August 23, 2026 - A Messy Garden

 The heat and lack of rain has taken a big toll on the garden. It's ok . . it had a good run and I won't be sad to see the summer garden end. This is the time when every year I say I'm not having a garden next year but I know I will . . in some form. One thing I learned this year is that I'm not growing anything that will not stay contained. I had squash vines and cucumber vines everywhere - totally out of control We couldn't use the weed whacker or the lawn mower in a big chunk of the back yard because of vines that were producing. I suppose it's a good thing we had the drought because that probably helped with the weed reduction a bit. 

I'm pretty confident in saying I'm not planting squash next year - maybe a bit of zucchini that I start in the greenhouse and can get planted and producing before the squash bugs and vine borers move in. I love the Thelma Sanders squash and the Georgia Candy Roasters but it's just not worth the fight with the squash bugs. 

I have such limited space for growing and I need to get some elderberries growing in the back yard (they're outside the fence now and I don't have a good way to water them. They didn't produce much and what they did produce shriveled up and got crunchy.

My grandparents were such neat gardeners. I often look at my garden and wonder if they're happy I'm a gardener or if the shake their heads at the mess in my garden. Here are a few photos. Please let don't judge!  :)

Those Cooper tomatoes are still EVERYWHERE! They're actually Sweet 100 tomatoes. I think they should change the name to Sweet Millions or Sweet Invaders!  :)  The area above is the space between two raised beds and nowhere near where Cooper's plant was last year.

I forgot what we originally put this bed here for but whatever it was didn't do well . . oh, I remember. We bought some raspberry plants from a lady down the road last year and not one of them lived. We had already planted this same size bed of grapes and raspberries on the other side of the yard. I had never grown raspberries and then the babies started popping up around the edge of the other bed, I dug them up and brought them to this bed and this is how much they've grown since about May. They have produced quite a few berries and still have more to ripen.

The raspberries are doing so well that I think I'm going to plant some blueberries. We planted quite a few in Texas but never could get them to grow. So, if I want to plant blueberries, something has to go . . no room to add anything but I can substitute.

On the back side of this bed is where I planted my three eggplants. There were no raspberries in this bed at that time. The raspberries are not leaving the eggplants much room but they're still producing too.

On the other end of the back side of that bed is where I planted 5 or 6 okra seeds. They should make til we have a hard frost.

I have okra growing in two of the 4 x 8 raised beds, in one of the big containers that a friend gave me (he had built them for growing peppers and when they moved away, he gave me his container gardens). Vince decided to drill holes in an old fridge and plant okra in there. Not terribly attractive but the okra seems happy.

In fact, I missed two days of cutting okra and ended up with three trays to flash freeze and get vacuum sealed. Okra is another food I love that is high in oxalates (kidney stone producer!)

Once I got all the squash out of the pepper bed (squash seeds in the compost), the peppers have done quite well. I always have pretty good luck with peppers. This one is the candy cane pepper. It's basically just a pretty bell pepper but it is a bit slower to mature that plain bell peppers. I think the plant is so pretty.

The pepper will eventually get to be red with pinkish stripes but then it will turn all red.

The jalapenos that get full sun are turning red but still producing so I'm not complaining.

I planted several of these Zucchino Rampicante squash. Everyone says "Plant squash late . . the squash bugs will be gone." Not true at my house. They are everywhere! They're so aggravating. Not sure if I'll get any of these to mature or not. I saw a couple of the vine borers moths yesterday so I'm sure the squash doesn't have a chance.

Remember the bay leaves from Texas? One of these I thought was dead and tossed it out in the woods and a year or so later, I saw something green growing and it was the bay leaf so I grabbed it, re-potted it and now don't even know which one it was. That is a lot of bay leaves!

I guess I should say I have okra growing in six places. An okra seed ended up in a 5 gallon bucket with a little soil and it started growing. I've been getting a few pods of okra off it so it can grow as long as it wants.

The bright spot in the garden! I had planted marigolds in the buckets with the tomatoes, which are history, except for Cooper's tomatoes, but the marigolds are bright and happy among the weeds and vines these bright orange flowers make me smile!

