My apologies for the gap in posting. I had high hopes that my posting frequency wouldn’t change after having a baby, but I guess I had forgotten how much time a baby commands. Plus anytime I do pick up the camera it’s usually to point it toward the baby instead of the garden, however I have been able to veer slightly to the left and the right of the baby to show you that we are still alive and kicking, although I still haven’t made it outside with the camera yet.
We were pretty sure that the tomatoes were going to eat us alive. After a long cool summer our tomatoes finally starting ripening and once they started, it was never ending! After already canning something like 24 quarts of tomato sauce, we brought in this box to make more sauce, soup for a friend who recently gave birth too, and ketchup, our first year making that, but it’s so good! We will certainly value the four quarts of it we put up over the winter with hash browns, french fries and of course grass fed hamburgers.
A certain three year old turned four a few weeks back. During the last year of preschool, he developed a habit of painting a watercolor rainbow every single day. I have a fantastic stack of rainbow paintings that I hope to frame in a collage frame soon. In the meantime, he needed to have a rainbow cake.
Certainly there was absolutely nothing natural, locally grown, or organic about this cake, but hey, look at those colors! It brought a huge smile to the birthday boy and he declared the day the ‘best birthday of ever.’
We had our first real rainstorm this past weekend so we sent the boys out to pick the last of the tomatoes. What a great activity that kept them busy for at least an hour. There was great excitement every time they ran back into the house, ‘mom you aren’t going to believe it but we need another bowl!’
Our six year old, being in a serious counting phase was convinced that there must be over a hundred tomatoes there. Immediately to prove his point, the counting began (in tidy rows of ten – ahhh that boy of mine), he hit 64 before he got bored:
During the rainstorm what else is there to do besides make yet more tomato sauce and pies? Both apple pie and potimarron pie.
Oh, and what’s that down there? Baby feet, sporting hand knit booties my grandma made for me when I was a baby. So sweet!
Maybe for the next post I’ll actually head back out into the garden, being that this is a gardening blog and all. We have rows upon rows of winter sprouts coming up that I’d love to share with you.
How are you? How have you been?
A Sonoma Garden 