blogger mom

If I never see a tomato again, I think I'll be fine. In the past 2 days we have canned 50 pounds of tomatoes. So messy, so tedious, so time consuming. My mother-in-law was in town on Friday and decided to spend the night to help us out. I think she saw that we were in a little over our heads and that we really didn't have a clue what we were doing! She was a huge help and I am so thankful! Eric also canned a TON of green beans, staying up almost all night on Thursday. I'm taking a few days off before we tackle the applesauce. I'm sure this will hard work will all pay off in the winter time when we have local food through the winter. Tonights chore will be freezing corn, if I have any energy left when I'm done with my work.

Market Day!!! Nothing makes me happier lately than our weekly trip to the Clintonville Market. This will be the very last of the peaches, so we'll enjoy them this week and then wait for next summer. We probably bought our last corn for the summer today as well. I bought some beautiful cilantro to use up those last few tomatoes on the vine that have decided to stay green. I'm not a big fan of fried green tomatoes, so we're going to try some green salsa instead. We also bought a whole chicken from a really great man who raises them right here in the city. Pears and a few honey crisp apples were treats as well. Our latest food experiment is milk from Snowville Creamery. I'm sure some of you are very confused right now. Milk??? Yep, and I mentioned raw organic cheeses in an earlier post last week. It seems as though Trey has absolutely no reaction to milk that is healthy, from healthy cows, and processed the right way. Check out their website for more information. No, we still don't think that a lot of milk is a good choice for anyone. But, when you are trying to make a concentrated effort to focus on local foods, the right kind of dairy in very limited quantities makes sense. So, with winter coming we're thinking through our views on local meat and dairy. Squash seemed to make it's first appearance for the season at the market today. But, I thought about how much of it we'll be eating once all of this summer food fun is over and decided to hold off until it's really one of the only options.

This week was good, but heavy emotionally. I don't have the energy to blog too much about it now. I'm not sure how to put all of my thoughts into words, but that will come. For now, pray for our girls in Liberia. Pray for their birth mother. No, we don't know who they are yet. That's not the point. It's just that the reality of what their life in Liberia probably looks like became very real to me this week.

Friends, have a great week. Fall weather should finally arrive this week. I absolutely love October!