With seven raised beds, I have one that's asparagus, one that's peppers, two for okra, one is rhubarb. That leaves two. I think I could put two blueberries in one 4 x 8 bed so I think I'll plant two blueberries in each of those two remaining beds. The blueberries, rhubarb and asparagus are permanent. That leaves the two okra beds and pepper bed that will get replanted each year. The peppers don't have to be transplanted until after the garlic is harvested so that gives me one "dual purpose" bed. I'm going to try that next year. I can plant a few tomatoes and some overflow peppers in the mineral tubs. Maybe I have a plan for next year's garden!

August 22, 2026 - Kidney Stones Against

Not that it really matters but I wish I had kept track of how many times I've had kidney stones. As best as I can piece it all together, I think this most current episode is #18. How ridiculous is that? I have really been drinking a lot of water with this heat and not drinking so many Dr. Pepper, because I'm trying to lose weight and also, because Dr. Pepper costs have surpassed the price I am willing to pay. But, yet, here we are with another kidney stone story. My parents both had kidney stones ONCE and my sister has had them ONCE so they doctors tell me heredity has as much to do with it as what I eat but honestly . . how can they all have had them once and I have them every time I turn around. The last time I had lithotripsy was January, 2023. Before that, it was 2016. And, here we are, not even four years from the 2023 incident and it has happened again.

Please note I am not feeling sorry for myself, even though this one was a bit different, it was fairly easily solved and more importantly, if this is the worst that ever happens to me, I am very lucky. I was going to say blessed but I don't think I need a qualifier to say I am blessed because this or that happened or didn't happen. Hands down . . I AM very blessed and am thankful every day for my good health . . even with a blip every now and then.

Friday morning my goal was to get the rest of the ground beef that I had defrosted canned. Thursday, I chopped a gallon of bell peppers - really it was giant marconi peppers and roasted about three dozen poblano peppers and they were going in with the new batch of ground beef.

About 4 a.m. Friday morning, I woke up with a stabbing type pain in my lower right side. I sat up in bed and thought . . what was THAT?? It went away so I went back to sleep. Then I woke up about 5:30 and thought . . that might have been a kidney stone. I'd better get busy getting that meat canned in case I have to go to the ER. I got 17 pounds of ground beef browned (not really browned but most of the pink was gone and that's sufficient for canning). It ended up being 26 pints. I put the poblano peppers and some of the giant Marconi peppers in 9 jars, which will be used for chile rellino casseroles or maybe pizza. The rest of the giant Marconi peppers were split between the 17 remaining pint jars. I got those filled with broth and between the All American 930 and 915, they held (barely) all those jars. It was probably about 10:00 a.m. when both canners came up to pressure and I started the timer for 1 hour, 15 minutes. 

I sat down to start stitching and oops . . the pain was back and it was INTENSE. Vince was out cutting grass. I knew I couldn't leave to go to the ER in Carthage until the canners stopped so I waited until they had been going about 45 minutes, then I went outside and told Vince (for the first time) that I thought I had a kidney stone and needed to go to the ER but had to wait until the canner was done and could be turned off. He wasn't happy that I was hurting and wouldn't leave until the canners were done but I was not about to lose 17 pounds of ground beef and so many of my home grown peppers.

Probably TMI but for me, maybe for everyone, when the pain gets to a certain level, I start throwing up. That started when the canner still had about 15 minutes to go. This was probably the worst kidney stone pain I've ever had.

