Summer Beauties

I have a flower bed in our front yard. It was put there by the previous owner, and I had now idea what anything in there was. It was so overgrown and needed some serious work. Since then I have been amazed at the various flowers growing out of there. This deep orange lily is one of the best surprises. It stands about 4' tall and has about 7 blooms on it.

The sunflowers I planted along our garage in the strawberry patch. I was really excited about these. They have taken a couple rough hits from the hard rain because our garage doesn't have a gutter and it is like a big waterfall. But I have rigged up a system to hold them up. I think they are doing fine. Next year they will go in a different spot... and there will be many many more.

They do work!

This little egg is the first from our hens! Not sure which one it came from, but we are sure happy they finally laid. We were beginning to think we had 11 pet chickens instead of 11 working chickens. God is good!

Batters up!

My nephew turned 8 this year, and I was asked to make him some cookies! I love every chance I get to make these sugar cookies, so of course I said yes. My sister wanted a baseball theme, so I made baseballs and bats. The bats turned out to look more like chicken legs (and I was teased the whole night after the cookies came out) but that was ok because I didn't have a cookie cutter for that, I had to improvise. But I think the balls turned out great!

Also for the 4th, we had some family over for a picnic. I made some salads and we grilled burgers. For dessert I planned rootbeer floats. I also made some plain star sugar cookies to go with. When I was making the cookies, I tried to do something like this.... (again from bake@350)



but they wouldn't stay on the cups like I wanted. So, we just had plain star cookies, and I think everyone enjoyed them.

Garden Goodness

Here is the first ever broccoli and cauliflower I have grown! We ate it fresh with dip. So good! Also, some peas that we have been eating. I have a ton in the fridge that I am going to freeze very soon!

Organized

It is fun having a husband who is willing to build you things. I think he did a pretty nice job too! This is the closet in our back entry way. It serves as major storage, laundry storage, and a pantry. I wanted Rob to build shelves to hold all of the jars of beautiful produce from our garden. We are going to need a lot of space! I am planning to can up a storm.

Snow Peas

Yum....

Yum!

Our massive black raspberries are producing well. We originally thought that the ripening of the raspberries was going to be a slow process. We ate them as fast as they turned sweet. But after leaving them alone for most of the weekend, I went to harvest what was there and was pleasantly surprised to get a cup full! Now I just need about three more cups to make black raspberry jam. It shouldn't take long.