Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Something quilty plus gardeny

My blog has been quiet lately in the quilting department, but please know that I have been clippin away on those Jamestown Landing strings. I finished up the 168th block yesterday morning, but then came upstairs to do "housely" duties. Nikki (girls babysitter, turned family friend) came over for the afternoon with Sherlock Holmes knowing I wanted to watch it, so when other things were finished, we put the movie in and went to town de-papering and trimming the blocks.

And after doing this TWICE to two different blocks....

...I grabbed Paul's electrical tape to mark off the 4 1/2" mark as to not do it again. Sheesh!

I'm almost finished trimming up the blocks; just a few remain. And then I'll be onto the Blue/Neutral HSTs.

However, before then, I need to get into the garden to check for more green beans and cucumbers. On Monday, before I ended up running since Paul was home, rained-out, the girls and I brought in the first (of MANY) harvest batches of peas, beans, cucumbers..... The peas and beans were snacked on all day and eaten for dinner; not enough to can yet. However, the cucumbers were sufficient to can the first 6 quarts of dill pickles; mostly baby-dills! My goal this year is to stay on top of the cucumbers to mainly have baby-dills, the FAVORITE of this family.

When I returned from my run on Monday, Paul shared these pictures with me that he had taken of the girls helping him in the lower garden. Some onions were pulled from Caitlyn's garden patch, some carrots from Candace's, and some beans from Cassie's.




As you can see, the pork chops, pork ribs, sausage, bacon, hams, roasts pig(s) are getting big......

And finally, due to some more rainy weather, Paul was home again yesterday for the afternoon. He made some banana bread and ATTEMPTED to make some raspberry bread (using the same recipe as banana bread). I'm not sure if you can tell, but.........it was a failed attempt. It smelled good, even tasted good when I took a little nibble from the "done" edges, but.....it wasn't fully cooked, nor looked all that good. However, notice that there isn't much of the banana bread left? Mmmmmmmm....he has perfected THAT recipe!

6 comments:

Nancy said...

Great garden pics!!!! I am amazed at the amount of ground you have in it.

Four weeks till school...... ugh! Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

Raspberry bread huh? At first I thought it was some meatloaf attempt.... Nice try!

Love your garden and pigs!

Linda Lee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Andee said...

Tell the hubby to keep working on the raspberry bread...looks good even if it isn't quite done! Love that the girls love gardening. Whoot whoot on all that Jamestown Landing progress...I am not in love with that one--YET! Wait til I see yours I know!

scraphappy said...

Girls are so adorable in the garden. We don't have a farm of any sort here on our .22 acre lot, but my dad used to have a cow named pot roast, so I get the pig names:)
I also taped my square up ruler while trimming string blocks, but I used blue painters tape instead of electrical tape -- I guess we aren't twins after all:(
Enjoy your last few weeks of summer. I'm missing it already.

Candace said...

168 string blocks, I don't have the courage. Your garden and your helpers look great. Yum, banana bread.