The minute the timer went off, I turned the canners off and we went to the Carthage E.R. People there are always so nice. They did a CT with contrast and the results were an 8 mm kidney stone partially blocking the right kidney, which already was showing Hydronephrosis (swelling) so the doctor wanted to send me by ambulance to the Joplin hospital because Carthage doesn't do that kind of stuff. NO! I was not going by ambulance. We could drive 20 or 25 minutes to the hospital for way less $$ and I doubted anything would happen before Monday anyway. The doctor wasn't happy but said fine . . drive yourselves but then, there were no rooms available in Carthage. He checked Springfield and there were no rooms there. He was going to check Tulsa but Vince said he would rather go to Kansas City.  Why in August are there no rooms available or is it that no one has a urologist or are there certain rooms on certain floors that are used for that and they weren't available. I have no idea but it was after 4 p.m. when a room opened up in Joplin. The Carthage ER doctor called the Joplin cardiologist who lives in Arkansas and was on call and he said he could come to Joplin "tomorrow", which was today and do the "surgery" which was insert a stent. The room was "reserved", we drove straight over there, found our room, put all our stuff in it, went to the nurses' station, introduced ourselves and got all settled into a very nice room. The nurses couldn't believe we drove ourselves. They said "We didn't even know you could do that!? Vince said "You don't know my wife!" I had not eaten anything since Thursday about 3 p.m. and it was now Friday night but they still had NPO on my chart. One of the VERY nice nurses called the hospitalist who called the urologist and he said I could eat but had to stop by midnight. About 10:30 p.m. they brought me a "sandwich tray" - sandwich, baked chips, a container of chopped pear with juice and a Shasta Cola. Delicious!! I was so happy.

This stent installation was scheduled for 9 a.m. Vince got back to the hospital about 8 so we had a chance to visit for a while before they took me back. The urologist looked at the x-rays and said there were four other stones in the right kidney but only the one was causing a problem but he thought he could go in and grab the others with some kind of stone grabber (my term . . not his). He was able to get the big stone and the four smaller stones out so for the first time in a very long time, there are zero stones in the right kidney. Not happy to have the stent to deal with until Wednesday when I get it removed but so happy to be stone free in both kidneys, according to the CT scan.

About 1:30 p.m. today, they let us leave the hospital. Even though I feel like our medical care here isn't great, mostly because I'm not a fan of Mercy and from the rumblings I hear, I am not alone with my feelings, but I am very, very happy with the nurses, doctors and other staff I dealt with there.  More so, I am happy to be home in my comfy chair, with my good lighting, my husband and my dogs!

The funny thing was . . I thought I'd be in Carthage for a couple of hours, they'd give me pain meds, send me home with instructions to call the urologist Monday and go home so I didn't bring a book, or cross stitching or knitting. I had NOTHING to do. I cannot sit still and do nothing but the pain meds helped and I slept through most of it. Lesson learned . . keep a grab and go bag with something to keep the hands occupied. I do keep a grab & go bag with clothes for a couple of days, toiletries, phone charger, etc. so I was good there . . just nothing to do! Won't happen again.

August 20, 2026 - Thursday Already!

 It's after midnight so it's Thursday already but Wednesday, which still seems like "today", Debbie and I spent the day stitching. I think every time we're together, we spend more time talking and laughing than we do stitching but . . that's what it's all about and we're loving it. At least I am!

I stopped to get gas on the way to meet Debbie. It was $3.89/gallon. I'm sure many are paying more but that was kinda painful. I use my car on Wednesdays and that's it. When I get home from stitching day, it sits parked in the garage until the next stitching day so I'm glad I don't have to fill it up very often. Actually I pass by a gas station I like and feel safe at so I fill it up every other Wednesday and it takes between 7 and 8 gallons. Could be a lot worse if I drove more and if the car got worse gas mileage. Today I was very thankful that, even though we aren't in the same town as Chad, we aren't 10 hours away and I'm going back and forth often.

We were totally out of milk so I ran to Aldi after Debbie and I were done stitching. Aldi is pretty much across the street from where we stitch. 

Tuesday Vince had PT and he was going to go by Walmart. As he was about to leave, I said "Would you add ricotta to the list?" He said sure. He came home and said "I got your Moscata!" I said "I didn't ask for Moscata!" He said "Yes you did!" so I said "OK. Thanks!" When I finished putting away the couple of things he got, I said "Where's the ricotta?" He said "Oh!! Ricotta . . not Moscata!"  That was funny. So I grabbed a carton of ricotta at Aldi.

