AUGUST

Ah, sweet mystery of life . . . August is my favorite month. The sun is high, the days are long, and the temperatures are really hot. As long as I can find a shady place, or an air conditioned room, with a cool drink I'm happy. At least, I'm lucky. I can go inside where it is cool when I want to. People who work outside don't have that advantage in this heat. People across the world who don't have those luxuries don't have a choice at all.

Last week Scout had some kind of bug and was sick all week. Colt had to work without him. Colt said he and Bob dug 14 post holes by hand one day. Bob dug a few near some underground power lines and Colt dug the rest. Colt said the soil was rocky and hard to dig. It took all day. He came in from work looking beat, covered in dirt, and dog tired. 

I was in the front yard hanging a new bird feeder under my Magnolia tree one day when Colt's friend, Brent, came to visit. He watched me wrap a metal coated coat hanger around a limb to hang my feeder on it. Brent remarked how he couldn't understand how I could stand being in the heat. I didn't think it was too hot. I'm used to it. We were in the shade under the Magnolia trees. It's like being under a gigantic umbrella. 

We use air conditioning in the house but I don't ever turn my A/C on in my car. I like riding with the windows down, soaking up the sounds and the smells around me. I like smelling fresh cut grass in the evenings and listening to the frogs and crickets as they begin their evening orchestration, don't you?

Living through the heat of summer is what makes us who we are in the south. If you can suffer the heat of a southern summer you can just about endure anything. Ain't that right, sugar?

Anyway, we had a couple of extremely hot weeks where temperatures hovered around 100 degrees and then it started to rain off and on for a few weeks. Anybody that's lived in the south knows that causes a summer sauna as the steam rises from the ground and engulfs you in it's hot, humid embrace. I don't know if the weather is extreme because of global warming but I certainly can believe it. It's rained so much we haven't been able to use our little swimming pool. I was just beginning to enjoy it.

My birthday is in August. I've decided to thaw out the frozen turkey in my freezer and fix myself a feast for my birthday. I love turkey and dressing but nobody seems to want to cook it in the summertime. I'm going to fix deviled eggs and potato salad and invite my family over to share it with me. I have two reasons to fix turkey and dressing for my birthday. First, and foremost, it's my birthday and I can do what I want, and second, I need to make room in the freezer for all the food I've been putting up out of our garden this summer. I already filled up one shelf and need room for more.

I have broccoli, cauliflower, turnip greens, tomatoes, and okra, among other things. Right now we are getting plenty of tomatoes and okra so I am stocking up for winter. I found out that fresh frozen food is better than canned food. It's also lots easier to freeze food than it is to can it, although I have plenty of experience canning food. I have a huge pressure canner and lots of jars that I can use if I run out of room in the freezer. I sound like Suzy Homemaker, don't I, but I'm not really.

The green beans we planted didn't do as well as we hoped so we didn't have many of those to put up but I found out that frozen beans from the grocery store are delicious and a great addition to my food supply.

A couple of years ago I decided to use my freezer more wisely in order to save money on my food bill and to decrease waste. I don't like buying canned goods because after they are opened, you tend to have so much waste to carry off. After I started eating more frozen food and found out it tasted better than canned food, I was hooked.

Everyone should learn to put up their own fruits and vegetables so that they can eat healthier and be assured of their food being put up under the best conditions. I hope you will consider joining me in my quest to cut down on waste and garbage. And remember, a mulch pile is a good place to throw out your scraps and it makes a wonderful worm bed. Talk about recycling!

Maybe I really am Suzy Homemaker . . .  Nah!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Tommie Lyn, Pat, Pam, Myra, Nancy, Nancy, Brenda, Chris, Randy, 
Jonnie Bell, Glo, Blake, Bob, Justin, Cole, Jerry

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Susan and Bob

AS ALWAYS

PIO

Making Ends Meet

In these trying times everyone is trying to save every penny they can, anyway they can. We like to have a small garden in our backyard every year and we plant different things every year. We always start with lots of tomato plants and any kind of pepper plants we can find. This year we only had cayanne and hot banana peppers but they are overflowing with peppers. We didn't tend to our tomatoes and keep them watered or we would have had lots more tomatoes. We're still getting little tomatoes off of the vines. We also got to plant okra and squash this summer. The squash has played out but the okra is about seven or eight feet tall and still blooming.

I cleaned out my freezer last year and put up as many vegetables as I could. We ate out of the freezer for a year and I still had a shelf full of vegetables I need to finish off. I started filling the middle shelf in the freezer until it was filled to the max. We will have plenty of okra, squash, and tomatoes to eat this winter when all gardens are a fond memory.

I put up 12 dozen boxes of green beans a few summers ago and we are still eating from them. I didn't can anything this year but I plan to put up more green beans next year. My pressure canner is a huge double decker that will hold up to 18 pints at a time. I love it when the jar lids "pop" when they start to cool and the lids seal. That's music to my ears. That guarantees no botulism.

We know about the vegetables we plant from the time they are put in the ground until they are ready for harvest and processing. We don't use pesticides very often and we never pick vegetables with pesticides on them. I feel more confident knowing that our food isn't exposed to harmful chemicals. I want to feed my family the best and the healthiest food possible and I can do that when I can and freeze our own food.

I read that classes are popping up to teach people how to can and freeze food. I guess the economy is changing peoples opinion about buying everything from the grocery store. I am all for learning to preserve food and do everything you can to save a buck. I have been canning green beans for years. After eating home canned green beans it is hard to go back to buying bland soggy canned green beans.

I feel a connection to the women in my life who have instilled this art in my life. My mother and my grandmothers all canned and froze food for their families. They even used to string up beans to dry for leatherbritches.

Women have always had to preserve food to feed their families. Before we had jars and freezers food had to be dried or stored in deep pits dug in the ground and covered to keep them from spoiling. I bet women thought they had died and gone to heaven when the pressure canner and the freezer were invented. I know I feel that way about my microwave.

AS ALWAYS

PIO