A week of other happenings

I shared cooking responsibilities with a friend for another FCA lunch. Addie prepped cookies for the event. These are new perfect cookies because we weigh the ingredients and let them sit for days they are superb! Merle could not believe we were waiting almost 5 days but enjoyed them on the day we cooked them. Addie is so good at including and interacting with the younger kids. They love her and I think she loves them too. 

I walked to my garden and was so happy to see the giant marigolds had finally looked. The garden is covered in flowers. 

We had very little worm pressure this year and I can't help but wonder if the many companion plants helped that. I love the fall colors!

The bees were so loud and so loving the wildflowers. The blossoms were covered with bees. 

The zinnias. I plan to plant some of these closer to my house next year so I too can enjoy the variety of colors. 

And harvest gold!! I have had enough so far for three batches of sauce. About 50 bottles or so of sauce.

With all those tomatoes we needed onions to flavor our sauce. We are so blessed to know some excellent onion growers. 

I bought a new Vitamix to blend the tomatoes I'm not sure I love it or even like it. The first two batches worked fine but the third it got hot and wouldn't work for over an hour. I ended up going back to my reliable bosch blender. So why have such an expensive tool? Not sure what I'm doing with it yet. 

We finished up peaches with some jam that my family devoured. 

And finally, on Thursday we baked the cookies and they looked like yummy cookies. They tasted better. I'm sold you must be precise and patient to have perfect cookies. 

Lia finished her first school book. She is smart and totally gets school information. 

After a nice rain, the sky cleared and we could finally see clearly. There is a song about the earth being washed clean again. That is the truth. 

It's nice to see the result of work and waiting. Life and parenting often takes more time than a garden. We are thankful for opportunities to grow and be self-reliant. We are thankful for time learning and seek to be wise stewards of what we are blessed with. Life is so good.