Weekly Update: 8.2.26
Of pickles and baby beds
It’s August — hot, sticky, and beautifully green this year. We have been getting up extra early every day to work outside before the heat gets too intolerable. I always feel better when I see the sun come up, even if it’s only watching the light seep into the house through the windows while I brew the coffee and start the laundry.
We spent our mornings in the garden almost every day. I can’t believe how much our vegetables are flourishing. Despite a rough beginning to our gardening year, everything seems to be catching up and producing beautifully.
Our cucumbers and summer squash have been particularly prolific. The okra has struggled the last few weeks but seems improved since I applied some fish fertilizer last Monday. We have canary melons, watermelons, and kajari melons all green on the vine. All of our winter squash is flourishing — and we even have a few early ornamental pumpkins turning yellow already.
Processing all of our garden produce has been it’s own job. We’ve been blending and freezing basil with olive oil, then thawing it out to make pesto spreads and marinades. We’ve been eating squash dishes daily.
We made our first batches of pickles this week — three containers of cucumbers and one of hot banana peppers. These were refrigerator pickles, which we prefer — they are always more crisp and less salty than canned. Still, we plan to can several batches later in the season.
On Tuesday, we helped our brother Levi build a floating bedside sleeper for his new baby, which is due next week. His wife Erin had some ideas of what she wanted, and we adapted those pictures to use materials we already had on hand. It was a simple project that turned out super cute. It was special getting to be a part of the project. We are all so excited to meet our new niece.
While we’ve been busy, Bonnie-Jean’s puppy has been growing every day. As of this week, Caramel (as we’ve been calling her) has been sitting up, looking around, and walking to people. Both adults and kids have been spending a lot of time playing with her. And of course, her mama Tilde gives her non-stop attention.
Yesterday, we had the nicest weather we’ve had in weeks. It made me yearn for fall, even though I’m really not ready to say goodbye to summer quite yet. I sipped chai tea while harvesting cucumbers and tomatoes, enjoying the breezy cloudy day. In the afternoon, we ran some errands. While we were out, we finally picked up the Quikrete to start pouring our porch roof footings. We had planned to start that project earlier in the summer, but with so much sickness and health issues, we just didn’t get it done.
It was a more productive week than we’ve had in awhile. It feels good to be making visible improvement around our homestead almost daily. It’s satisfying to sit down to meals that are almost entirely home grown. After weeks of feeling very stuck, it is a relief to be moving forward again. I’m hopeful that we can start checking projects off of our to-do list again this next week. While the hard summer has been discouraging at times, I am trusting in the truth that God knows what is good for us. He will give us the time and ability to accomplish what He wants us to. And no matter how crazy life feels, that reality is more than enough reason for hope.