Tomatoes~

Our garden produce is ripening well and is coming in full force these days, it seems. I picked enough ripe tomatoes this afternoon to make a double batch of our favorite freezer-tomato-sauce. I needed a few peppers for the sauce, so picked a few of them as well...

These two tomatoes were so big that I just had to get a picture of them. Each one is a handful in itself! (That's a quarter in-between them.)

Jacob was my assistant in the garden and kitchen for a little while and pulled some nice carrots for me. He was trying to figure out if a carrot would work as a substitute for a baseball bat, but I think he was doubtful of its capabilities in that area...

As we were in a silly mood, I decided to smell the bouquet of onions I brought in from the garden and Jacob took my picture...

I finally got everything chopped up and added the seasonings to the pot. I cooked it down for a couple hours and then let it cool down. Tomorrow I'll grind it up in our Vita-Mix and put it in freezer bags and freeze it. We enjoy using this sauce either on spaghetti or on pizza, and just add a few more spices accordingly when we thaw it out.

I found this cute poem just a little bit ago and thought I'd share it with you~ So far, we're in the enjoying-the-ripening-tomato stage, but from the looks of things, we'll soon be in the overloaded stage!

Tomatoes On My Windowsill

by Robin Benzle (with a slight change made to the last verse to make it appropriate)

Tomatoes on my windowsill,

Lined up like happy soldiers,

From pale green as key-lime pie,

To red as sunburned shoulders.

They seem to smile at the sun,

While they patiently a-ripen.

And when I do my kitchen chores,

I smile back, enlightened.

One by one I take them down

From their nest upon the sill,

And add them to a salad or

Perhaps a sauce with dill.

Then to my garden I return

To pluck another load,

And tenderly I line them up

On that shelf in my abode.

No sooner do I get them shelved,

Than my garden calls me back.

They're ripening all at once, I think,

As I stuff them in my sack.

So I give them to my neighbors

and I give them to my friends.

I give them to my enemies,

Just to make amends.

Soon, I note they're turning red

So fast it makes me ill.

From off the vine, they drop like flies.

My plot looks like road kill!

Tomatoes on my windowsill

All rotting in a row.

I never thought I'd say this but,

"Where, oh where's the snow?"

After the sauce was cooking, I asked Jacob which of Mrs. Bartletts' recipes he'd like me to try baking. (Mother asked her for a couple of her recipes, as the boys really enjoyed her muffins and bread sticks while they were up there for the Appleseed Project....) He said he'd like the muffins for supper, so I made a batch of Raspberry Muffins! The boys said they weren't quite like Mrs. Bartletts', but they were still very good. I think perhaps the difference was in the kind of sweetener I used, as the recipe called for sugar, but I used honey. There was only 1 little muffin left by the time supper was over with, so I think they would be considered a success nevertheless. :)

This picture is old news, but as I never posted a picture of the calf Jacob bought from our neighbors a couple days ago, I thought I'd post it now. "Ellie May" was pretty wild when we got her, but she's already settled down nicely and comes up to the fence with the others when it's feeding time.

This picture was taken a couple days ago too. Jacob was demonstrating some of the firing positions he learned at the Appleseed Shoot...

I have one more picture to share and that is of our apples... They are really falling off the trees now whenever there's a little bit of a breeze, so I imagine we'll be picking the rest soon and will be doing a balancing act between making things with apples and making things with tomatoes!

I thank the Lord for the bounty He's blessed us with this year.~