Bountiful Blessings

I have said before how much I love living in the country. This summer we were blessed with a great garden and even better family and friends who let us harvest out of their gardens as well. We have eaten fresh veggies and fruit all summer long and even been able to put some up for winter. Since deer season is upon us, I decided to take this afternoon and organize my freezer to make room for meat. I did not realize how much we actually had been able to put up from the garden until I looked at it all together!

This is our bounty:
42 quarts of corn cut off the cob
17 quarts of field peas
16 quarts of green butter beans
3 quarts of speckled butter beans
9 quarts of string beans
6 quarts of squash (It was a bad year for squash)
9 quarts of pears
3 quarts of peaches
29 quarts of okra

Wow, right!!! I was feeling great about this and then I remembered that I put up canned goods in the pantry. I checked there and discovered 20 quarts of tomatoes, 4 quarts of hot peppers, 3 quarts of green beans, and 31 jars of jam. The boys and I had a great time making jam this summer. We made peach, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, and my favorite...cinnamon fig. We have enough apples in the kitchen to make some apple jam this week. I would say we are pretty well set for the winter.
I have to give a BIG thanks to my Mom who was my canning partner this year. It sure makes the work go so much faster when you have someone to share the load. THANKS MOM!!!

Country Living

I picked green beans out of the garden this morning. I got about ten gallons. As I was snapping my beans this afternoon, I couldn't help but appreciate where we live. It makes me feel so good to know that I can pick vegetables out of the garden in the morning and feed them to my family that very same night. How much fresher can you get than that? It is also good to know exactly what chemicals were and more importantly were not used on them. I am able to freeze or can my excess vegetables to sustain us all year long and I am able to make all of Jonah's baby food just as I did with Noah. Not only is it good for them, it saves tremendously on the grocery bill. As I was sitting here contemplating how country life just has to be the absolute best, I got a phone call from Joe. He and Noah were on the tractor in the backyard by the little pond. Joe told me to get the rifle and bring it to him quickly. They had spotted a large rattlesnake sunning himself in our backyard. Now I didn't mind looking at the snakes at the zoo this weekend, they were safely ensconced in glass cages, but my backyard is a different story altogether. Noah and I were just out there last week pushing Jonah around in the stroller and searching for blackberries! As you can see from the photo, after a few shots, the snake was history. Sorry for the gore, but no one was getting close enough for a picture until I was absolutely sure that thing was dead! When all the excitement was over and I finally got back to snapping my beans, it was with a little different attitude. I guess there are drawbacks to living in the country. Very creepy ones at that. Even so, I would not trade it for the world!