Bumper Crop!

Asparagus Beans as long as your arm.

Cucumbers

Tomatoes from Louallen Farms

Green tomatoes and peaches from Louallen Farms

I can't believe it's time to put the garden to bed.  The time always goes by so fast.  This years garden gave us a bumper crop, for sure.  We had more to eat and share than we usually do. It was a wise decision to not try and grow the tomatoes this summer.  It's so easy to just drive a mile out of town to Louallen's Farm where you can pick tomatoes and peaches.  The best part of summer is eating fresh veggies every day.  It's a really rewarding feeling.  I'm already thinking of what I want to grow next Spring/Summer.  Even though I will miss the garden, I'm looking forward to not having to tend the garden for the rest of the summer.  I know before I can turn around, I will be winterizing the yard and spending my days inside, looking back at how we had a great garden and enjoyed the third season of the year.

The Honey Kitchen

After a trip to Walmart for more jars

Melanie filling the jars

Beautiful golden honey

Jars and jars of honey

Ben pouring more honey into the bucket with the spout

Cutting the honey comb out of the frame

Honey comb with honey still inside

After lunch, it was time to fill the honey jars!!!  Two of the frames had beautiful light golden honey in them.  Ben said it was probably from when the fruit trees were blooming around the neighborhood, this Spring.  The rest of the honey was much darker.   All of it tasted wonderful!  What a fun experience we had being a part of the honey harvest.  Thank you Melanie, Ben and Josh for letting us be a part of it all.

Buzzzzz.......Honey Harvest

Chuck helps get them suited up

Ben smokes the hive

frames full of honey

cutting the plugs off of the honey comb.  

While we were at Melanie's last weekend, we were honored to be a part of the annual " Honey Harvest".  Melanie has a hive in her back yard.  Yep...right there in a neighborhood of Birmingham.  Ben, Melanie's brother who lives down the street also has hives.  Every summer, they harvest the honey.  Tons of honey!!!!  This year it was over 6 gallons of honey.  I didn't count the jars but they covered a five foot able in the middle of Melanie's kitchen.
  Chuck helped suit up a friend of Ben's who was there to help.  Chuck was just there to watch but in the end, he helped Josh get the honey out of the frames.  First they cut off the plugs at the ends of the honey comb with a hot knife.  Then, they put the frame in a spinner and it spins the honey out.  This all took a good part of the morning.  Melanie served lunch on her pretty back porch to everyone.  Then, her and I set out to put all the honey in the jars.  Jars and jars of beautiful honey! Thank you to all of the bees that live in Melanie and Ben's back yards.

Plum/Cherry Jelly...Oh My!

Another batch of jelly!  This time it's Plum/Cherry.  While we were in Birmingham last weekend, Melanie's sweet neighbor asked if anyone wanted some plums from her tree.  Of course I said " yes"!  I've been wanting to make plum jelly for a couple of years now.   So, one day last week, I set in to make plum jelly.  Only to find out, after cooking down the plums for the juice, I didn't have enough.  As my brain was searching what to do, I remembered I had a jar of tart cherries in the pantry.  Ta Da!!  enough juice for one batch of jelly!  Plums and cherries go really well together.  It ended up being my favorite of all the jams and jellies that I have made this summer.  Well, the blackberry jelly is pretty high on the list too.

Happy Birthday USA!

I can't believe that it's July 4th already!  It was just Christmas a couple of months ago.  Where is this year going?  I'll have to start thinking about Christmas again before I know it.....sigh!  We certainly have enjoyed the summer so far.  The garden has produced enough food for an army.  We have been blessed with a cold front for a few days and have been able to enjoy the nice cool weather with the windows open in the house. Chuck had a nice trip to Florida to visit with his Dad, family and friends.  I had a wonderful long weekend in Birmingham with some of our Alabama family.  Now, we're going over to the BNOE to celebrate July 4th with a cookout and we're taking our ice cream maker....yep the same ole 43 year old, hand crank one.  Everyone takes a turn or you don't get any ice cream.  Since we picked peaches this last week, it's going to be peach ice cream!!!!  Nothing says July 4th to our family more than making homemade ice cream!!!! Just wish our whole family was here to make it with us.  Maybe next year.

1930's Kitchen Table

The extended end

I have been looking for a new kitchen table that is big enough for four people but yet not too big to fit in our breakfast area.  A couple of weekends ago, Michelle came down to go with me to pick Chuck up from the Birmingham airport and to celebrate Father's Day, a week late, since Chuck was in Florida with his Dad and Ryan.  We had a free Saturday so we headed to Huntsville to a place that Michelle had been wanting to go to for awhile now.  It's called " University Pickers".  It is booths of all kinds of neat stuff.  Lots of things that you see on Pinterest.  As, Michelle went around the corner, I hear her say..." I've found your kitchen table"!!!  Sure enough.  There it was!  A 1930's blue/white kitchen table with four chairs.  What was really neat about it was, at each end of the table there are these little pieces of wood that pull out and hook under the table to extend the table another 16 inches.  It was just perfect for our kitchen .....AND....it was already painted blue/white!!!!  We are now proud owners of a 1930's ( my favorite period) kitchen table!!!!