July Jumble, #2

This summer, we had two litters of kittens born.  We did not discover either set of kittens until they were 2-3 weeks old.  One mama cat had 3 kittens, and the other one had 4.  

Anthony with the prized near-white kitten.

So cute!

Cat-hole into the shed.

Look at that little face peeking out!

Needless to say, the kids love it when there are kittens!

 The garden really began booming in July.

That is a ridiculous pile of cucumbers.

Shucking corn.

Beans headed to the freezer.

A pause for a week of Totus Tuus.  The four oldest attended.  Next year it will finally be Anthony's turn.

Performance at the Wednesday night potluck.

Who do you spy?

Anne front and center.

Back to the garden we go.

Scrub that corn!

Cucumbers and onions all sliced up and mixed in some salt.

Cooking in the big pot.

Bread and butter pickles.

July Jumble, #1

On the left: a normal large egg.  Poor hen who laid the egg on the right!

Our first green bean harvest.

Joseph liked the look of this fruit pizza!

Waiting in line for the Krispy Kreme special!

This little guy was attached to our front window one evening.

Girls' lunch out.

Look at all those beets!

Sorting by size.

Beets got boiled.

Rubbing off the skins.

Slicing with the mandolin.

Yummy pickled beets!

Sacks and sacks of cucumbers, oh my!

Pickled green beans, aka dilly beans.

Late July

The garden was producing:

Pickled carrots, a new one this year.

Bread and butter pickles on the left and dilly beans on the right.

A day of babysitting cousins:

Girls on the tractor.

Cousins in the sandbox.

The cool way to eat cucumbers.

Lounging.

Even the baby got a cuke.

Anthony looks huge!

A trip to a fun playground:

Fun at the park with friends.

This playground has the spiderweb.  They had been begging to go there all summer!

Early July

Who's hard at work under there?

Mr. Fix-It-Man Anthony!

We had fun at our friends' pool.

Cool fun on a hot day.

The first big picking of green beans.

Ready for the freezer.

One of the first of MANY cucumbers.

Catherine hard at work cracking eggs.

Anthony learned how to peel carrots from our garden.

Green Beans Galore!

I left out this picture from the June garden post.  I've picked a lot of green beans this summer.  We've been able to put 25 quarts in the freezer!

We Had A Good Green Bean Harvest

Here is a picture of the kids cutting the stems off some green beans.  Catherine got to use a sharp knife, but the rest of them used butter knives.  I'm not ready for the boys to be handling sharp knives! 

Dan had 13 rows of green (and yellow) beans.  Here are the four different kinds.  They did well, but it was hard to keep up with the picking.  I did manage to get about 23 quarts in the freezer.