In the Good Ol' Summertime

This summer was the busiest in a while, and I'd sometimes duck into a corner just to catch a breath.  Canning, fun, fun, picnics, canning, canning, swimming, fun, canning.  Such a bounty of food to store up for winter.  We normally put up over 300 quarts of food each summer, but this year topped them all, thanks to the tomatoes staring at us in heaps and mounds all over the kitchen.

Now that the wind has teeth again and the nip in the air is turning to a genuine bite, posting these snapshots seems surreal, but in honor of fresh herbs for farmer's cheese, fresh milk for mozzarella, fresh fruit and berries and vegetables for bellies and bags and jars, here they stand.

Little Lu was dwarfed by the corn, which wasn't surprising.

The giant okra, on the other hand, was a surprise.

 (Thank you, Blueberry Ben, for dozens of pounds of the most delicious free berries we've yet come across.)

 

 

Blueberries + limes = jam, you know.

Happy, happy cilantro-stripping serfs.

 

More mozzarella?

 Okay, Titi, so maybe this summer we surpassed the quota for oil-doused food, but there was so much zucchini just begging to be fried!

Some of our hens must've shared a gene pool, because we got a couple of double-yolked eggs every week (until the Second Grim Weasel Slaughter polished them all off a month ago, may it never be so again).

The stove became progressively sloppier as the season progressed, with a different kalaidescope of jeweled glass depending on the week.

A bright jolt of Tomato Red predominated, of course.

With a bit of purple thrown in for contrast...

Lovely, hm?

And the larger reality, yet more lovely. (Noisier, stinkier, and messier, too.)