Garden Harvest

July was a yummy month full peas, spinach and a few strawberries. By the end of the month we were also enjoying such a bountiful raspberry harvest that we had to call in neighbors to relieve our bushes of their red, juicy goodness while we were in Georgia.

We left the land of Georgia peaches to come home to boxes of Idaho peaches, which were quickly preserved for a winter treat.

August was also produced an abundance of beans, onions, a few beets, the best cucumbers I'd ever had and so many tomatoes that we couldn't eat them fast enough.

The daily picking of Sun Sugar Tomatoes lasted nearly a full month before I pulled the plants, not willing to fight the frost for them. I will never plant red cherry tomatoes again. These were heavenly and I'm pretty sure I will crave them right up until the next harvest

I decided to face my fear of the pressure canner and made myself bottle the beans this year. It was the first year that I was actually home when the beans became ripe instead of missing the perfect picking to find dried out, oversized, undesirable beans that only fed the compost pit, so I had to be a big girl and get those perfect gems in jars.

Overcoming the pressure canner boost my ego to the point that I made myself some bottled stew. It took a great amount of reading, planning, and tweaking, but I finally gave it a go. I openly admit that the look of cooked meat in a glass jar is not very appetizing but the taste by far outweighs the looks.

Delicious! I have loved having a bottle ready to open on days that I haven't thought ahead enough to make dinner. 

September melons are divine! The cantaloupe and watermelon were the perfect sweetness and tasted so much better than what we usually find in the stores.

With the weather cooling, it was time to clear the garden and bring in the remainder of our spoils.

My helpers were quite entertaining as they danced around and made up a harvest dance and song to go with the day. I appreciated their help so very much! While they clipped the tops and roots of onions and carrots, I cleared the weeds in preparation for a fall tilling of the ground.

With a quick wash and air dry, and Hyrum making water fountains for a good 20 minutes, our carrots were ready for winter storage. I had tried to store carrots in buckets of sand last year following direct instructions from a neighbor, "store them in buckets of sand". After throwing away a moldy, stinky mess in the spring (partly because I completely forgot about the buckets), I decided to get better instructions. Four layers of damp peat moss and carefully placed carrots later, I'm ready to try again.

When I built a sturdy wooden box for Kellie about 16 years ago, I had no idea that it would come back to me and after sitting in the guest room for several years, it would become the perfect winter box for carrot storage.

For future reference:
*  Damp peat moss lets the carrots have moisture when they need it and absorbs moisture when they don't (pretty smart stuff).

*  Don't let carrots touch each other or the sides of the box.

*  Store in cool, dark place where I will remember that they are there.

I also want to give kudos to the army of workers that spend all spring and summer pollinating our trees, bushes and garden plants. None of this would happen without them! As we were clearing our fall harvest, the bushes bordering our garden were humming as our friends gathered the last of the seasons pollen for winter storage of their own. I'm so grateful to my neighbors who have multiple hives all withing two miles of us. They are a huge part of our success.

Check out the pollen on his legs! I hope to have the dedication of a bee in my own endeavors.

Miss Malibu

Our time has come to an end.
Miss Malibu has served us well.

At the end of her journey,she faces the fate of the skilled surgeon who will determine if she is to be patched up for a short while or will become a mechanical organ donor for others like her to live just a little longer.

She came to us in the cold spring of March 2010, in time for two months worth of Levi and Erika fighting over her for school, dating, work and escaping with friends. The battle ended with Levi’s move after graduation.

She courageously served Erika through the year of Wendy’s greasy shoes and a smashup of bumps after a minor collision at an intersection.

After only a year with us, she spent the next two years valiantly serving in greater responsibilities as our family vehicle, instead of simply the teen car, to replace our pricey, gas hog of a Yukon during our economic struggles of construction and back surgeries. We spent those years with her rythmic clicking ringing in our ears; grateful that she kept on going regardless of her imperfections: missing sun visor, broken door handle, temperamental air conditioning, peeling paint.

She overcame the smells of dirt, mud and moldy coffee after providing Levi a couple of months of reliable transportation to work at a local nursery.

She painstakingly recovered, as did Derek, from a moose attack and a cow mishap on the dark country roads heading home, only to be beaten yet again by a mailbox during an icy slide off.

School friends were so kind to decorate the missing mirror with a cow and to draw cow spots on her side, with a mooing caution written on the window.

The moose really did hit the Malibu, not the other around.

a - big dent where the moose had his legs knocked out from under him and his body rammed into the side of the car

b - shattered and bowing windshield ready to fall
c - fur (and more) that was ripped off the moose as he rolled off the opposite side of the car

A couple of times, she safely escorted our favorite Europeans, Vivien and Gabor, on their Idaho Falls adventures.

* Notice the missing sun visor and the broken door frame, which made it clumsy and awkward to close the door.

She reliably ran early mornings and late evenings with Justin for school, cheer and work, and eventually graduated right along with him to a new state for more school, cheer, and work.

A rainy, spring day of hydroplaning left her with a lovely new swatch of white on her front bumper, yet severely out of alignment and in need of more repair. After minimal adjustments, she survived a few months longer until a worthy replacement could be found.

Come rain, snow, sleet or hail, she was our dependable trooper.

She may not have always been able to give us the comfort of heat or air conditioning but she never failed to get us where we needed to go.

She hobbled back to Rexburg for her last Edwards hurrah, constantly fighting the urge to overheat until she could resist no longer. After a steamy rest, she held her parts together long enough to briefly land herself again in her rightful parking spot of eight years.

Thank you, Miss Malibu, for your years of safe service and seemingly self-healing abilities. You will live on in our memories and stories, still leaving us to wonder: purple or brown?