Can You Believe that September is Already Here??

Hello Blogland, This is your long-lost blogger, Cranberry Morning. I decided that even though I've not been out getting new photos with my real camera, I'll put up a few pics that I took with my not-so-smart phone.

That fencing you see above is the gate to our garden. The brick is standing in the gap between the post and the gate to try to keep out the bunnies. It seems to work relatively well.

I  have about a dozen tomato plants, but they're determinates so they are all getting ripe at about the same time. (Determinates or determinants?)  I'd really like to open-kettle can them. Does anyone still do that? I know that the County Extension Office strongly advises against it because the 'new' hybrid tomatoes are not as acidic as the 'heirloom' tomatoes were. But if I add a tablespoon of lemon juice to each quart, can't I still open kettle? It would be so much more convenient, because at this point I'm not hauling heavy things up and down (where there's a second range) the stairs, and my kitchen range on the main floor is a ceramic top, so I don't want to use the pressure canner on it. I've heard that they can crack from the sustained heat of canning. Okay, you're right, I'm rambling, and it's not your problem. Sorry.

 Terrible photo, nice dog.

Jazzie is back for a visit. This afternoon she was out in the front yard sniffing the breeze. She's got a smorgasbord out there and is loving it.

Above is the view to the southeast from our front porch. I know I tend to put too many photos of views from our porch or our back deck on Instagram, but I happen to love those views, and besides, if I came across something better, I'd be sure to share to post that too.

At the end of last month, we were at our daughter's home, celebrating the SIXTH birthday of Henry. What a fun kid. What a Lego lover! What a Minecraft lover!  Anyway, it seems impossible that it's been six years since that little guy was born.

This was Henry on his introduction to winter, back in 2010. That's kinda how I feel about winter, Henry.

Can I ever publish a post without a barn? Not usually. And I like the star on the front of this one. I hope everyone has been well and enjoyed a great summer. My summer was non existent, so I'm going to try to make the most of autumn and hope that it lasts about six months.

Trying to ease back into Blogland.. maybe.

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Autumn Collage - From Our House

Just thought I'd post a few photos of autumn in our backyard. I love September, but there is a slight sense of impending doom as the weather gets colder and we get frost warnings.

September 15, 36 degrees

This is the best way I know of to prevent frost. If I go to all the trouble to cover the vegetables in the garden and the flowers in the yard, chances are really good that the temp won't drop below 33.  I've got to get the houseplants back into the house in the next week or so and I'm wondering where on earth I'll put them. They have enjoyed being outdoors for the summer, and I've enjoyed the extra space without them. Now it's time to bring them in where we'll all huddle together for the long winter ahead. They do remind me of growth and life and hope. That's why I bring them in. each fall.

Rudbeckia Reflections

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This post may be linked to one or more of the following: Mop it Up Monday  and Get in My Tummy and  Cure for the Common Monday and  Clever Chicks Blog Hop and  Barn Charm and  The Marketplace  and  Mix it up Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and    Making the World Cuter Mondays and Make the Scene Monday and  Something I Whipped Up Monday and  Motivate Me Monday and  Making Monday Marvelous and Get Your Craft On and Efforts and Assets and   You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Knick of Time Tuesday and  Creative Showcase and Memories by the Mile and Crafty Texas Girls and  Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday and  Take a Look Tuesday and  Tasty Tuesday  and Love Bakes Good Cakes and Mom on TimeOut  and Adorned from Above and Wildcrafting Wednesday and   Cast Party Wednesday and  We Did it Wednesday  and Whatever Goes Wednesday and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday  and The Girl Creative, Thursday and  Creative Things Thursday and Be Inspired and Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Friday Fences and  Thursday's Inspiration and  The Self-sufficient Home Acre and  I'm Lovin' it Thursday and Creative Things Thursday and   Mandatory Mooch   and Foodie Friends Friday and Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Get Schooled Saturday  and Inspiration Friday(ThursNite) and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and Share Your Creativity and Weekend Reflection and   A Favorite Thing Saturday and Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday and  Market Yourself Monday and  Saturday Nite Special

September Gardens

September Pickin's

There is a reason I like to take photos. Although our vegetable and flower gardens start out pretty lovely in May and June, by the time September gets here, they're far from perfect. In fact, to be honest, the vegetable garden is a depressing weed patch right now. What often happens is this:  Springtime finally arrives after a long winter and we can hardly wait to get into the garden and plant those seeds we ordered from the many gorgeous, alluring seed catalogs that come in the mail in mid winter.

After we plant, the garden looks beautiful. I eagerly and joyously water and wait. I am optimistic. My optimism is encouraged by the sweet little plantlets that push their way through the soil, reaching for sunshine.

