Pumpkin

My mom grew giant pumpkins this last year in her garden. Unfortunately, the winter was long and the spring was late and when my mom's plants finally started growing she was sure that they wouldn't have a long enough growing season to actually grow some giant pumpkins. Well, she ended up with three giant pumpkins. AND she gave me one of them. This one wasn't the biggest...it was one of the smaller of the three, but that's okay because I had to lift it into the van and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to lift it in the van to take home...but I did.

The first thing was needed to do with our giant pumpkin was to wash it. It was still a bit dirty from the garden. But where do you wash such a large vegetable? In the shower of course.
SM decided that the only place to carve this pumpkin was on the floor. He was worried that the pumpkin might not be good on his mom's glass table. I think it was a great idea to carve it on the floor.
We cut the bottom flat to help the pumpkin sit up straight. It also meant we didn't need to cut the top off either.

Here's the professional at work. SM loves to carve pumpkins and thinks it's a great tradition. I like to eat the pumpkin seeds...but this year we actually returned the pumpkin seeds to my mom (though we kept a few so that we can plant our own giant pumpkins next year...hee, hee, hee).

And here's the final product. Pretty cute pumpkin, if I do say so myself.

And not all that scary in the dark.

Fall Flowers

I am enjoying this Fall. It's full of beauty. These two pictures are my MILs' flowers. Don't you just love the vibrancy and color?

Below shows the neighbor's creeping leaves that have turned red. Beautiful.!

Below is a picture of the trees in my mom's orchard as they have started to change colors and fall to the ground.

This picture is the view from the back of my mom and dad's house. I have always loved looking east toward Mount Timpanogus. I think they have one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. This photo is taken with my point and shoot camera. The photo was not changed in Photo Shop or anything...this is just the natural beauty of this fall.

Got Sick

I got the stomach flu Wednesday night. I feel badly about it because I babysat that afternoon for my nephews and niece and then I went to a birthday party for a two year old nephew. How do you like that? Hopefully I didn't get anyone sick but it will be a few more days before I find out since this stomach flu has an incubation period of a few days. I know where I got the flu from...a niece I drove home on Monday who threw up in the van. Poor girl. Anyway, yesterday when SM got home from work he brought me flowers. It was so sweet of him...and so I cried...and he hates making me cry...but after a full night of throwing up and a full day of feeling terrible, it was the sweetest thing. (He also made me some egg drop soup for dinner...another sweet act of kindness).

My hair continues to grow and had this not so cute tail or flippy thing on the bottom. I asked my MIL (mother-in-law) to trim it off and this is how it turned out. Looks nice now, huh!
I really like how my hair is growing out. For awhile I was really frustrated with it and so I wouldn't really do anything with it. Now it actually has some style...which means I actually should do my hair.
My MIL's mums bloomed this last month. They are beautiful. The picture below was taken in the wrong light but I think you can see how pretty they are...I love all the different flowers.

Grapes

Look at these grapes...this year my mom has a bumper crop of about everything except potatoes (they didn't do well at all this year). We decided it was time to do grapes this week. First we picked some...and when I say some I mean some...I could stand in one place a fill the bucket with grapes without moving along the grape arbor. They are so ripe and ready to be picked that sometimes they'd fall off the vine as I moved my arm near them.
After washing the grapes, we put them in the top of the juicer. In the bottom of the juicer is boiling water and in the middle is where the juice is collected.
After the juice is collected in the middle section of the juicer you are ready to put them in clean, hot jars. You release the clamp on the tube and start filling up jars.
The jars are hot and the juice is hot and once you get the lid on the jar, turn the jar upside down to get the rubber on the lid hot. The bottles will seal themselves and you don't have to put them in a canning bath. It saves on time and space. The juice turns a slight pink as it cools.
After the grapes are deflated and cooked, take them out of the juicer and put them in a slanted pan. This will allow extra juice to pool at the bottom of the pan and you get all of the juice out of the grapes. Homemade grape juice is yummy.

Still working on hobbies

I haven't yet pulled out my watercolors since the move, but I have pulled out my sewing machine and have been working on burp clothes and receiving blankets. It's the perfect thing to do with my hands in the evening hours while watching my favorite shows. Here's set of burp clothes that I just finished. I think they are so cute and I'm sure I'll have a hard time giving them away...but since I don't have little ones...what else will I do with them? Unless I save them for that one day, in the future, when I have my own kiddos. Unfortunately, I've done that with a few quilts, recieving blankets and burp clothes already...oh well.

Moving A Building

Across the parking lot from SM's office building, a historic building is being moved. Instead of tearing the building down and building the new building, a site across the street has been prepared for this building.
These pallets of wood are placed under the building as the hydronics lift the building slowly up.

The building will need to be turned 180 degrees and then moved across the street to its new destination. Can it really be done? The movers seem positive that they can do it...
These are the wheels that will be placed on the bottom of the building and hooked up to a computerized system that will allow the building to be moved, turned around and moved again. Should be spectacular to watch...and every day, SM looks up from his computer and out the window to see this site...until it's not there.

Yummy Gardens

I learned this week that raspberry tea will help my thyroid. So, this last week, I went into my mom's garden and started stripping the raspberry leaves off of the plants. My mom helped me put them on screens to dry them. We are going to make our own raspberry tea...yippee!
My grandmother lives two houses down from my parents. I grew up running over to her house multiple times every day...especially in the summer. This picture is at her house. She is in her eighties and still has her gardens. I love visiting her.
We canned tomatoes this week. The nice thing about tomatoes is that even when they are ripe they stay on their vine...unlike peaches that fall to the ground. After you pick them, you can also leave them for a few days until you are ready to can them, unlike peaches that will continue to ripen so much that they aren't good if you leave them for too long. Plus, these are bottles of stewed tomatoes which means they can be used in spagetti sauce, soups, etc. You can use them in so many dishes.
Here's a photo of my grandmother and mother. I love these ladies.
Here's a bin of mint leaves. I am also drying these to add to my raspberry tea. Mint just makes things really tastey.

The peaches that fall to the ground and bruised and go bad quickly. I pick them up and feed them to the neighbors' horse. Notice that the fence is just two lines of string and a white line. Well, the white string has a small electrical charge running through it and the horse won't get close to it because he doesn't want a shock. This is awesome since horses like to lean on fences and end up breaking them and getting out. And we don't want this horse to get out since his field is right next to Mom's garden.
This is the dryer that we have been using to dry peaches and pears. It's very large and wonderful. Somebody actually made it. It has a heating element and fan at the bottom that push hot air up to the top. We can get six trays of fruit into the dryer.
And, of course, I have to make sure the peaches taste okay. Yep, they're good!!
And I have to taste the raspberries and make sure they taste all right...yep, they are also really good!!
These plants are producing lots and lots of raspberries. And someone has to eat them, right? That someone is me!!