It has happened again

It's been more than a month since my last post. My garden is doing well. I've got plenty of tomatoes, hot peppers and carrots. My broccoli is finally starting to produce. It's rained some in the past week and them temperatures have finally dropped into the 70s and 80s an my garden is thriving because of it.

It is so amazing to see the change in the garden the few hours after a natural rain, opposed to a watering from the sprinkler.

I've been getting fresh foods from the market and out of my parents garden and canning, freezing and dehydrating to my heart's content. I have some tomato sauce, dried tomatoes, frozen and dried potatoes, frozen corn.

I can't say that I dread winter as much as usual knowing I won't have to buy commercially packaged foods.

Outside of the garden in the last month, I've traveled to Michigan for vacation, been working a lot and creating a ton of content there, which is why I haven't felt inspired to write here, and have been preparing for an after school program I will be teaching. It has been a great summer. It is just going by so fast.

Oh, and I've been quilting and putting together other projects, like this one. It's a tea bag wallet. I exchanged it via swap-bot and use the one I received to hold tea bags in my desk at work. I love it, because if I thought it in my bag, my tea bags don't get all ratty or rip open.

I've almost finished my "Seeing Squares" quilt. I've been working on that project in my spare time for months. I also put together this bag for bag. It's for filling with grocery sacks so that they can be reused. Nifty huh?

Too big a time gap

It's been too long since my last blog post and mainly it's because after sitting at a computer all day at work, the last thing I want to do on my summer nights is stare at the computer for another few minutes.

I have been working in the garden a little. I've at least taken the time to water and inspect it for bugs every day or every other day. I need to spend about an hour weeding it. The weeds grow so fast.

I have large green tomatoes. They should turn soon. I have two zucchinis that are about four inches long. I have baby peppers on one pepper plant and a ton of flowers on my sprawling cucumber plants. It won't be too long before I can harvest a good harvest.

In other worlds, I've joined a few swap-bot swaps. I've wrapped them all up for a while. I need to take the last one to the post office today. I've been promising pictures of the garden and swaps, but for now, I'll share my healthy recipe from the Swap-bot Healthy Recipe Swap.

Eat Your Greens Guacamole

Ingredients

3 avocados - peeled, pitted, and mashed

1 lime, juiced

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup diced onion

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

2 Roma (plum) tomatoes, diced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Mix in onion, cilantro, tomatoes, and garlic. Stir in cayenne pepper. Refrigerate 1 hour for best flavor, or serve immediately.

Flooding, so indoor crafts

It's been a rainy day in the mid-west. Three to four inches in Indianapolis this morning. I drove through the yard to avoid the rising water in the street to get to work this morning. I got drenched from head to toe and kept my shoes off most of the day because they couldn't dry out.

I got home tonight, and my garden looks like it survived. One potato plant and one Brussels sprout plant were a littl tipsy-turvy, but I think that was from the wet ground. They look like they will be okay as long as it deoesn't rain too much more tonight.

So I decided to use my evening to work on a great project for an upcoming Swap-bot swap. I'm going to wait to post pictures until I drop it in the mail. I've got to pick up some yummy teas before I can do that, but you can learn to make your own Tea Wallet here from "Is it Naptime Yet?"