Garden-Sitting and Soup Canning

This past week was a busy one. My friends were out of town so I was looking after their garden while they were away. Sadly the deer figured out that their dog went with them and came to pig out on the green beans and trample other things. I did manage to get some green beans and PLENTY of zucchini, which I bestowed on everyone.

But my other friend at church has been giving us stuff from her garden too. Peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions,okra…

ok, lets stop right there.Okra.

Oh my.

We both first tried okra when we moved here and like it.

So I’d been wanting to try to make it, so when my friend gave me the okra, I whipped out the Christy Jordan and fried some up.

I should have taken a picture of it, but we ate it and the fried chicken so fast I didn’t even think about it.

YUM!

My sunflowers finally started to bloom. But they only got a little over waist high. And they aren’t the miniature kind.

I had great hopes for them and the morning glories to grow together in front of the cattle gate.

Oh well.

These next two pictures were after the rain we’ve been having about every day.

I apologize on the first one.My camera fogged up from being in the air conditioning and then going out to the sub-tropics of my back yard. The humidity has been crazy!

The second I took from inside the house.

Also last week I went over to a family from church’s house to can soup.

Yeah, soup.

I had researched some online and she had given me a can of one to try.

And we made a date to can soup.

We also did violin lessons at their house too.

I ended up trying two different kinds.

Mexican Chicken and Ham Navy Bean.

Both were easy to make but the Navy bean was a bit quicker.

Basically rinse your beans, and put everything in the jars.

Lid, and pressure can.

The mexican chicken was just a little more work because I had to cook my chicken and pick it. And we cooked everything together for 5 minutes and then jarred, lidded, and canned.

I haven’t tried the bean one yet, probably next week some time.

I did some quarts and pints and pint and a half’s.

(at least I think that’s what those jars are)

It was fairly simple, cheap (I didn’t figure exact amounts), but I think it was bout $3.00 to make a batch(not ajar) of the navy bean, and $4.00 to make the batch of Mexican chicken.

Then to top things off we took a spur of the moment trip to the Outer Banks of Saturday. I didn’t take the camera because I didn’t want sand in everything. I did take a picture of Bodie with the phone. I’ll have to post about that next time,along with how I almost drowned. For real.

Well, now that I’ve peaked your interest for next time I’ve got to run and get on the internet to post this and grab some other things for pizza tonight!