Snowballs Have a Better Chance Than I Thought

It is so satisfying to walk along the garage shelves and see the colorful jars of homegrown, home-canned food sitting there waiting for me to pick them up and serve them to my family. All my planning and efforts and hard work are preserved and on display for me to enjoy all year long. Eating the fresh produce from my garden is gratifying too, but nothing delights me more than the jars of goodness on my garage shelves.

Goal #1 for my garden this year was to grow beets and pickle them. And Saturday I accomplished that goal. Even if it was only 6 pints and 1 quart's worth. Not enough to last me a whole year, but a decent start. And I still have more beets growing out there. And I'm planning on planting more. My spinach has all gone to seed in the hot weather, so I need to rip it out and plant more beets. I love pickled beets. Adelia does too. She and I could sit around eating them straight out of the jar like candy. I think we are the only two in our family who like them, but we are just fine with that. That's more beets for us!

Goal #2 was to experiment with trellises. I've already mentioned that our peas were not very successful, but that wasn't the trellis's fault. The squashes are doing pretty well so far, I have one little tiny cantaloupe growing, and my hubbard squash and mini pumpkin plants have flowers. But they seem to be growing up their trellises just fine. I do need to figure out a solution for squash bugs though, any suggestions?

 But the trellis I've been most anticipating since I decided to try it clear back in February, is my bean tepee. Just because it's so freaking cool. :) It's decorative as well as functional. Well, the beans have fully filled in the tepee on the right, and they aren't far from doing the same on the left. This is my first year growing pole beans instead of bush beans. I like it better so far. Plus, there are PURPLE beans growing. How cool is that? I mean, I knew purple beans were supposed to grow, that's what I planted. But something about seeing a real-life, actual purple bean just makes me happy. I picked a bowl full this afternoon to have with dinner. (They are supposed to turn green when you cook them, which is slightly disappointing, but still, PURPLE beans!!)

The bees are having a party in my squash flowers.

Squash trellis

Baby cantaloupe

The apple tree I have is a 3-in-1, meaning it grows three different varieties of apple on one tree. Cool. I can't remember what the kinds are though. BUT, one of the kinds is ripe. :) Yesterday the kids and I picked two grocery sacks full of apples. By afternoon I had turned them into 5 quarts of applesauce and 16 half pints of apple butter. Not bad for a day's work, eh?  And that was only about 1/3 of the apples on the tree. Plus it made my house smell like fall. Oh, how I wish it were fall. If I could time hop, it'd be into about the middle of October. However, since that isn't a possibility, I'll keep working at my garden and my little boys' room renovations to keep my mind and my hands occupied until Cal gets here. Remind me again what I was thinking deciding to be pregnant for an entire summer. 

Today's harvest from the wanna-be homestead. The tomatoes are starting to trickle in. Bring it on!

The good news is, I went to the Dr this morning and everything is looking good. I'm 31 weeks and some change. Heart rate is good. Measurements are good. Blood sugar tests came back good. We're down to visits every two weeks now. I'm having a debate in my mind about our name. Not about changing it, just about shortening it. The original plan was to name him Calvin, but always call him Cal. That seemed simple enough, tons of people do that. I've never heard anyone refer to my father-in-law as Charles, always Chuck. And my Gran is the only one who ever calls my mom Tamilynn, everyone else calls her Tam or Tami. But everywhere I go, family members and friends, and even my Doc keep referring to the baby as Calvin. Which isn't horrible or anything, but I want the baby to be Cal. His name is Cal, I feel very strongly about that. Stronger than I've felt about any other of my kids' names when they were still in the womb. So I'm debating about just putting Cal Tanner Swan on the birth certificate and having that be the end of it. Calvin can be his long nickname. Do people even do that? Have a longer nickname than their actual name? I don't know. I haven't run this idea past Aaron yet. And maybe I'm just over-thinking it, and once he's born and we only call him Cal everyone else will catch our drift. 

Oh yes, and lastly......

Hell froze over and we adopted two kittens. They don't hold still for pictures.

If you had asked me what the chances were of us ever becoming cat owners, I would have told you about the same as a snowball's. I guess snowballs have a better chance than I thought, because we have not one, but TWO kittens. Pearl and Remus. They are strictly outdoor cats. Their purpose is to catch the voles that have been eating plants out of my garden. I guess when it comes down to it, cats are better than putting out poison when you have little kids running around all over your yard. Pearl is a girl Calico. Adelia picked out her and her name. (And I thought Pearl was pretty mild for Del, haha!) And Del has been in mothering, cat heaven, ever since. Poor Pearl has barely set foot on the ground in the two days she's been here because Del keeps carrying her around everywhere. Remus is gray and white striped and has really cool gray eyes. I picked him. The boys named him. We all decided he looked sort of like a werewolf, and since my boys are big on Harry Potter, Remus seemed the obvious choice. They spend a lot of time under our shed....probably trying to escape from Adelia.

We're turning into a real farm, I guess...we've got 14 animals, 6 fruit trees, and a large garden to show for it so far. Now if I can just talk Aaron into a milk cow it'll all be settled...:P