Summer Firsts

With all my summer visitors and activities at church, the first part of my summer was very hectic.  Now that those events are concluded, Mike and I have been able to spend more time on our traditional summer activities.  

Mike caught his first big bass of the year on July 12.  It was 6 pounds.  He had not caught any big ones yet this season and was beginning to wonder if we still had any bass larger than two pounds.  Unfortunately, when he caught this fish I was out walking and Bill was busy on his phone getting his boarding passes.  Mike held on to the fish for a long time till Bill finally returned his call and came over to our house to take these pictures. 

Suzanne, Heath, Finn and I checked out the Goshen Market in Edwardsville.  It is a farmers market that occurs every Saturday during the summer.  The produce looked incredible and the baked good were delicious.  I saw oyster mushrooms and fairy eggplant for the first time.  I will definitely go back. 

Suzanne and Heath also had a great time.  That is because of Finn's reception at the market.  The Goshen Market website said that dogs were welcome so Finn was not the only dog there, but he might has well have been.  Suzanne and Heath were stopped repeatedly by children who wanted to pet him and adults who said he was a good looking dog.  Everyone asked what kind of dog he was.  We finally just sat down and ate our baked goods and let Finn's adoring public come to him. 

Supposedly there is a dog parade at the farmer's market in September.  Finn should definitely enter.  Actually he should probably lead the parade. 

Mike picked our first watermelon of the summer this August.  Unfortunately all of my guests were here in June of this year so it was left up to me and the chickens to eat all this watermelon.  I gave the chickens the rind and any watermelon that got overripe because I just could not eat it fast enough.  But I ate the rest.  However we have four more melons.  I need to find someone to help me eat this stuff. 





















Besides the watermelon, Mike and I have tomatoes, eggplant, green peppers and zucchini growing in the garden.  Since I cannot eat all this produce by myself I have had to get creative.  I look for recipes that I can freeze.  So far I have 3 batches eggplant hummus and 15 small loaves of chocolate zucchini bread and 7 batches of roasted grape tomatoes in the freezer.  I also cut up the green peppers and freeze them one pepper at a time.  This is one of the reasons I look forward to Fall.  I have a stocked freezer full of delectable goodies that I do not have to cook. 

There's five more weeks of summer left.  Who knows what other projects Mike and I will come up with to fill this time.