Last Day of Summer

New (old) watch that was my grandmother's.  I'll have to start wearing one again tomorrow.  I don't wear watches during the summer as a matter of principle.

I'm beat.  I can't even tell you what the girls did with most of their day because I spent the whole day in the kitchen trying to preserve items from the garden before I go back to school and meetings tomorrow.

I started my day with a 4-mile run in the brisk morning air.  I crossed over the one-lane bridge that will soon be replaced with something bigger and more modern.

New bridge construction on the right.  I'm glad they're keeping the old one as a pedestrian bridge. It has so much character.

After a shower and breakfast, I got to work in the kitchen.  First I made a batch of fresh salsa to take to the middle school potluck lunch tomorrow.  I washed and cut some celery for the week and then began making a batch of salsa to can.  My old friend Becky graciously let us pick tomatoes from her garden yesterday, otherwise my garden wouldn't have produced enough tomatoes for this project.  The tomato plants are getting blight, so I think their days are numbered.

10 pints of salsa canned today

I didn't like how vinegary the last batch of salsa was, so this time I used a little lemon juice instead of vinegar and then processed the jars in the pressure canner.  It tasted good before going in jars, so I think this is the method I'll use in the future.

Charles worked in the yard and garden all day today.  He's currently asleep on Hannah's bed while she does her evening reading in the TV room.  I guess that means he's beat too!  He picked over 100 ears of corn from our second planting.  Some of them were not mature or never fully developed, but we ended up with around 85 decent ears.  We picked the best ones out for dinner tonight and froze the rest, 11 quarts worth.

Peaches 'n cream corn ready for freezing

We had guests for two meals today.  Chris and the boys stopped by for lunch on their way back from a Jeep event in Pennsylvania.  Since Charles was busy in the garden and I was knee-deep in salsa in the kitchen, we decided to just order some pizza for everyone.  They had lunch and hung out a bit before heading home to Charlottesville.  Then we invited Grandma and Grandpa to join us for dinner.  I'd been craving stuffed peppers so we had those along with our garden-fresh corn on the cob and some delicious cantaloupe.

The cantaloupe is from Becky's garden too.  Thanks, Bec!

Now that the kitchen is clean and both girls are showered and ready for bed, I'm ready to relax.  School starts tomorrow!