September already!!!

Today is September first and I can hardly believe it. It seems like this year has just flown by and I feel like I'm still trying to play catch up.

The last two days of August were chilly and blustery. It really started to feel like Autumn was on the way, and I must admit I'm kind of excited for it to get here. I know we didn't have much of a summer and some people really like the heat but I'm not the kind of girl that likes it being much more than 80-85F regularly. Mid to upper 70's is much more my kind of thing ;)

I'm not really sure what this month will hold but I do know that the next couple of days will involve apples...

I've been trying to get my hands on apples at a really reasonable price and I even hit a produce stand this morning to see what kind of a deal I could score. I was pretty impressed at the price for a box really, considering you'd pay twice as much in the grocery store...

But, as I was having coffee with a friend of mine this morning my hubbie called to say that his Grampa was on route to our place with two types of apples for us. I couldn't believe it - I was stoked! There's really no better price than free... Only shame being that I wasn't home, but he said he'd leave them on the deck for us.

I got home to find that he'd brought us two big boxes of apples, each one almost full! I was so excited... It means I'll be having a double date with them and my canning supplies for the next couple days! (Yah, I'm weird and/or easily pleased)

Well, the other exciting thing that happened today was that I bought my very first hunting license and deer tag. Yup, this means I'm definitely going hunting this fall! It's kind of a weird thing for me, since I don't know if I'm actually going to have the guts to aim and shoot at the deer when the time comes, but I'm definitely up for the challenge and am starting to look forward to it.

Not so much of a city girl after all, eh?

Hello & Canning so far

Well, it's been a while since I've written on here... Not too sure why, probably just since I haven't had much to say... so I'll keep this post short so as to not bore you to death.

Last weekend we picked berries, and we picked a LOT! It's craziness how many blackberry bushes there are at the farm. It seems like with the weather this year everything is late producing fruit, the blackberries are no different. There was plenty of ripe and juicy berries for us to pick but I'd say about 75% of the fruit weren't ready yet. We picked several gallons of berries and will probably wait a couple weeks before another mammoth picking session.

So, I made jam for the first time ever! It was quite a process but so much fun, AND the jam tastes yummers too, so that's a bonus. I made two batches, one just straight blackberry and the second is blackberry, blueberry & strawberry mix. I also made a batch of blackberry pie filling and canned that, but all the recipes called for a product called 'ClearJel' that I couldn't find in any of the stores close by so I subbed with cornstarch. I don't know if it turned out ok, it seems a little runny to me, but I guess the only way to know for sure is to make a pie and see... so I guess I'll be doing that next week sometime too.

I'm still holding out for apples... I have an awesome recipe for canned apple pie filling and I'd love to have that stashed away for the winter.

Another handful

OK, so not literally a 'handful' (you'd need really big hands) but you get the general gist.

The past few evenings I've really enjoyed walking around our garden (yard) with the camera and just seeing what I can find. I am always amazed by the pure beauty in nature.

So, here's a few from our garden - enjoy :)