Dragonfly brigade!

This morning while Jim and I were out at the gardens picking squash and cucumbers, and then pulling weeds in another garden we started to notice a few dragonflies flitting about.

When we got done with our gardening chores for the day we were relaxing on the west deck and commented on how there seemed to be a small contingency of dragonflies buzzing about.  We figured it must have been a dozen or so.  Jim said to them "go ahead and stick around, eat all the mosquitoes you want, we would love to have you get your fill and stay as long as necessary."  (or something like that)

My guess is that this small squadron was the recon group for the whole brigade.  They reported back to the dragonfly headquarters that there were indeed a lot of mosquitoes to be eaten on the farm and so preparations were made for a full campaign of feeding the whole brigade at dusk when the mosquitoes are active and plentiful.

This has to be what happened because as I was checking the clouds in the sky and seeing if any of these radar blips were going to bring rain or worse, hail, to the farm there were hundreds of dragonflies flying around, diving, swooping, like WWI flying aces in a dog fight to the death.  They would zoom past my head and straight over the roof of the house, in and out of the cedar trees, just zipping around all over the place.  It is like watching a beautifully choreographed ballet as each dragonfly has its own flight path and never do two collide or even come close to each other.  Nature really has some amazing formations and flights of fancy!

I tried to get pictures of them but they are just to fast and my shutter and camera are just to slow.  I would need one of those fancy cameras that can take high speed multiple shutter exposures in a minute to be able to capture a dragonfly in flight.  I am sure they were chasing down those pesky mosquitoes and gobbling them up as fast as they could.

Another sure sign that we are nearing the end of summer when the dragonflies are plentiful and the mosquito population is dwindled down (thank goodness).  What a wonderful way to end August!

No rain means watering the gardens.

It was so nice those first weeks of August when we were having unusually cool temps and regular rain showers because I never had to water my flowers or the veggie gardens.  Now that we are back to normal August temperatures of 95 to 105 every day and no rain, I am back to watering the gardens. 

The cherry tomatoes are ripening and some days there is 1 tomato ready to pick which gets eaten immediately.  Sorry, it is a weakness I have.  I picked a couple of them today and should have enough for a salad or two by the end of the weekend.  We have green beans to pick again, so I am hoping to get to that done this weekend one of these mornings.  Wednesday morning we picked a gallon bagful and sent it with mom and dad up to the cabin.

Sunday is Menard's shopping day.  I have more mock apple crunch to get made up as well, I think I will slate that for Monday morning.

Fear of canning -- this is why I have never done this before!

August 27 - 
Attempted my first ever water bath canning yesterday. Mom and I spent the afternoon Sunday doing it together with absolutely 100% seal and no broken jars.

Solar dills - see story below

Fresh dill batch

Ready for out 18 minutes in the spa!!!

Then we got them ready to go into the water bath.  When we took them out it reminded me of a bunch of people sitting in a steam bath or maybe the hot mineral spring spas in the mountains.

Amazingly, we had no mishaps other than the mix I got for the brine was supposed to make enough for 7-11 pounds of cucumbers.  I had 11 pounds of cucumbers between 10 half pint jars and 8 quart jars.  Mom and I had to come up with a plan for 4 of the quart jars because I ran out of brine.  So they got a fresh dill pickling spice mixture.  Will be interesting to see how they taste.  But I have 10 half pints of hamburger dills and those are for sale - $3 a jar. . . . . I will let you know how they taste after Labor Day weekend when I can sample them from one of the quart jars.

This was the final product of our water bath session on Sunday afternoon.

MONDAY MORNING
First off I had too much water in the canner so only could get 4 quarts in there. As I was loading them carefully and dipping out water to keep it from overflowing I heard a weird pop. I kept on loading. When I decided that 4 was going to be all I got without a boiling flood I put the rack down in the water. One of the quarts floated.

What the heck? I dont remember floating them yesterday. I carefully lift it up only to see my pickles slide out the bottom and take a swim. Well crap. So I pulled the jar on out and put another in its place. Again, I hear a weird pop. But I put the lid on and start the timer.

I called mom on her cell phone while the 4 quarts were processing to see what I needed to do. Well when the timer went off and I started to carefully pull out the jars, I watched in horror as another set of pickles slowly slid out of the jar as I lifted it out of the boiling water. Well damn. Those were some of my prettiest pickles and even had a few whole dill "gurken" style ones. Deer better like their treat.

An hour later after I have cleared the canner of water, wasted pickles taken out to the deer feeding area, glass in the dump trash, and got the fresh water boiling I put the last 2 jars in. Hold my breath and put the lid on.

18 minutes later I pull out one and it is intact - YEA!!! I pull out the other one and guess what? - Yep, another broken jar. 

 I was so mad that I decided that I didn't like wasting my solar pickles in this manner and if necessary, I will buy me a frig at the next auction so I have room to store my pickles.  

Sorry no pictures of Monday's failed attempt, I was just too cranky to think about taking pictures to provide proof of my misfortune.  Also would have been to horrible to be reminded, just take my words for it.

The Mystery Pumpkin Patch

As promised I got back out to the draw and took pictures of the mystery pumpkin patch.  Jim and I counted about a dozen already orange and another dozen or so in different stages of growing and still green.  You can tell which ones will be the mutant jack-o-laterns because of their hail scars.  But I am just happy to have another pumpkin patch, just in case!

Holy cow - it's a Squash Mountain!

In the middle of my dining room is today's haul of cucumbers (the little things you see) and then the squash.  There is a HUGE gadzuk that will be grilled after it is cut and soaked in Italian dressing.  There are a few smaller zukes that we can use for stir-fry or sauteed in butter and onion, mixed with sausage of some sort and sprinkled with cheese.  However, I can assure you that there is enough zucchini there and in the box that holds a picking from earlier in the week that on Sunday will be the start of my freezer supply of mock apple crunch.  So now you know what I will be doing on Sunday on my day off. :)