Nothing but giggles

The worst guard dog in the world:

(But what a good boy!)

This week has been full on.

I have done 5 batches of tomatoes. Today I am going to make ketchup, and then we are going to call it good. I have never made ketchup before but the crazy lady across the road made 70 pints of the stuff last week. (Note that the crazy lady scross the road is my sister.) She had a bushel of tomatoes on her porch and begged me to take them, saying she was about sick of looking at tomatoes, having canned them in about every incarnation you could think of. 

I did not need those tomatoes. I have a crazy glut of them over here, and I am getting a bit sick of looking at them myself, but then I got the idea that if I took Anna's bushel and processed those, it would move me one step closer to about sick of looking at them. I am heading to my son's house next week. That is the perfect opportunity to foist my excess tomatoes off on my daughter in law so that she can get sick of looking at them too. 

Tomatoes. The gift that keeps on giving.

Anyways, when I went to get the tomatoes off my sister's porch, her husband sent me off with a jar of homemade ketchup. My husband had some at lunch time and loved the stuff. I have a juicer and so many tomatoes that I had no real excuse not to make a batch of it for him. But after that, I am done, well and truly. 

With tomatoes, anyhow.

It has gotten cool enough that I can start dehydrating. As the garden starts winding down, I pick the little dribs and drabs of the end of season stuff and dehydrating. All those dried vegetables go into a glass jar. Whenever I make vegetable soup, I just scoop out a couple scoops.

We finished the last birthday celebration Friday night. My oldest has turned 45. That celebration marked the last of the September birthdays, 4 in 3 weeks. 

In between that we are working on the old house. It will be sided in October. Once that is done, we will just close it up for the winter and resume work next spring. We are putting in replacement windows in the attic. Those 4 windows are the only windows that have not been replaced. The house has 26 windows, so that is a big deal. 

Saturday was a nice day. We protested (it is changing, people!) and then Tim needed to mow the lawn at the old house. I needed to go to the library to look up a death registration. So he headed off in the car, and I headed off on foot. A couple walking their dog recognized me as one of the people on the corner and we all offered encouraging words. 

After the library, I began the walk to the old house where Tim was. They must have been selling out a home business. They had new sweatshirts on sale for $5, 5 for $20. I only found 3 that would work, sad, but it was a good find to put away for Christmas. I was also pleased to find a large, heavy wok for $3. We like stir fries here and I have always used a big skillet. I will swap them out. 

I walked on carrying my wok and the folded sweatshirts and met a friendly dog and his human. She commented on my load, and I told her about the yardsale. I commented on her beautiful yard and she invited me in her gate to talk plants. She was moaning about an invasive ground cover which gets a pretty white flower. I said I would take that off her hands to plant along the banks on both sides of the walk leading to my basement door. 

A deal was struck, and I headed off walking with my wok, 3 sweatshirts, and a handful of starts for my ground cover.

I finally made it to the house. Tim was wondering where I'd gotten to. 

We needed to stop at a couple stores. Wouldn't you know, there were bargains there, as well. 25# bags of Miracle Grow potting soil for $3 (down from $9.48) and seed starting medium marked down from $5 to $1.87. The back of the Subaru began fill up. 

We had a satisfactory day indeed, and I came home to process another batch of darn tomatoes.