Busy bees

My goodness it feels like we were been busy this past weekend.  Thankfully, we were at home being busy doing things that felt like they needed to be done and were life giving.  Although even life giving activities can be totally tiring. 

Friday morning I picked six or seven more cucumbers from the garden.  When I took them inside, I was going to simply add them to the growing pile in the fridge when I realized we actually had A LOT of cucumbers in there.  So, making pickles jumped onto the Friday to-do list.  

However, peaches held the highest spot on my Friday to-do list.  I bought a bunch of locally grown peaches on Thursday with super-high hopes of canning them on Friday.  When I bought them, I was told they were free stone peaches, but once I started cutting into them on Friday I quickly found out they were most definitely not free.  So, I was very disappointed and annoyed with this stash of peaches I suddenly had to figure out a secondary game plan for.  We're not big on peach jam or peach pie at our house but finally I settled on jam, and a peach crisp with a few leftover to simply enjoy.  They are small, but super-juicy and very flavorful - even if they cling.  Learning curves are not much fun.

Later on Friday, pickles were made from a recipe I found on the blog Food In Jars.  

We also put together a good sized-batch of refrigerator dills.  Ben and I chose a big container so we'll have plenty of room to keep adding new cucumbers.  Although with as fast the boys eat them, I'm not sure we'll ever actually fill the whole container! 

 Outside of the garden and kitchen - we recently put together a fire pit.  Since we're not sure how long we'll be in our current home, I didn't want to invest too much time or money on this fire pit.  I wanted to use stuff we could find around the farm and make it look as nice as possible.  One evening, I roped my mom into helping me haul cinder blocks across the yard.  The funny thing is, these same blocks spent years in a pile about ten feet from where the fire pit is now.  This past winter they finally got moved to a more suitable spot to be stored away "just in case" there was some use for them in the future.  I'm quite sure neither my dad nor my uncle would have ever thought a fire pit was what that "just in case" would ever be.

If the dairy cows were still at the farm this would not be possible.  It's right next to the old dairy barn, just a stones throw from where the cows lived and almost in the exact spot that young calves used to live.  If the smell wouldn't have driven this idea away, the flies most certainly would have.  But, as it is now, our biggest obstacles are wind and our dog. :-)

We spread screenings around the fire pit to help make a nice surface to walk/set chairs on.  Once it gets rained on it'll be a nice solid spot for roasting marshmallows or warming up by the fire (like in the fall....not now....)

Twice now, the evenings have been cool enough and the supplies have been on hand on to enjoy S'mores at the fire pit.  The boys LOVE it and Noah continues to be an excellent marshmallow roaster.

We do have to watch out that Axle doesn't get our marshmallows!

And, the white barn is slowly but surely turning red.  She's going to look so much better once she's all fixed up!

Our kittens are also growing, becoming more curious and independent.  They were born in our garage and their mama, Chuckles, moved them twice but has since decided we won't harm them.

Sometimes their legs hold them up and sometimes they end up with all four legs splayed out and their bellies dragging.

Levi's meowing for the camera. :-)  Isn't his new haircut cute?!  I love to feel his head.

We also went swimming on Saturday afternoon to the "big pool" in McPherson.  It was a blast to watch Noah go down the big slide and see his confidence grow.  It wasn't quite as much fun to deal with the super-tired post-swimming Noah, though.
A busy weekend for sure, but it was oh so good!