I haven't had great luck lately getting eggs from local folks. The pasture raised chicken eggs at Natural Grocer are good, with bright orange yolks, but they're $7/dozen. Aldi has several varieties of Golden Chick (I think that's the brand . . it's Golden something) eggs and one of those is pasture raised and has consistently good, orange yolks. I cannot eat eggs with pale yolks! I think they're somewhere between $3.99 and $5/dozen so I always get a few cartons of those when I'm at Aldi. They also had beef tallow in jars that is new so I got those.

Enough rambling from me tonight (remember, it's still Wednesday night for me since I haven't been to bed yet) so I'll have more to say later . . today . . which will seem like tomorrow!  :)

August 17, 2026 - Cross Stitching - Come Into My Garden - A Start!

 This may be my most favorite project ever! Do I say that about all of them? Maybe but, I do LOVE this one.

Look how pretty that flower is!

I'm so in love with the linen! If Denise were here, I would say I love, love, love this project! We used to laugh about how it sent us over the edge when floss tubers would say "love, love, love". Some still say it but several years ago, some of them would say it a dozen times in one video. Then Denise and I would write each other about something we had found or stitched, and we would say "I love, love, love this!" OK . . a happy memory and no tears! Good job, Judy!

Sunday I started working on the border. I'm making one side of each "x". I just wanted to get the border "outlined". The green for the border is Oscar (my favorite color and the reason I named my sweet baby Oscar!) and I wasn't sure it was going to show up well so in the area around that first flower, I made both sides of the "x" and it shows up fine.

I stitched the first flower, which is in the center of the top border, just to get the placement going for the border. Another reason to start with the border was that this is 36 count linen and I only have 2" on each of the left and right sides. I'll be framing it myself so I'm not concerned about 2" but just wanted to be sure the linen is straight and I wasn't going to get near the bottom and have only 1" or less on one side.

That's another thing about linen from Fabrics by Steph, while I can't guarantee that her linen will always be cut perfectly straight, the few pieces that I have are cut perfectly straight. It's pretty aggravating to get a piece of linen and lose an inch or more because it's cut so crooked. I understand . . it isn't easy to cut it straight but . . 

OK . . no more complaining!

Wait, I take that back. This chart! It was published (or at least delivered to the printer) in 2020. It is not formatted to be used with Markup R-XP. I barely know how to use the app so I should probably not even try to explain this but for a chart to work, say it's six pages and 1, 2 and 3 are at the top and 4, 5 and 6 are at the bottom, the three that are lined up together need to have the same number of vertical stitches. Then the ones that sit on top of each other need to have the same number of horizontal stitches.

Say page 1 is 63 x 102, page 2 is 55 x 102 and page 3 is 28 x 102.

The page 4, could be 63 x 90, page 2 would be 55 x 90 and page 3 is 28 x 90. I have no idea how the designers make it all work but they do but . . not this chart. I fiddled with it for several hours yesterday. Then I decided . . forget it! I'll work from a paper copy. No. My brain said "NOT doing that!"

I was thinking if I copied it, then cut and pasted pieces of the pages together, I might could make it work but, in the end, I decided that Chart #1 will be pages 1, 2 and 3 and Chart #2 will be pages 4, 5 and 6. It's two different projects on the app. It's working. Thank goodness I thought of that!

I didn't want to unroll the whole piece but the border matches up. So thankful for that. I'll be able to stitch mindlessly to complete the other half of the x's and there's a second row of the border but it's just under the first (you can see some of it on the top left). When I'm tired or easily distracted with other things, I'll work on finishing the border.

Canning Ground Beef

 The way I cook is probably different from how many of you cook but I think my way works so well for us. We have food in jars that I've canned; sometimes it's a "meal in a jar" and sometimes I have to open several jars and combine this and that to create a meal.

Today I canned ground beef, which is one of my favorite things to have in jars. There's so much I can do with a jar of ground beef! We have quarts and pints of canned ground beef canned. 

We have quarts but we were out of pints so that's why I have two days for canning ground beef. Quarts will hold about 2 pounds of ground beef; pints will hold about a pound. The ground beef I have has very little fat so a pound of 80/20 wouldn't yield quite as much meat as does 93/7. I count on getting 1 pound per pint but today, 17 pounds filled 23 pints. I did weight the meat but I'm kinda surprised I got that many jars. 

