backyard fun

yesterday, while i was doing some weeding and working in the garden, the girls were playing on our big picnic blanket next to me. all of a sudden, diane erupted in laughter and was giggling as hard as i've ever heard her giggle. i looked over to see madeleine wrestling with her. of course, instead of saving diane from her sister's loving, i went and got my camera.

i finally broke it up when madeleine started dragging diane across the blanket backward by her feet and then jumping on her and digging her elbow into diane's back. diane was still laughing and giggling, but i figured i'd break it up before it turned to tears. fortunately, she didn't seem any worse for the wear. who says that boys have the monopoly on wrestling?

some other pictures of the girls from the week:

eating solids

she has found her thumb now that we took away her binkie

starting to crawl

preserving summer

plums from our plum tree*

with us being gone for three weeks, our fruit trees producing rapidly, and simply having a much larger garden this year, i have a lot of fresh produce on my hands that i want to preserve. i have been busy, busy, busy this last week trying to find ways to keep the memory and taste of summer's bounty alive through the coming winter.

with the plums, i cut up a bunch and froze them to use for smoothies, but i also decided to try my hand at fruit leather - a new venture for me. i got some advice from my expert aunt and then decided that even though i didn't have everything i needed to really make it the way i wanted to that day, i would try a little sample by doing one batch in my oven overnight.

i pulled out my plum and banana fruit leather in the morning and it looked beautiful. until i tried to pull it off and realized that wax paper is not an appropriate substitute for seran wrap or parchment paper. whoops. i should have waited until i bought more seran wrap and borrowed a dehydrator from a friend.

they still look pretty, right?

i had a lot of basil that needed to be used, some fresh garlic left over from another recipe, and just the right amount of pine nuts in my pantry, so i decided to make pesto late one evening.

i froze it for later use, since we had already had some fresh pesto just a few nights before. i have heard of this method before but never tried it. it doesn't look too appetizing, but should taste fine. hopefully it works out. we only have fun shaped ice cube trays in our house, so i have triangle and stick pesto.

these are the berries i picked this week.

i canned some blackberry jam with them...

and made a delicious pie. my first pie, ever.

served up with a scoop of tilamook vanilla ice cream. delicious.

although this has nothing with preserving, this my latest favorite: a pear and pecan salad that i have probably eaten four times for lunch this week. it is a great summer salad. easy to make and impressive for guests. i have been eating it with poppy seed dressing instead of the dressing in the recipe, but that dressing is great, too.

it has been fun to try my hand at some different methods of food preservation that i haven't tried before and i am looking forward to making the most of my garden/tree situation this summer and doing some more into the fall. canning diced tomatoes and marinara sauce, canning and freezing peaches and pears, canning applesauce, drying apples, and a few other things are still on the list. we'll see how it goes. my children may mutiny before the season is up. i'm sure madeleine is sick of me putting her off "just a couple more minutes," while i try to finish cutting up more plums or whatever else i am working on. she'll thank me this winter?

*great photos courtesy of audrey's camera. she lost it at byu last week and thankfully, someone turned it in. i picked it up from campus for her and couldn't resist taking some great shots with it before returning it. thanks, audrey. i think i might need one of my own.

berry blunders

last year, i went to phelps farm and did some berry picking at the beginning of september. we had a great time and i slowly rationed out my freezer jam from it so that i just finished it in time to go pick and make some more.

phelps farm

last wednesday, beth, megan, robynn, and i headed back to the farm. we were a couple weeks earlier than last year because megan is going back to work, but we didn't think it would make that big of a difference. wrong.

there were hardly any raspberries to be found and the blackberries weren't too ripe themselves. we kept comparing it to last year and found this year to be wanting. last year, the berries were huge and ripe and easy to find and this year, they were scarce, tart, and we were battling flies and wasps for the ones that were ripe. not so fun.

sporting the latest in picking fashion

last year, i didn't wear the milk jugs on my belt because i was pregnant and couldn't wear one, but this year, i went for it. a much easier way to pick, albeit an unfortunate look.

