A safe snob, maybe?

Adding the copyright at the top of the blog makes me feel like a snob, but after reading sweet/salty today (warning--a naughty word or two, she's angry), it seems like a good idea, at least.

Belated Birthday Wish

This is late--for Chelsea.

We may be getting older, but take comfort in the fact that on the fridge on 5th St, we'll ALWAYS look like this.

Happy 30th Birthday!

Farm Girl

Tonight I prepared and froze zucchini and yellow squash from my garden. I feel like a real farm wife. I signed up for this "Fix it Fresh" mailbox course from my extension agent, and it has instructions for doing all sorts of things with produce. My yellow squash and zucchini have been doing really well, and we don't eat here at the house very often, so I wanted some way to keep it. It was pretty easy and fun.First I chopped it all up. That was fun because ever since Sarah taught me how to dice things, it's lots of fun to do. I had about 18 cups all together. I can't remember how many yellow squash and zucchini I cut up.

Then I boiled a lot of water in a big pot. (the instructions say 6 cups to a gallon of water) I put 6 cups of vegetables into the water and boiled them for 3 minutes.

Then I drained them immediately and cooled them off with cold water and ice cubes. Rinse and cool for 3 minutes, drain, and transfer to bags. I did three batches.

It was pretty fun and didn't take too long, except the waiting for the water to boil. That took a long time.

I don't know how the rest of my garden is going to do. I didn't get tomato cages on my tomatoes and so they're all spread out all over the place. The lettuce I picked but haven't eaten yet. The peppers I accidentally got look good, but I have NO idea what I'm going to do with them. Anyone know about banana peppers? The cucumbers and cantaloupe have grown together in a tangled mess I only noticed tonight, so I don't know about them either. The watermelon's looking OK, but I've never grown it before so I don't actually know.

Fly on the wall

Tonight Anna and I had dinner with Linda at Quiznos. Anna noticed a fly on the window and Linda commented that the fly was crawling instead of flying.

Anna (delighted): That fly is pretending to be a cat!

Dog Days of Summer

Check out Matthew's post about what happened here tonight.

Not a conversation I ever envisioned having.

4th of July

Anna and Lucy. Two good friends. Too too cute.

We Alsops like doing quiet fireworks. Snakes...

Smoke bombs...
Snap 'n' Pops

The whole crowd watching from the front porch.

This year Matthew was harvesting, so I did the meat all by myself. Delicious.

We also figured out Mom's Potato Salad, which was very exciting.

It was a good day.