Things go along pretty well until...

 we get to really hot weather when the plants 'bolt' and the weeds spring up about 2 feet nearly overnight. At that point, it is suddenly overwhelming and depressing. We've got blight on the tomatoes, leaf wilt on the squash, the beans are tough because of the hot weather, the strawberries are tiny, and the peas had about a week of good weather. Right now? We've got a serious rain shortage. That's the reality of the vegetable garden - especially this year.

BUT,  I can pick a few of those luscious tomatoes that survived the blight, a few sprigs of lavender, some asters, a few rudbeckia, and a twig or two of high bush cranberries. When I set them all together, I can zoom in with my camera and see just what I want to see, weed free. It's amazing how cheering that is. I love the color and the many textures and am so grateful that I can see and smell those beautiful gifts from our Creator - which He generously gives to even me, a sometimes disgruntled gardener.


And there's always next year.

How was your garden this year?

By the way, the tomato was delicious!

***

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This post may be linked to one or more of the following: Mop it Up Monday  and Get in My Tummy and  Cure for the Common Monday and  Clever Chicks Blog Hop and  Barn Charm and  The Marketplace  and  Mix it up Monday and Make it Pretty Monday and    Making the World Cuter Mondays and Make the Scene Monday and  Something I Whipped Up Monday and  Motivate Me Monday and  Making Monday Marvelous and Get Your Craft On and Efforts and Assets and   You're Gonna Love it Tuesday and Creative Showcase and Memories by the Mile and Crafty Texas Girls and  Tweak it Tuesday and  Coastal Charm Tuesday and  Take a Look Tuesday and  Tasty Tuesday  and Love Bakes Good Cakes and Mom on TimeOut  and Adorned from Above and Wildcrafting Wednesday and   Cast Party Wednesday and  We Did it Wednesday  and Whatever Goes Wednesday and  All Things With Purpose and Home & Garden Thursday and It's a Party at Creative Princess and Artsy Corner Thursday  and The Girl Creative, Thursday and  Creative Things Thursday and Be Inspired and Time Travel Thursday and Thrifty Things Friday  and  Friday Fences and  Thursday's Inspiration and  The Self-sufficient Home Acre and  I'm Lovin' it Thursday and Creative Things Thursday and   Mandatory Mooch   and Foodie Friends Friday and Freedom Fridays and From the Farm and   Anything Blue Friday and Junkin' Joe and  Serenity Saturday and Get Schooled Saturday  and Inspiration Friday(ThursNite) and Vintage Inspiration Friday and Photo Friday and Share Your Creativity and   A Favorite Thing Saturday and Sunny Simple Sunday and Sunlit Sunday and  Market Yourself Monday and  Saturday Nite Special

Getting Ready to Can Tomatoes

 

These two egg baskets were given to me by a generous neighbor when we first moved to this place, several years ago. They make great garden baskets. I avoid piling the tomatoes too high, so that they don't get bruised by the weight of the others. This morning's picking required both baskets. The tomatoes aren't fully ripe yet, but I don't like to leave them on the vine until they are dead ripe, for there seems to be a lot that can go wrong with them. I pick them a tad early and set them out on the picnic table to finish ripening.

Right now my cherry tomatoes (or grape, or whatever they are) seem to be ripening all at once. I like to eat those right from the vine, warmed by the sun. We should live on salads for the next week, and I'll try to forget that box of Seroogy's dark chocolate truffles that's sitting on my desk.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be spending Saturday canning tomatoes. This year I'll be obedient and add the lemon juice to my tomatoes so that the county (and state) extension office personnel don't have to try to make a plausible argument, yet again, why it makes sense that green beans don't need added citric acid when being canned for the same amount of time and same pressure as tomatoes.

♫It's the debate that never ends.♪♪

***

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Various and Sundry Monday

Passing time in the lanai

I love the collage look of this photo I took at Eric's house last summer. I'm hoping to get down to Westby again soon to see him and the town and the countryside and the Amish and... It is a beautiful part of Wisconsin!

 At the Westby Park

In the Driftless Region of Southwest Wisconsin

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This week is VBS at our church. I don't know why craft ideas seemed like such a struggle this year. Hopefully we've come up with some things the kids and their parents will enjoy.

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Misty is now blind, and although I try very hard not to step on her (as she's lying right at my feet at almost all times day or night) it's not easy! I have tripped over her a few times, and she has run into me more than once in her frantic effort to stay within 2 square feet of wherever I am.

 You can see how easy it is to cook dinner.

And no kidding, most of the time I try to stand in that little triangle of space, rather than making her move. Drives Kevin crazy!

