Good Morning All! I'm getting a late start this morning! Hey, Tom beat me with already posting his Quote of the Day, I better get this old bod moving!

Hope everyone has had a great week. I've done a little canning. Was making tomato juice and had 2 jars break in the canner. I just hate when that happens, it makes such a mess. Then it seems like it takes forever to get on a roll again. The tomatoes are finally ripening. I think I figured out what my problem has been. I planted all the heirloom types that I usually do, only problem is, most of them are Southern type tomatoes. Honestly don't know why I didn't think of it before. I guess a tomato is not just a tomato, huh?

Went to my sisters to pick beans, and we read in the paper of a farmhouse for rent. Since I'm dying to get back in the country, we went and checked it out. It was beautiful, even had a seperate canning kitchen. But the problem was, the middle aged man that owned it, was, let's say REAL picky. He grew up there and lives down the road. Most of the land around the farm is mowed grass now, at least a couple of acres, and I think he measures the height of the grass with a ruler!!! The mowed part used to be pasture and his mom had sheep and chickens. She also had a large garden, which isn't there anymore. Now, I like to mow grass and use a weed eater, but I'll be darn if I'm having someone who's outgrown his upbringing, stop by all the time and tell me I've missed a spot! We tentively have another place we're looking at, that has 10 1/2 acres. The owners are wanting to move back to Ky. They're real nice people, so we'll see. Say a prayer for me!!!

The County I live in, is holding they're Heritage Days this week-end. Think I'm going to run out to the fair-grounds this afternoon and check it out. It's suppose to be really neat. They have alot of booths with demonstrations ranging from soapmaking to blacksmiths. Should be alot of fun.

Can you all believe that August is almost over? Seems like it has just flown by. Since this is the last week, we'll be looking for any takers on doing the Chat for next week. Anyone? (notice how I just slid right into the subject)!? hee hee

Hope everyone has had a super week, and here's to an even better one coming up!

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), August 26, 2001

Answers

Annie, I can take on the Chat for the next two weeks, but then I'll be away for a while. I hope you find a place to rent.

It's still hot and muggy here, and the ticks are as voracious as ever. Boy, am I looking forward to cooler weather. I haven't even been doing that much gardening because I keep thinking it will get cooler sometime soon. I have been doing lots of canning. Picked 10 pounds of grapes which I turned into jam. We have a large grape arbor which we don't spray at all; some years we have grapes, some we don't. We bought peaches from a local farmer on Friday. Yesterday I made sweet spiced pickled peaches (using our own apple juice and honey!), and today I plan to can the remaining fruit. And I continue to make tomato sauce as the tomatoes ripen. It sure is satisfying to see the full jars.

Hope everyone has a good week.

-- Katherine in KY (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), August 26, 2001.

would love to see a demonstration on spinning! I'm going to have to go to some things around here. I must have a local teacher!

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), August 26, 2001.

The past week we have finally gotten some much needed rain. We really needed the moisture but, of course that just means the grass statred to shooting up along with the weeds again. I guess you take the good with the bad. My garden is slowing down, and I'm just about finished up with my canning. I have used all the jars I had and bought more so I think we will be set till next spring. I do have a fall garden planted but, I am not expecting to have so much that we can't eat whatever it produces fresh.The wood has all been cut and stacked and I don't know about the rest of you but I am looking forward to fall.

-- Barb in Il (Barb43@countrylife.net), August 26, 2001.

I've had a good week. We got our fall garden planted. We planted broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, green cabbage, pak choi, and Brussels sprouts plants. We also planted kale, turnips, rutabagas, beets, carrots, lettuce, endive, mustard, romaine, and Swiss chard from seed. We just planted it this last Wednesday and it rained on Friday--that was a blessing! Some of the seeds are already sprouting. I love a fall garden. It is so nice to be able to pick fresh produce in the winter. Our summer garden started out gangbusters and then it was so hot and dry. The only thing that did really great was the okra! We did okay with the cole crops in the early part of spring. Our tomatoes were a big disappointment though. They're starting to flower again--maybe we'll get a few more!

Now it is time to clean out our woodcookstove. We should have done it at the end of spring, but we didn't. I guess it is a job neither my husband or I like doing. He needs to clean the chimneys too.

We homeschool our daughters and all of their schoolbooks came last week. We need to get started with that too.

We do craft shows for our income and most of them we do in the fall (September-the first part of December).

I love fall it is such a nice time of year, so much change and so much to do and look forward too. Yeah, I'm ready for fall.

God bless and have a great week everyone!

-- Sharon (spangenberg@hovac.com), August 26, 2001.