A Note on August

(remember all those garlic plants I showed you in June? Here they finally are, drying)

For the last few years, August has been the busiest month of the year for us.

It’s harvest and preservation season!

Just as we’ve done the past few years, this year my mom and I have plans to pick our five rows of tomatoes and turn them into canned diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, pasta sauce, and salsa. Our goal is to preserve enough to last both our families the whole year, as we’ve been doing.

It’s also time to preserve peaches (freezing, canning, making jam); I plan on freezing peppers (sweet and jalapeno) as well as zucchini. I want to try my hand at a homemade sriracha made with jalapenos. I also want to experiment a little more with fermenting — particularly salsa and cole slaw.

We have to store the onions and garlic (as you can see, above, the garlic is curing in the sun as I write this). And I have a feeling, soon after that, we’ll be butchering chickens and pigs.

Busy busy busy.

On top of that, I’ve agreed to join a quilting bee and let a bunch of friends help me make a quilt for Lydia starting this month. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

AND: I want to commit to making the most of the remainder of the summer.

Want to know how many times I’ve been swimming this year? ZERO. It’s a travesty. Swimming is one of my absolute favourite activities.

And guess how many camping trips/zoo visit/other summery getaways we’ve made this year. ZERO.

This needs to change. I can’t let the deliciousness of summer slip away from me.

So I’m planning on taking an internet break over August. I’ll post some pictures once a week to keep up my end of my BlogHer contract and to keep you updated, but otherwise, I’m going to be a little withdrawn from the Internets for a while. I just want to give myself a chance to relish the rest of summer. I’m even going to (TRY TO) stay away from my Feedly, to which I’m hopelessly addicted.

I’m sure you’ll be too busy to read as well, anyway.

Go! Enjoy summer! Cheers!

PS – If you haven’t heard, I’ve joined Instagram. I inherited Ben’s old smart phone after my flip phone finally bit the dust. I’m not sure yet, but it might be the worst thing to ever happen to me. I think I’m going mad with power. Anyhow, if you’d like to keep in touch there, I’ll be posting periodically.