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The weeds in the garden have reared their ugly heads. I don't know why I thought it should be any different from any other year. My strawberry plants are gorgeous, although the berries had something seriously wrong with them. Maybe they got too much rain.  At the stem end they're great, but they seem stunted beyond that, with a ton of seeds at the bottom. Very odd berries. To make matters worse, although I put a net over the tops of the rows to protect them from the robins, many of the berries have little bite marks at the bottom. Someone out there likes those seeds. Are all the mice on the farm having a strawberry feast at night?? It must be Murphy's Law of Gardening: There's something out there to kill anything you may want to plant.

Okay, these few berries are the exception, I realize.

I watched 'Babe' last night for the first time. It was Mary's mention of the movie that inspired me. What a sweet movie! What a pig!  I kept expecting Charlotte to appear and start weaving a web above him.  Loved those Border Collies!

Time for the annual  bi-weekly vacuuming of the dog hair.

Hope you all have a good week!

 

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Garden Fashion, Carpet Mulch, & the Grandsons

I have three 'good' pairs of jeans and I refuse to wear them to the garden. When I looked in my husband's closet, however, I saw stacks (yes, plural!) of old jeans that he's worn on construction jobs, which invariably results in giving them grease, grime, and permanent stains.

With a little help from a Sharpie, I think I've pretty much ensured that he won't be wanting to wear these particular jeans to work again. What do you think? :-)

If I were younger, it could be a little depressing that I can wear my husband's jeans.  As it is, I'm just glad I could find a pair of jeans and successfully liberate them from his closet. Although they're full of mastic stains, the plants won't care. And what I care about is that they don't have holes in the knees. They're perfect!

These crazy things are parsnips. They're volunteers from parsnips that went to seed last fall. I'll have to see if they actually amount to anything under the ground. We love parsnips, so it would be nice if they did.

I can't wait to be picking berries and making strawberry shortcake! I think I'll cover the rows with a netting, for this year I have no desire to share them with the robins.

My carpeted garden. Not everything is in yet, so not all the carpet is laid down between the rows. All the green stuff to the right is another thick row of parsnips. By the way, have you tried using carpet scraps between rows? I really like it, for when I have to kneel down to weed between plants, the carpet is soft on the knees. And it dries quickly after a rain. It makes a very effective 'mulch.'

2010, mid July

in the carpet garden

Summer is short, and we have to make the most of it. Around here, gardening has begun in earnest.

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Over Memorial Day weekend, our oldest son and the little grandsons were here with us. It is always fun to spend time with them. I have so many Soren-isms (from our 4 year old grandson) I'd like to share with you, but here are just a few, when he went for a walk with Kevin and me.

Upon seeing a butterfly on the driveway:

A buddo-fwy! It is full of buddo and it fwies. I wonder if there's a peanut-buddo-fwy.

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After we showed him an 'Indian Paintbrush' plant growing in the ditch, we told him we should take it back to the house and see if his daddy knew (remembered) what it was:


My daddy was in the owmie (Army).
But I don't know if he was in the Indian owmie.

***

That kid just keeps me smiling. And I won't even relate the discussion between the boys while we were having lunch at the picnic table.  It was hilarious. I'm sure that if I were a really good grandma, I wouldn't laugh at the 'mean' things they say to each other, but sometimes they just crack me up! And they're very creative, even when they're insulting one another. :-)

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The following two photos are the four year old and the eight year old, with the photos they specifically wanted posted on my blog:

 This is the 2 year old, who has already learned amazing survival skills.

Remember, he's got two older brothers!

Glenn, fishing in the garden pond while

Grandpa keeps a watchful eye.

***

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Paul Bunyan Carrots

It's a little late in the season, isn't it, but we just dug our potatoes and carrots today. We've had rain for several days, it seems, but today it's bright and sunny and the perfect day to get that job done. Also, a good idea to get them out of the ground before they're covered in a foot of snow.

My husband dug with the fork to loosen the soil and I pulled them out by the tops. We just laughed at how huge they are. I just realized that I should have placed some well-recognized object next to the carrots so you could get some perspective as to the size of these monsters.

I think the carrot on the left is about 10 inches long and 2 1/2 inches around at the top. The carrots in the photo above could feed a family of four for a week!

Right now, the remaining carrots are lying out on the garden carpet so the sun can burn the little carrot eyes so they don't start to grow roots after we've got them stored in sand. After last year's hairy carrots, I decided I should read up on what to do before storing them in sand.

The carrots pictured above are the variety Danver's Half-Long. My husband commented, 'Wow, can you imagine what the full-length ones are like??!  :-)

I think that's the last of the gardening for this year. Now we just hunker down and wait for the Big Snow.