Long and Cool Friday Night

Here I am, sitting on the bench in the middle of downtown Tville, population 531, using the free wi-fi at the Vegan cafe. There's a thunderstorm trying to come in, I can hear the thunder rumbling. We could use the rain, everything is a bit dry around here right now. I've been watering the tire garden every other evening and missed one watering and it about killed the pumpkins and the meal corn. I hope they come back from it, I hate to lose them both.

It's tomato squishing time here. I've been running them thru the "salsa" maker to squish the seeds and skins off them and sticking the pulp in the freezer. I haven't canned up any of it yet, way too hot in the kitchen and the horse flies are too bad outside still. It's the same with the blackberries, the patches of wild berries are just about done now but the tame berries are just now starting to come on. I only have 8 gallons in the freezer, I haven't squished any of them for jam yet. I did make a couple cobblers but they didn't last long enough to get pictures of them. The vultures here don't even wait for it to cool off before they're diving on them! I always make sure I get a piece because there is never any left over the next morning.

Ya'll remember my neighbor up the road with cancer? The one that I was helping with the cattle all winter and where the calf I butchered came from. He passed away last weekend. I spent 2 days this week cutting and raking a hay field his farm hands messed up. They also managed to tear up his round baler and one of his cutters. I will be repairing those pieces of equipment for his widow sometime this coming week. I also fixed a couple of gates they threw down and ran over in between his pastures. The man was my friend and his family still ranks high in my book so I'm doing what I can to help them in this time of sorrow and need. It's the right thing to do.

The sweet corn is looking very good, much better than I expected with the late planting. I will be picking the first round of it this weekend. It will all be canned, what we don't eat fresh anyway, LOL. Oh, I have my first pot of home grown chili on the stove. The beans, tomatoes, onions and chilis were all grown here and the meat is deer I hunted. I have been missing my chili!

Everything else around here is still the same. Just trying to stretch the pitiful paycheck from week to week to cover our mortgage, insurance and taxes. The boy and I both need shoes. Guess we need to go pick up some cans....