kids, they manage not to lose a bunch or have anything bad happen. I would totally leave a reasonably mature group of teens in the Museum/Mall area without an adult. I actually think it was really great for our rocket teens. Their confidence grew so much from those experiences. Their schools tended to infantalize them, and this was nice prep for being a grown up soon.

Ouch!

Wow! Awesome sauce!

I just harvested 7 more snow peas. We will eat them today with some roasted veggies. The stupid Amish Paste. I don't know what to think anymore. We got rain last week which made them act like the apocalypse was near. Now they are loaded with green tomatoes. I done get it. They are Eeyores of the botanical world! I would try to make them happy, but since live in a state of confusion and vegetable depression, I don't even know what to do. They will get a little tomato fertilizer this coming week since it had been two or three weeks since the last time they got plant food. But otherwise, I am just going to have to choose to ignore their drama. The cherry tomatoes have gone full on, Spring Break wild! 😂😂😂 I have so many babies. Record babies. That is fine with me. My daughter and the bachelor sons are begging for dehydrated cherries. They love to snack on them or sprinkle them on salads and tacos in the off season when good, fully ripe tomatoes are not a thing in Michigan. We have baby eggplants, eight baby jalapeno, and ten baby chili peppers. I hope the peppers ripen fairly close to each other along with some Amish paste so I can make salsa/taco sauce. Henrietta and her fellas, the family of cukes, are going bananas. I have lots of baby cukes. I think I have more than I can handle actually. I don't like cucumber. It is something that Mark and R eat, and she has her own cucumber plants in Bama, so I have earmarked this as a crop I can share with the mothers and the neighbors. There are a couple of elderly neighbors who do not get out much due to severe health and mobility issues. I would like enough garden produce to ripen together a couple of times that I can drop a basket of produce off to them. Carrots are growing nicely. Still small, maybe only an inch long. But, my assumptions is that in about 3-4 weeks, they will be a good harvesting size. The new rows of carrots are already 2" high, and I am seeding another row plus a third row of radishes. Scallions seem so spindly, about 2" tall. I have never grown them before so maybe the babies are supposed to look like this? They can barely hold themselves up right now. The celery looks great. I need to make some vegetable broth, and I am tempted to harvest some of their leaves. They are so fragrant. But I am afraid to damage the plant and then not have a good harvest. Does anyone know if it is okay to harvest four leaves from each plant without hurting it? The basil is insane. One would think they are weeds for how prolific they are. I keep pinching off flower babies so they keep growing. But I wonder how big I should allow them to get. I have two large basil houseplants as it is. My plan is to harvest all the leaves on the outdoor plants at some point, rinse, dry, and freeze in sandwich size baggies. R can't seem to grow basil well - I wonder if it is too hot in Alabama - which saddens her because she loves to cook with fresh basil. Our youngest also wants my basil. That boy is a serious foodie! 😂 So if you know anything about basil, scallions, or both, I need your advice.

Besides his name, the dog knows: No Yes Quit it Get down Find your toy Go to grandma's Stop it Lay down Just because he knows it, that doesn't mean he obeys! 😂😂😂 I am convinced the cat is actually fluent. Possibly also in German because our eldest talked to her in German all.the.time. and it was fairly clear that she understood him. However, this is another animal that absolutely knows what you are saying to her, and with forethought, malice, and disdain, has no intention of behaving!