A lil' bit of quilting; a whole lotta gardening

Although my quilting time didn't happen until Sunday, I figured I would post about this first.

Yes folks -- I set time aside and burned through a few bobbins worth of quilting thread, making progress on Berquist Beauty.  Like riding a bike :)  This is a bigg'un though, so it'll take me a bit to complete all of the quilting.  Baby steps.  An hour here and there.

But backin' up the bus....

On Saturday, with the help of MIL, FIL and the girls, we made record time of hauling in the garden harvest...

A little under half the corn was picked and shucked, the last of the cucumbers were picked, and the first teaser crop of tomatoes FINALLLLLY came off the vines.  Goodness... mix together a late Spring with a cooler than normal summer, and those 'maters are takin' their good ol' time ripening on the vine!

Yes folkies----the camera was NOT in my hands for once :D  Cassie took care of recording the day's events with digital film....{I think it was her way to get out of helping} ;)

Between FIL and myself, we made fairly quick work of the corn.

I set off blanching it and cooling it, 

while FIL started the process of cutting it off the cob using one of Paul's electric fillet knife.  I joined him at the table to finish up the cobs once all of the corn was blanched.

Not having the pigs this year has been quite different.  They ALWAYS loved corn harvest day because they would get the spoils of the "trash" (aka: naked cobs).  

Waste not, want not....

The girls still had their contest of "who can throw the corn the furthest off the deck?"  or "who can hit the target in the pen?" {{NO!  Not one of the animals!}}.

The goats actually enjoyed the cobs, nibbling off some partial kernels.

The pig pen (aka: goat and duck pen now) is still a work in progress.

While I was getting the corn water up to a boil and preparing all the supplies for the corn harvest, FIL scrubbed up the cucumbers...

...and then got lost in the dill patch.

Yes folkies---we had a great dill patch this year.  

Then, while FIL and I were working away on the corn, MIL took charge of packing the cuks into jars in order to pickle.

With all hands on deck, we were complete with the harvest and preserving around 1PM.  LOTS of time left in the day to play, relax, and nap (not me, but others) ;)

BOY!  Now that I've gone through all of that with such a group of people working like a well-oiled machine, I don't think I'm looking forward to THIS weekend's harvest of even MORE corn, and (hopefully) tomatoes, with only the help of the girls.  The lil' teaser crop of tomatoes went untouched;  only 7 pounds worth;  can't do much with that.  They will either be enjoyed this week, or will wait patiently until next week's harvest to become spaghetti sauce (or pizza sauce).

Happy Monday everyone :)