Friday, July 10, 2026

 First thing this morning, I got back to canning the tomatoes and got the last ones finished - 100 pounds of tomatoes = 40 quarts of crushed tomatoes. All canned and all except the ones I canned today are put away.

Next I cut up some of the bigger cucumbers to make pickles using a recipe a reader mentioned. I'll get those finished tomorrow.

Then I went out and did chores in the garden. We have some kind of weed with wicked thorns on it. They go through all the garden gloves I have so Vince put on his heavy leather gloves and pulled them out for me. He put them in a bucket and will put them in the trash. I do not need those things reproducing in the yard. I picked two more of the Candy Roaster squash. I weighed the biggest one and it weighed 15 pounds! I cut one this morning and used about 1/3 of it for a souffle type dish for part of our lunch (oven roasted country style pork ribs, homemade baked beans and the squash, along with a cucumber/tomato/sprouts salad. 

Tomorrow I'll cut up and can the four candy roasters I've picked so far. I hope there will be at least four or five more.

After lunch, I was really tired so Oscar and I took a nap. Cooper will sleep on my lap during the day but he will not get in the bed and sleep if it's daylight outside.

On the cross stitching front, a blog reader/enabler wrote me to say she is starting Come to the Garden by Teresa Kogut. I've been working some, ok . . just a little, on G. Leger. I originally started that thinking it would be in memory of my grandma because she loved pretty flowers but then I was thinking maybe Come to the Garden was a better choice because it's more primitive/folksy and I think my grandma would have liked that one better. I believe G. Leger is a better choice for my aunt who loved flowers and also loved dainty, pretty things.

Then, I was trying to decide what linen to use for Come to the Garden and I was looking for finished pieces or anyone who mentioned what linen they had used. I came across Jo's finished piece - you know Jo or you should know her from Jo's Country Junction. Here's the post she wrote when she finished hers and it's gorgeous. Jo changed the verse at the bottom to be part of the old gospel song, In the Garden. My grandma played the piano at their little country church and she had a piano in her tiny little family room. She loved that song and not only did she play it often at church but on the weekends when we would be up in north Louisiana visiting them, almost every night, Nanny would play the piano and we would all sing. It was always hymns and this one was sang frequently. So, that confirmed for me . . Come to the Garden will be in memory of my grandma. I had already pulled out half a dozen pieces of linen but Jo had used Vellum by Picture This Plus and I loved hers so I that's what I'm using too! Thanks Jo (and Kayla for charting the words to the song!).

I had been working on Christmas Roads and was trying to get to where I could start stitching the big red house. I was almost there but I'm going to put that one aside for a few days . . . just long enough to get the border frame done on Come to the Garden, then I'll switch back and forth between them for a couple of weeks and decide what I'm going to do.

We were maybe going to have bad weather tonight but so far (almost midnight), nothing bad yet. Let's hope it stays that way!