at peace with summer...

While summer has definitely brought us warm temperatures and dry conditions, it has also been relatively good to our garden. We've been getting outside in the morning before it gets too hot, and heating up water for coffee and tea on our Coleman camping grill to keep the house cooler than when we use the stove. I've been diligently watering the garden to keep our plants alive, and they've paid us back with a pretty good harvest so far with the promise of more. Here are a few more summer photos...

Our black-eyed susans seem to do fine as long as we keep them watered. Generally they don't mind the heat. When they start blooming (although they started a little early this year), I know it's officially July. Here's Rory sitting in her dress that I made for her from an old pair of pajama pants that I never really liked.

The puppies are not as at peace with summer as we are. Generally we leave them outside (with plenty of water and shade) until the temperature gets above 90, and then we let them in. However, they've figured out that if the air conditioner kicks on outside, they want to be inside to enjoy it and sit at the door begging. So here they are, giving a raspberry to this hot summer weather.

I promised you a photo of Chad with his hair down...so here he is with Rory.

Our peepers are getting soooo big...well compared to how big they were. We officially have two males...officially because at least one of them has started "crowing." Look up videos of young roosters crowing and you'll see what we're talking about. It's actually kind of cute although I'm sure that won't last long.

Here's Rory playing (briefly) in the sprinkler while I was watering our compost and a volunteer pumpkin vine growing nearby.

Here's a photo of some of the bounty from our garden. A pumpkin (which I always thought was a "winter" squash), two lilac bell peppers, two mortgage lifter (the big ones) heirloom tomatoes, and two Arkansas traveler heirloom tomatoes. And some basil for added greenery. All from our little garden.

And here you can see why they're called Mortgage Lifters. This sucker weighed in at just over a pound (18 ounces). We also will be harvesting a few ears of corn, and we've been harvesting dried beans and also a few of our Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes. Hopefully we'll be getting another crop of strawberries soon as well.

Here's a Mortgage Lifter on the inside. Beautiful, meaty and delicious. Chad says it's the best tomato he's ever eaten. And when I met him, he wasn't particularly fond of tomatoes. He's not eating them off the vine yet, but he'll eat them in a much purer form than he used to...

Another bunny release photo. I let six of these guys go yesterday. We've had a little rain so they should be able to find enough green stuff to eat now.

Today we ventured into the world of homemade pasta. It was way easier than I thought it would be without having a pasta roller. We rolled out the dough with a rolling pin, and I used my quilting ruler and a pizza cutter to cut it into something linguine-like.

And of course...Rory helped. By rolling out the dough "all by myself," and sneaking raw noodles when Mama and Papa weren't looking. She was my self-proclaimed noodle thief.

And here's our impromtu noodle drying rack originally designed to dry clothes. I can see this being a great winter activity to make and dry a bunch of homemade pasta. It was pretty easy to do with a simple recipe (flour, salt, egg, oil, water), and tasted amazing. The boxed stuff from the store will never compare. Especially with fresh tomatoes and herbs (basil, oregano, thyme, sage) from our garden. Add a little olive oil, and mozzarella cheese and YUM!

I hope you're finding ways to enjoy your summer whether indoors or out, rain or shine. I've been enjoying doing more cooking at home to save money and so I know what ingredients are in our food and where they come from. It's been a lot of fun and I've learned to make some yummy stuff. I try to post recipes when I can, but if I don't and you'd like one, please let me know. Can't wait for our zucchini to start growing (we started the plants late) so I can dive into some new zucchini recipes and freeze some for later.

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