Probably Thursday I'm going to can about that same amount of ground beef but I will add bell peppers and onions to that second batch, maybe even a few jalapeno peppers.

Meals are so easy when all I have to do is open a jar of already cooked ground beef. Some of the dishes I love using the canned ground beef for are:

• Pizza - The first time I used canned ground beef for pizza, I was not sure what Vince would think but he said "You would never know it was canned! So . . why defrost ground beef, brown it (and have a skillet to clean), when I can open a jar, drain it and put it on the pizza!
• Ground Beef with Mushrooms - my favorite! Saute sliced mushrooms in a bit of butter, add a bit of flour to make a roux, pour in a bit of beef broth, add the drained beef from a jar (pint or quart), season to taste. Before serving, add a bit of heavy cream to the gravy. Serve over pasta or rice or mashed potatoes. 
• Soup - There are so many soups I can make with a jar of ground beef. I can add a jar of beans, a jar of carrots or fresh carrots, shredded cabbage, maybe add pasta or not. I can add taco seasoning, corn, black beans or pinto beans and have taco soup. This site has 24 soups using ground beef. Most of them would work with canned ground beef.
• Pasta sauce or lasagna.
• Pioneer Woman has 50 Ground Beef Recipes and many of those would be perfect for canned ground beef.
• I don't even know if this is something that sounds good to anyone else but I have jars of split pea soup I've canned and sometimes I like to add ground beef to that!

Before I was able to start canning this morning, I still had to clean up the 30 jars of soup I had canned last week. One batch had a bit of siphoning - not even enough to really show that the level was down inside the jar but there was LOTS of grease on the jars so I got those all cleaned up. Thankfully, the ground beef jars aren't greasy at all. Tomorrow I will remove the lids, wipe them down but that will be an easy job, and get them on the shelves.

August 16, 2026 - The Next Blackbird Academy Project - Come Into My Garden

I've already written about this project, Come Into My Garden by Blackbird Designs, but I am so excited to get to start it.  The September project should be something with a bird and Come Into My Garden has a bird!

The linen is Sassenach by Fabrics by Steph and just look at these gorgeous floss colors.  The floss is the called for floss - all Weeks Dyeworks.

Today is a leftovers for lunch day and I hope to get at least 400 stitches made today.

Last night it was about midnight when I finished Christmas Rose. I immediately got up, took it off the stitching frame and pulled the frames I might use to fully finish it. By then it was almost 1 a.m. but I grabbed the bag that contained Come Into My Garden, the floss and the linen and even though I knew I needed to get to bed, I went ahead and put the linen on the scroll frame, and I actually sat down and thought about stitching but then I said no . . NO!! So, this morning I finally get to start Come Into My Garden!

August 16, 2026 - Cross Stitching - Christmas Rose is Finished!

 Last night I finished Christmas Rose. This is my first project for Blackbird Academy. 

It was late last night when I finished it and the photos are kinda blown out with the lighting in the basement. I had already grabbed a few frames to see if anything I have here might work.

I'll just number them so if anyone wants to let me know what frame you like best, just tell me the number (or  you can tell me anything you want to tell me!)  :)

No. 1.

I like my pieces framed a bit tighter but these are standard 8 x 10 frames and since it's a piece that won't be out all year, I figured this size would work since any custom frame is going to be at least $50. And, once it's laced and pulled a bit tighter, I don't think the space on the sides will be quite so wide. But, I could change my mind. Here are a few other options. Any thoughts (on the specific frame or the spacing)?

No. 2.

No. 3.

No. 4.

No. 5.

I pretty much like all of them but I feel like #2 might be kinda wide. I think this is the order in which I like them:  1, 3, 4, 5, 2. Help me please!!  :)

For anyone who isn't familiar with Blackbird Academy and may want to join, there's a Facebook group, Blackbird Academy SAL, with over 2,000 members and quite a bit of fun activity there. The project is the brainchild of Holly Jones (Mrs. Jones Stitches) and Leah (The Blooming Stitcher). Both are fun flosstubers so please take a look at their videos if you're a stitcher.