I've written so many entries to this blog in my head lately, but they never seem to make it out here.
My current status is.... tired. So much I want to do, so little time. Right now, it's 7:30 in the evening and I've got the pressure canner going. Yessir, I'm canning chili, but not for me. My Boy Scouts will have a concession stand at the Bancroft Consignment Auction next month. Yay for fundraisers. Last spring we did a similar auction. I had made 8 gallons of chili and we ran out in the middle of the afternoon. So this time, I'll make about 12..... and we won't sell very much. But that's ok. The boys cheerfully eat it on campouts.
After the auction is over and I get my canning jars back, I'll have to put up some for us..... and some for Brianna and Adam (her boyfriend). Bri says that it makes darn good chili mac. I've never tried that. Bill is not really a pasta fan.
Well, Neal is not going to be happy. He's working tonight (until 11:00) and rain has moved in. Hopefully, Wednesday will be clear, because I have to work on cleaning up my gardens and getting them ready for winter. And I should try to paint the trim around the exterior doors. They haven't been done in about 5 years and they look like it.

Today has been a relatively productive day. Brianna, who is visiting for a while to get over the death of her cat, and I went to the Farmer's Market. While I know that buying local is a good idea, the prices there are not really competitive with the supermarket yet. I did buy some apricots. They looked much nicer than the ones at the stores. I may put some of them ipn the freezer to have this coming winter, if I can keep my husband out of them long enough for them to ripen enough. After the Farmer's Market, Bri and I stopped at Meijers, the store Neal works at. We picked up stuff for dinner plus corn and cherries for me to put in the freezer. I got 20 large ears of corn for $4 and spent the rest of the morning (and part of the afternoon) processing it for the freezer. Well, not all of it. Part of it is in the dehydrator. Brianna will take that with her when she and Adam go home tomorrow. I was still working on the corn when it was time to take Neal to work. Once I finished the corn, I went out to the garden and picked Sugar Snap Peas. They have also been processed and put into the freezer.
Deer have been invading my garden. They really seem to like the green beans I planted (nibbling off all the blossoms, the little Sh!ts) so I may have to buy beans to can this year. Most of my tomatoes are doing well, in fact, I should be able to bring in a couple of ripe ones tomorrow, if the deer leave them alone. I have some cabbage doing a good job of forming heads. My cucumber plants are full of blossoms so I may be canning pickles later this summer. I also have peppers coming on, so I should be able to do some salsa later too.

Right now, I'm tired and just want to sit and veg for a while. Of course, at the same time, my mind is reminding me of all the things I could be doing. I have basil that needs to be harvested... and oregano....and lemon balm. I should check on the strawberries and see if they have sent out any new runners. If they have, I need to set them in small plastic cups of dirt until they root, so I can plant them where I want them. Maybe I'll do some of those things when I take the cobs and silks from the corn out to compost. The husks I'm saving. I want to try making tamales with some of them. As for the rest, I've been reading stories that mention some of the things the Native Americans from the East Coast used corn husks for and I want to try some of these things out. Woven baskets, braided ropes, that kind of stuff.

Nearly noon and I've been kinda busy today. I have carrots, corn, peas, beans and apple slices in the dehydrator. These will be going with my Boy Scouts this weekend on a backpacking trip. They plan on catching their own dinner while they are out, and I'm sure they will.... but just in case, I want them to have some extra food along. I'll be sending the ingredients (dried) for vegetable soup.

Saturday, my husband and I power washed one of the decks in the back yard. Looks a whole lot cleaner now. I guess we are going to have to stain it before we seal it, aged treated lumber is not my favorite look. I loved the pale brown it was when it was first put in, but we didn't get it sealed in a timely fashion and it has faded, a lot. We also started painting the metal deck furniture. Bill didn't like the cream color it was when we bought it. We are painting it Hammered Copper (yay, Rustoleum). We worked on the table Saturday, were going to do the chairs yesterday, but I got sick (boo, hiss), so I'm working on it today.

I picked up more plants to put in my garden on Saturday, even got some planted before I got called away to work on the deck. I have all the vegetables that I wanted/needed put into the garden, but I still have some room left for more. I have more tomatoes to go in, maybe today.
All I can find left at the store is tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I can't eat peppers and Bill won't eat eggplant, so it made the decision on what to buy really easy.

