Tomatoes comin' out our ears!

This is what I did with all of the tomatoes that we rescued from the freeze. My back dining room table is covered with them. More sauce to come as they ripen. The only thing left in the garden is the carrots.

Learning a new art

I took a Copperplate (a type of calligraphy) class all day yesterday from Susen Fay in Sandpoint, Idaho. I have been wanting to learn to do calligraphy for a very long time and finally bit the bullet and took this class. The drive up to Sandpoint was lovely. Being at Susen's home was great too. We watched the deer come and go from her yard, as well as a gagle of turkeys. It is a truly beautiful setting.
Now I need to practice, practice, practice in order to get accomplished on Copperplate.

Green Tomatoes-not fried-but nearly frozen

These four baskets are full of tomatoes that Brennah I picked early one evening when we heard it was going to freeze overnight again. Tim had been covering them, but I am not so sure they were fairing well. So we went out in the dark and pulled up all of the plants and gathered these tomatoes off of them. Now to let them ripen and more tomato sauce will be made. This tomatoes many will probably yield about 15 quarts.
We are pretty set for the next year on tomato sauce. I make it plain, then I can add spices when I cook with it to flavor. It can be used in pasta dishes, Mexican dishes, pizza, or added to homemade soups and stews.
Years ago I had a very large garden and made the sauce this same way and it worked well. This is when my kiddos were all little and we literally lived off of our garden produce, fruit trees and berry bushes. Times were hard and that large garden was a life saver! I am thankful I learned to can what we grew.
I have really enjoyed my days at home cooking down the tomatoes into sauce. I really am a home body, even though I am working a couple of part-time jobs now. But my days at home are my favorite.
Pictures of my canned goods will follow in the next couple of weeks when it is all done and said. I am thanking God for the blessing of our garden harvest.

Our Noah

I have been so bad about blogging lately. I am working more these days and I do get tired for some odd reason. Also been spending lots of time in my studio...it had been ignored for months and was a mess...but it is looking much better. So maybe I can actually have room to create in there now. Enough about me, the photo here is our darling grandson, Noah. Isn't he so cute? He's a very nice person as well. We are so proud of him. Can't wait until they get moved to Colorado so they can be closer to us. It will still be a good 15 hour or so drive for us, but it is closer than Fairbanks!
Noah and his family will all be here for Christmas this year. Yippee! I love having my family home for the Holidays.