I don't like the signs I'm beginning to see!

Well..... as you know and I've said it before we've had the Summer without Summer and now yesterday I see the cottonwoods are already changing in color. Cortney and I have so much catch up work on weeding and with all the harvesting, canning, freezing and add now working on getting our hoop house in place over the tomatoes. The maters look wonderful but are GREEN as can be! We need to get some heat on them, otherwise we'll need to find lots of recipes for green mater and right now green mater spaghetti sauce, chili sauce or tomato sauce doesn't sound to good! Let's see I have to think in reverse now to see what we've been up to since the last blog, Hmmmm. Watering the garden has kept up busy, especially since you have to douse yourself in DEEP WOODS OFF to kind of fend off the skeeters. Let me tell you it's miserable trying to weed or pick produce and they are dive bombing you, literally trying to suck you dry!!! Friday morning and early afternoon was spent prepping for Farmer's Market. Dad and Mom joined in, and helped Cortney pick pole beans, while I picked cucumbers and bush beans. When this portion of the harvest was done we have 10 gallon sized bags of Kentucky Wonder pole beans and 2 gallon bags of Boccochia bush beans and approx. 25 slicing sized cukes. Next we harvested carrots, beets, spinach and I cut two Flat Dutch cabbage and two Red Rock cabbage. Actually we were packed and ready to go 30 minutes before we needed to leave, so took a breather. Once we arrived people started coming over, even before we were set up. We sold out of carrots ( 6 bunches, approx. 1lb each), sold 6 bags of beans, of the 5 bags of spinach, we returned with two. and sold out of cukes. The beets weren't as good a seller this time and we found out onions don't sell at all. I thought fresh garlic would sell too but it has had very little activity. It was a pleasant afternoon at the market and we had several repeat customers. We didn't take baked goods for lack of time, but the lady next to us had several items and another vendor had pies and they all sold out. One thing that struck me funny is that several of the people buying from us, weren't even sure how to cook the veggies, let alone have any idea of recipes. If I can get organized enough maybe it would be a good selling point to have sheets of recipes for the veggies we sell, to hand out! I guess because we eat and cook from scratch it NEVER dawned on me that not everyone does that, in fact one lady said," I'll be able to fix a meal, so we can eat at home for once." We'll be able to sell for sure at this coming Friday's market, but the following Fri(Sept. 4th) we'll be busy preparing for Cortney's small BBQ gathering for her graduation on the 5th. Speaking of the BBQ for Cortney's graduation, we NEED to get the garden/yard and house into shape, as well as fix , coleslaw, baked beans and a fruit salad of sorts. It's been a long haul doing home schooling, but it's worth it and we get to have a party to celebrate. The only other kind of a party that would be as much fun, will be our mortgage burning party and we're praying that will be soon! Since the firewood lean to was completed, Mike has hauled home a load of wood and the splitter, to split what is already here. On Friday morning my Dad started splitting wood and ran into problems with the splitter, so had to stop. Mike brought home the needed parts with the intention of getting it up and going early Sat. morning, but alas late Fri. evening a friend called and asked if we wanted to bale some straw for our own use. Well..... we need the straw for winter bedding for the cows and it is almost FREE( we'll insist they take something for the straw) so.... Mike gets the tractor and baler hooked up and heads off to the field to bale. He returns about an hour later and says the three windrows netted us 106 bales of straw, WaHOOO!!! You see last year Mike didn't have time to do this when the friend offered, so we ended up buying large round bales from the same friend, but they are a pain in the backside to get straw off of. Small bales just work so... much better for Cortney and myself. Mike and I went to load the straw last Sat. afternoon. My one concern was the place we had to enter the field was muddy and we had to drive through a small ditch. Anyway we loaded the straw on the truck and trailer and headed for the way out. Mike's truck is only a two wheel drive, so tried to stay on the drier side of the entrance. Okay truck made it through but...... the dual axle trailer was stuck and the truck just spun it's wheels. So Mike calls on cell and tells Cortney to bring the three wheeler over and pick him up. I wait in the truck, fighting off skeeters, soon enough I see Mike and his tractor coming. He hooked onto the truck with a chain and I was to drive the truck slowly as he pulled with the tractor. Ya, you bet, I'm nervous, I hate trucks and I don't want to be yelled at. So I have to do this, let the clutch out slowly, give it a little gas, wait a minute Mike is yelling to get off the gas" CUT IT!" is the sign I'm getting. It seems and I admit that in all the excitement I was giving it a bit much gas, but we're out so all is good, right? Did I say I hate trucks, so I took the tractor home, while Mike drove the truck and trailer. I get along with the tractor fine*wink* Yesterday Mike was up and gone by 6 am. on a wild land fire just East of us. It was ignited the evening before by lightening and evidently there were some missed hot spots that reignited. He returned home around 11:30 am and asked Cortney and I if we were ready to go. We asked where and he said someplace, anyplace, we all just NEED to get away for the afternoon. Some chore needed to be finished and clothes changed and we were off to the city. We decided a movie might be just the ticket. The last time we'd been to a theater was when, "The Passion" came out. We decided we'd try the BRAND new theater, it has 14 screens! We didn't even know what was playing until we got there. We decided between G.I. Joe and District 9, our choice District 9, because I wasn't feeling up for war games. Wrong choice, District 9 was really weird, I think G.I.Joe would have been the better choice*sigh* The matinee cost was $6.50, it used to be $4, that is part of why it's so long between this sort of treat, way to spendy for our budget and then the movie is weird to boot! Back home in time for Mike to work on fixing the wood splitter and splits some wood. In the meantime Cortney and I snapped approx. 5 gallons of beans and we still have 4 more to go. Today we're doing laundry( although it's grey and ugly outside, again!) canning beans and hopefully weeding in the garden, if we can stand the skeeters for long enough. There is a slight breeze so better get a move on it in the weeding dept. Well that's the excitement from here! Blessings for your week from, The new tractor driver, move over Jon you lost your place!