I did take my husband out to dinner yesterday to celebrate Father's Day. I'd had a sinus headache most of the day, but I really got sick during dinner. I had spent most of the morning running errands and the afternoon puttering around Took Neal to work at 2. Bill decided that he wanted to go to dinner at around 4. We went to Rico's, a pizza place/restaurant real close to home, one of his favorite places. Anyhow, most of my dinner came home with us. We got home from dinner about 5 and I crashed on the couch. Concerned husband went straight to the bedroom (where his computer is) and disappeared into his favorite game. I slept. Neal got let off work about an hour early (10 as opposed to 11) and, fortunately, I was feeling well enough to go get him. Neal finished off my dinner, said it was pretty good.

7:30 in the morning and I've already been out playing in the garden. It's nice and quiet, since the husband and the son are still in bed. So far today, I've cut rhubarb and got it cleaned and into the freezer. My big old rhubarb plant is getting old and not producing the way it used to, so I'm glad I've got 4 new ones planted in a raised bed now. Of course, part of the problem could be that this is the first year I've used raised beds instead of tilling up a whole garden (the old rhubarb is on the back edge of the garden) so weeds and grasses are trying to choke it out. Also, without the clue of the garden, my husband mowed a bit too close to it earlier this spring. I've also picked my salad for tonight's dinner. I have mesclun mix planted in an old wooden half barrel near my decks. It's doing quite well, well enough that I think I'll have to pick some of it daily. No worries there, if we don't eat it all each day, it can go into my dehydrator and become veggie powder to be added to meatloaf and/or soups and such. I also got my first picking of oregano today. It's been wash, bound together with a rubber band and hung to air dry in my garage. I have way more oregano than I'll probably ever use coming on. I'll probably make a paste with some (olive oil, salt and oregano). It's great on steaks, but who can afford steak these days. Some of the oregano will be frozen, some will be dried (even though I haven't finished LAST years dried oregano) and some will be turned into fine smelling tinder for fires. Yes, I do have that much of it.

Garden - The weather has been a bit cooler in June than it was in May, thank goodness. The zucchini that I had to replant is coming along fine. I've also planted Butternut squash and Acorn squash. Still have a variety of Pattypan squash to put out, but since I want to use that mostly as young small bite-size squash, it's ok that it's going in soooo late. My peas and beans are up. My container tomatoes (heirloom varieties) that I keep up near the house are all looking good, at least one of them is starting to set fruit. I still have some plants to set out. I'm also working on weeding and cleaning up the flower beds out front. I've got tons of irises to move. My older beds of daffodils and tulips didn't produce anything this year, I think they got crowded out by the weeds. (My energy levels are still not what I'd like them to be...... and I'm afraid that I'd rather put my limited energy to working with edible plants than with ones that are just pretty.) I have some strawberries to harvest (first year plants and I picked off most of the blossoms, but some escaped me), rhubarb that needs to be cut, currants and blueberries are starting to come on too.

Crafts - Lately I've been working on a crocheted afghan most of the time. It's single crochet, using two strands of yarn, one white, the other, whatever comes to hand in my bag of small balls of scrap yarn (left from other projects). I hate to waste anything and there isn't enough left in these small balls for even the smallest of projects. Other than that, I've got a couple of cross-stitch projects going that I work on when the spirit moves me. The other thing I'm doing, craftwise, is deconstructing old blue jeans. I plan on using the material to make ground pad/covers to be put in the troop trailer for my Boy Scouts to use (when/if they fail at the "Be Prepared" part of scouting). I'm lucky. I now have an 'in' with one of the local thrift stores and can buy the jeans that are not in good enough condition to sell to the public for a quarter a pair.

