Boating on the Tchfuncte River

Last weekend we took some of our grandchildren boating on the Tchfuncte River in South Louisiana. It is a beautiful river that flows into Lake Pontchartrain by New Orleans. The kids had great fun riding in the boat

and hanging onto the inflated tube while the boat pulled them.

 We stopped awhile and let them swim in Lake Pontchartrain. They all had their life jackets on like diapers so the could float better. Got a picture of them "Bottoms Up"

DIL had a good time too.

Son and granddaughter tried their feet at skiing. Both got up. Husband even tried and got out of the water...pretty good for an old man.

We saw a few alligators lurking around some of the tributaries of the river, but none where we were.

I'm BAAAACK!

Gonna try this blogging thing again. Been really busy this summer gardening and canning and vacationing. It's been one HOT summer so far and doesn't look like anything is gonna change soon. Temps in the high 90's and heat indices in the 110's to 115's. Have to admit, I haven't been out to the garden since middle of June....just can't take that awful heat.
All the chickens are gone....something ate them when we took a trip out to the Grand Canyon in June with my son and his family. So we are out of the chicken business for a while, husband is happy about that.

These are pictures of my 2 friends....June Tune (yellow) and Tar Baby (black). It's been so hot, husband has let me keep them inside when I am home. They think they are in heaven. Cooking red beans and rice today a Monday tradition here in the south.

Beans, Beans, and more Beans

After the rain Tuesday morning, I decided to go out to check on the garden. The corn was bent over the green beans and the rows were flooded with water. When I looked closely at the plants, I saw beaucoup beans. I couldn't just leave them there, so I start to pick a few...and it turned into a few more and then many more. I ended up picking 6 more pounds of them. Snapped them while watching TV that night. Wednesday I canned 6 quarts and 1 pint. Haven't tasted the canned ones yet, but I sure hope they taste as good as fresh. I wonder how many more pickings we will get from this go-round of beans. Still didn't pick any beets yet, maybe this weekend. Have a few squash on the vines and realized one must be a volunteer plant because it just came up in the middle of a row of spinach. The squash look like little green balls. I think I planted that kind a few years ago and it's just now germinating.
Also planted some moon vine seeds. That  is a beautiful flower. I sure hope they come up.
Guess I need to plant another round of squash this weekend too.

Rain, Finally!

Finally some rain...thank Heaven for it. It has been very dry the last month. We only got a few little sprinkles twice since March 8th when we had a deluge for 4 days....so 7 weeks with little or no rain. The garden is smiling today...it's nice to get a bath.
We planted a big garden again this spring. Potatoes, carrots, beets, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, field peas, eggplant, okra, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe and strawberries. Saturday I canned 11 pts of green beans, our first picking, 6 lbs of them. They look so pretty in the jars, makes me feel like I accomplished something. About time to pick the beets, I think. Maybe this weekend.

12 Hours in the kitchen

Yesterday I spent 12 hours in the kitchen. I made and canned tomato sauce, shelled and froze purple hull peas, froze green beans and lima beans, and baked a ham. Husband picked  plenty of banana peppers and I was going to try to pickle them, but I just couldn't muster the strenght and it was already 8:00 p.m. I brought them to work today for my coworkers to enjoy.
The garden has pretty much gone to weeds, we are having a really hot summer, heat indices in the 100s. It rained abundantly from the end of last month through the 1st part of this month. That got the weeds off to a good start, since we couldn't get into the garden and pull them without sinking into the mud. The squash bugs are decimating the tomatoes with their greedy little sucking activities.
We have picked about 10 canatloupe so far and 2 watermelons. I don't think the lima beans are doing very well, but the squash is still producing.
I guess it's time to start \planning our fall and winter garden.

Give Away

I found a neat giveaway on the Vintage Worksite web page. The prize is a wonderful garden seed packet apron, seed packet tote bag, seed packet pillow. All you have to do is leave a comment on their webpage here, about what you are growing in your garden or would grow if you had a garden. I enetered and the deadline is May 16th. Check it out!

Vera's gone

No more Vera....I gave up on the the sourdough bread with no added yeast. The 3rd week I cooked it and it was better, but I still didn't like the taste, so I threw Vera out. No sense wasting time and ingredients on something I don't like anyway. I will concentrate on making some bread in my bread machine and try to perfect that. So here I goooooooooo!