Summer Vacation Fun

This morning, Charlie headed back to school after a two week vacation. His solid "B" average last term was a huge encouragement to him as he got ready to take on the new challenges before him. This term, they will be building an actual house, so he can learn about reading blueprints, framing, trim work, etc. I am getting really excited about all the new skills that he is learning. He is going to have a lot of projects here on the home front in the near future.

The Little Girl and I are marking today much as we do most of our days. Playing, reading, learning sign language, cleaning, and doing "homestead" type chores (gardening, canning, etc.). Today we are listening to Beowulf on audio book, cooking down some spaghetti sauce for canning, working on day 2 of our 7 day pickles,

Big girl enjoying S'mores and a bonfire at the Farm.

doing our weekly cleaning, and trying to learn how to sign cheese. The latter is proving to be a bit challenging as "grapes," "milk," "more," and "please" are much easier, but we are having more luck than "crackers" which might be a lost cause. We shall see. She has surprised me more than once.

Favorite pastime? Reading (and mischief)

The garden is really starting to produce the harvest that we had been praying to get from it. So far, we have had almost 60 pounds of tomatoes from it, and there are lots of green tomatoes still waiting to ripen. I can only imagine how much more we would have right now if one of the varieties (accounting for 4 plants) had not proven to be susceptible to blossom end rot. It has proven to be quite the learning experience though because researching its cause and cures has resulted in lots of new information that I never would have gotten otherwise. We have really been enjoying the different flavors from the various heritage tomatoes that we planted and definitely have a few favorites. Ok, they are all delicious. I get that they are often less

Camping at Perot Park

uniformly pretty than the grocery store varieties, but there is no comparison when it comes to the flavors. If I had been able to get tomatoes this delicious my whole life, I probably would have eaten a lot more of them.

We have been starting to taste test some of the canning recipes that I have been finding to determine which ones make our family cook book. After my first attempt at sweet pickles, I have decided that I will only make a single batch of an untested recipe. Instead of doing three batches of all different recipes, I used the one that sounded like it would work the best. Well, learn and do better next time. 

Last but not least, our Little Girl has finally decided that walking might be a better mode of transportation than crawling. It has taken months of cruising along furniture and our holding her hand as she walks, and we are finally to the point where she will crawl to within two steps of her goal, stand up, and make the final push upright. We still are not to fully walking about the house, but I am certain that it will come soon.

We hope that everyone else has had a wonderful summer as well. God bless!