Garden - Not too much has been happening. It's just been too hot to put new plants out. Went camping last weekend with my Boy Scouts and, since it rained a little Friday, my husband figured that he didn't have to water the plants (as he said he would). I will have to re-plant zucchini, it ALL died. My new mint plants aren't looking too good either. Today is supposed to be cooler, so maybe I can get stuff planted today

Cooking - Today, I am trying to figure out something to do with leftovers from the campout. Have leftover pot roast and pork chops (cooked) that I put in the freezer Sunday when I got home from camping. The roast was slow simmered in a Dutch oven, the chops were pan fried. I over-estimated what we would need for food (better too much than too little, right?). Only the Scoutmaster and I showed up at the end point, so we figured out what would 'hold' until another trip and divided up the rest. I got apples, oranges....... and a milk crate full of bread products, in addition to the meat. I've made croutons (2 gallon bags full), took about 1/3 of the bread for that. Currently, I'm making dried bread crumbs with the rest and will probably end up with about 3 gallons. The apples are in my dehydrator now

Camping with the Scouts - We take part every year in a program called Sturgeon for Tomorrow. Spring is the time for them to come into the rivers to spawn. We camp on the river near the spawning grounds. While we don't actively keep watch for poachers, having so many people in the woods does discourage that activity. So for us, it's a fun, play in the woods type of thing. We encourage the boys' families to come with us. This year, I almost wish we didn't because 2 of the parents had a major falling out and one family chose to leave early. Since one is an Assistant Scoutmaster and the other is the Troop Committee Chairman, there is no way I would discourage them from coming. Hopefully they will both act like mature adults and talk it out. I have talked to both of them. Both are still interested in continuing with the troop. One is willing to appologize, but the other will not take her calls, so I don't know how this is going to shake out.
Other than that, a great time was had by all. Three boys got through their Scoutmaster conferences, and 5 passed their Board of Reviews for rank advancement. So we need to have a Court of Honor soon to give them their patches.

Garden - Have the fences (for vine type plants) up in 4 of my raised bed gardens, got the mulch placed around my strawberries and have the wood chips in the paths between my raised beds partially done (underestimated what we would need, have to go get more). Still have a ton of plants and seeds to get in but won't really have time for that until Sunday or Monday since I'm going camping with my Boy Scouts this weekend

Boy Scouts - Yeah, camping this weekend. I have a list of how many are going, although some of them are still tentative (rolling my eyes here). Should be 24 or 25 of us. I'll be shopping this afternoon for the trip. Hoping we'll have a good time. I have one scout with a real bad attitude that doesn't want to go on the trip. He's going to be a pain. He's already asked me if he can bring his DS and spend the whole time in his father's air-conditioned car playing on it. Yes, his father is another of the assistant scout masters.... and would let him do it. Going to have a lot of trouble getting this kid to pull his weight and do his fair share of the work. He knows that if he whines enough his dad will do it for him.

Gardens - Today was a good day, sunny but not too hot. Saturday is also the day to visit the local farmer's markets. I went to the one in downtown Traverse City first, picked up 4 heirloom tomato plants and some lettuce plants. Then I visited Skegemog Farms, one of our new farmer's markets, picked up some Chocolate Mint, Pineapple Mint and cherry tomato plants.
My husband helped me finish filling the raised beds we built last summer and put up the fence poles to put up the vining crops on. We planted a Gooseberry bush in the center of my two tiered stone planter, put the lettuce plants into the half whiskey barrel planter and transplanted some zucchini.

Cooking - I didn't cook today. I picked up Little Caesars pizza for lunch. Since we couldn't agree on what toppings, we bought 3 pizzas plus bread sticks. Bill (husband) wanted Italian Sausage, Neal (son) wanted ham..... and I wanted mushroom. Warmed up pizza is what's on the menu for dinner

Crafts - The time I planned on working on crafts today was put to use by me taking a nap. Maybe I'll have time to work on a cross-stitch or an afghan tonight. Although I still have a flannel shirt to deconstruct for material to make ground pad/coverlets for my Boy Scouts

Boy Scouts - Didn't actually do anything today that relates specifically to them. We do have a camping trip coming up next weekend, so I need to get back to work on typing up (entering to the MasterCook program on my computer) more Dutch Oven/Camping recipes for them to plan their menus from. We are going north next week to take part in the Sturgeon for Tomorrow program. The big fish are in the rivers spawning and we will be on Sturgeon Guard, trying to prevent people from poaching.

The Patient - I was diagnosed in late October 2006 with leukemia. It's currently in remission. Chemotherapy... and all the other wonderful treatments I went through to get it into remission took a lot out of me.... and I still don't have the energy I once had (hence the afternoon nap after what I used to consider minimal activity).
Today was a pretty good day. Started the day with a bit of a sore throat, but it's gone now. Left knee hurts (had surgery on it last August) but it's tolerable.

Been a while since I've posted anything. Guess that shows how interesting my life is.