Happy??? Merry???

Or maybe I should say "Merry Christmas" since it's snowing out. Crazy! It's supposed to be nearly 60 degrees for a high tomorrow. Just your standard Nebraska weather, I guess.

Today I'm canning Butternut squash. There was a bumper crop this year. I'm quitting with 14 quarts since that's all the wide-mouth jars I have empty and I don't want to buy any more. This year I'm trying the official, approved method of peeling & dicing into 3/4 to 1 inch pieces, covering with water and pressure canning. Before I always cut the squash in half length-wise, took out the seeds, baked them, scooped out the squash & mashed it. It went into pint jars and got pressure canned. We'll see which we like best.....the approved way or the old, unapproved way. I always figured the old way was safe enough with getting pressure canned at 10 lbs. for 90 minutes.....but hey, what do I know? I've only been doing this for years and years.

What Keeps Me Busy

Pictures of Praying Mantis have been popular in late Summer/Early Fall this year. Here's mine:

Looking back I see that it's been about three months since I posted. Sure doesn't seem that long. Here's a few things that have kept me busy:

Lots of tomatoes and tomato/veggie juice canned this year. Also green beans (I thought they would never end. Finally I just QUIT.) Lots of sweet corn frozen. Will still be canning some butternut squash. Tons of carrots that I'm not sure what I'll do with,,,,hubby got a little over-zealous with his planting. On the whole, the garden did very well. Not much for fruit this year...to be expected when the trees are all blooming and you get 9" of snow on the first of May.  Also working on photo books for the kids for Christmas. Now, there's a project I should have started on Dec. 26th last year! Spending hours on finding, sorting, scanning, editing....and haven't even started putting them into order in the photo book program.

Right now all I want is some beautiful, warm, sunny Fall days. Seems like all we can get is clouds and rain.