randy kept diane so that i wouldn't have to worry about her while picking, but we decided that madeleine would enjoy picking and i brought her along. it wouldn't have been so bad if the berries were easier to find because she could have helped and eaten her own. instead, she followed me around, reaching into my milk jugs and eating the few berries i had picked (think blueberries for sal) and quickly tired of the outing altogether. about ten minutes into it, i turned around and she had stripped her shirt off, which she tends to do when she is frustrated.

hot and tired

finally, after a measly amount of raspberries and far less blackberries than i wanted, i gave in and went and sat in the car with madeleine until beth finished up.

madeleine, last year

look familiar?

but she's still cute

i came home and figured out just what exactly i could get out of my berries and ended up making jam and a blackberry pie.

we also had some vanilla ice cream with raspberries and chocolate syrup for dessert. i think i will be heading back in a couple weeks to try and get some more. i still want to make freezer jam, a cobbler, and freeze some for smoothies and to put in yogurt. we'll see.

friday workday

my mom has had wednesday workday for years - a day each week to quilt with her friend, trish. it has actually been on thursday for the past several years, but i still think of it as wednesday workday. the alliteration is nice.

a couple of months ago, when my sister, beth, and i were talking about maybe taking a quilt class together, trish and my mom came up with the much better idea of them teaching us to quilt instead. they are very experienced quilters, have learned a lot through the years, are great company, and volunteered to come to us, so of course, we took them up on the offer. friday was the best day for all of us to do it together and so, every other friday, we will be having our own friday workday.

the fabric i picked out for my sampler

we are going to be making a sampler quilt with them, one that allows us to learn several different quilting skills, depending on the square. about a month ago, we all went and picked out fabric together. this is quite the process for me (an oddity, given my generally decisive nature) and i finally came up with a group of fabrics that i really like. the fabric pictured at the beginning of the post is my focus fabric for the quilt.

cutting some strips of fabric

yesterday was our first workday. trish and my mom gave us tips on how to iron and press fabric (yes, they are two different things), showed us the ropes on cutting fabric, and then we calibrated our sewing with the machines we will be using to make sure that we are sewing a 1/4" seam. we also did a lot of chatting. we're good at that.

my fellow student

after our lesson, my mom pulled out a notebook and gave us our homework assignment: cutting out fabric for three squares (fence rail, log cabin, and nine patch) and sewing one of them. it's like i'm in school again. but much more fun.

i'll keep you updated on my school work.

bountiful harvest

after being out of town for three weeks, our fridge and pantry were very empty (i left them that way intentionally). i was dreading scrounging up something for dinner the night we got home. fortunately, although our pantry was empty after three weeks of our absence, our garden was full.* we made some homemade pesto with tomatoes and served it with veggies on the side. plums for dessert. delicious. i am busy preserving food right now and love seeing my garden in full swing.


*i did not leave my garden alone for three weeks, i had people watching it.

mccall - public beach

it was a little chilly

i was going through my photos and realized i forgot these ones of us at the public beach in mccall. this is really the last of the pictures from mccall.

carsten and calli

lainey being shy

madeleine had some plumber bum problems with this suit

bossing around the cavalry

madeleine: (yells something incoherent at me).
me: i can't understand you.
madeleine: (yells it again, this time with emphasis)
me: (guessing) you want to talk to me?
madeleine: (repeating with even greater emphasis)
me: you're in charge of me?
madeleine: yes. CHARGE! (runs at me)

i'm not sure where she learned this one, but i have a pretty good guess. austin and matthew are pretty good generals, after all.

mccall - boating

last year, my big regret with mccall was that we didn't get madeleine out on the boat. we put it off for a couple days and then the weather got so bad that we didn't get the boat back out. so, this year, i made sure to get madeleine on the boat.

she loved it, as you can tell.

kim and lainey

we went out on the boat with kyle, kim, carsten, and lainey while randy stayed home with diane.

lainey

carsten is hiding behind that barrier of life jackets.

randy and i also each got several ski runs in on this trip, but of course, didn't get any pictures of it. randy says that you only need one picture of yourself skiing during your lifetime. plus, i forgot the camera. but you can imagine how great we looked out there.