Celebration, party and the evil eye...

This is the Celebration!

This was last weekend (Aug. 28th), our town had it's  annual Township Celebration and of course there is always plenty of food, games, entertainment and all are followed by a street dance, with a live band.

The weather turned rainy, so a quick change of plans and the fire hall was opened up and tables and chairs put in place.

Now to the Party!

It as you might have guessed, it was a potato digging party.

Our weather has been so wet( over an 1" and 3/10 in the last week) and cool, we were afraid the potatoes might begin rotting and with more wet and cold weather forecasted we opted to dig them this weekend. The picture above is of our Russets, they did quite well this season!

Nice baked potato size and we had several dozen this large or larger.

Here are the small and medium sized Caribe and the large Caribe spuds filled two 5 gallon buckets and a few more besides and we still have one more row( approx. 25 hills to dig) but it began raining. We hope to dig them in a day or so.

A close up of the medium and small Caribe spuds( approx. 250-300lbs. total of the Caribe and approx. 250+lbs. of Russets)

These are the two 5 gallon buckets of large Caribe

I can't believe how large they grew! This particular variety of potato stores very well and they are a purple skinned, with a white flesh, that is very firm.

Now for the Evil Eye!.......

                                           I'd been promising Cortney a Neutral Henna for weeks and just never found the time to do it. What is a Henna, you might ask? Well... it is a all natural product made from vegetables and fruits and is used as a deep conditioner treatment. The Hennas come in colors; such as Burgundy, Auburn, Dark Brown, Light brown, and Black. These are used as a natural dye to add a colored highlight and sheen to your natural color. Hennas will not completely cover grey hair and the darker colors on light hair will obviously change your color to something you may not like*wink* We used a Neutral Henna( no color) because all we desired was deep conditioning and the beautiful sheen it gives to your natural color. 
It is mixed( it's a powder) with warm water to the consistency of honey and then applied to the hair from the scalp outward. You'll  need to section off the hair and take it in small applications, brushing it onto the hair from scalp to the ends. Then you cover with a plastic bag( provided in the Henna) and place the client under a heated dryer for 45 minutes to an hour. Since I no longer work in a salon( haven't for 21 yrs) I have a mini version of a salon dryer  I couldn't help myself and quickly snapped this picture, notice the evil eye I'm getting*wink*  Anyway, all in good fun and Cortney's hair is so soft and shiny. Our weather today didn't allow for sunshine, so .... we will share a picture of the results, when we see the sun again. :o(

Tomorrow, we LABOR, Mike will be cutting firewood at a friends place, while Cortney and I harvest zucchini, raspberries, peppers, beans, cukes and if we have time pick some of our Painted Mountain Corn and hang it to dry in the garage. Sometime this week we'll harvest some of our Flat Dutch Cabbage heads and begin our first, 5 gallon crock of sauerkraut :o)  I'm also working on getting seeds collected, experimenting with our TRUE potato seeds, planting our Fall green in the hoop house( after we remove some of the finished pepper plants and work in some well composted manure) and praying our tomatoes begin ripening in larger batches, so we can begin canning stewed tomatoes, juice and sauces. We also have chickens and turkeys to butcher, when we find the time*wink* I feel myself beginning to panic especially when we watch the evening weather report and at the 5,000 ft. level, SNOW is forecasted for tonight! That means a good chance of a heavy frost for us*sigh* When driving home for the city last week, we noticed that there is fresh snow on the mountains just 45 miles to our East.  I'm NOT ready for this, it seems we've just begun to harvest and it may be over before we know it. PTL! for the hoop house at least our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cantaloupe are protected.  Usually this time of year, I'm ready to be done because we've been harvesting and preserving  since the end of July and all of Aug. This year we've been so behind( gardening wise) and we are blessed with loads of produce, it just needs a few more weeks of warmer temps to ripen it all up.
Blessings to each of you on your Labor Day weekend.