Good News and Bad news

This is the one potato that we had for Our Thanksgiving dinner at my Dad's house. I cut it up and it filled the whole pot. We didn't even eat it all. The potatoes did well this year despite the nasty summer we had.



GOOD NEWS!
I found out that Anna is receiving the Silver Medal for her RCM Grade 1 exam which means she got the highest mark on her exam for her grade for all of Alberta. I wasn't sure what it meant until I sent an email to her teacher and asked if this was a big deal or not. Apparently it is. We are very excited for her but we found out today that the ceremony happens to be on the same day as the primary program. She will probably have to miss the primary program which will mean the other kids will have to sing louder because Anna usually carries the singing part. Her voice teacher is very excited about this whole thing and plans to be there with us.


BAD NEWS (with a happy ending).
A sad thing happened on Thursday. I dropped my cell phone and shattered the face of it. It was horrible. The phone still worked but it was hard to see through all the cracks. We found an advertisement in Kijiji that said they would fix it for $65 which was a whole lot better that the $200 that the apple store was going to charge so on Saturday before Murray picked me up at Wendie's he met this man in a parking lot at Taco Bell and the man repaired it in his car. He was on crutches and had two small children in the back of his car. Apparently he was on disability and was trying to make some money on the side. He did a great job…my phone looks like new and hopefully we helped this family as well.

SALSA!

So, it is squirrel season for me. Meaning that it is time to pick all the stuff in my garden and put it up for the winter. Last week I picked apples and tomatoes and beets and carrots and potatoes and onions and zucchini and beans. I still haven't finished canning everything that I need to can but I did three batches of salsa which as my kids will agree is the most important. It looked so pretty I had to take pictures.

The first picture is of this weird mutant tomato my dad grew. It was so strange I had to take a picture before I cut it up to put in the salsa.

First I cut put all the onions and peppers and garlic. I use my food grater on my

Bosch. Then I do the tomatoes. I have this great gadget for making sauce. It has a salsa attachment that lets you do tomatoes with out having to blanch and peel them. All you do is quarter them and put them in the hopper then turn the crank and out comes nice tomato pulp and the skins get separated the other direction. Then I add that to the other chopped up stuff, add spices etc. and let simmer for a couple of hours before I put it in jars and process it. The jars always look so great sitting on my counter afterwards and I feel like I have accomplished something that will stay done till Natalie comes home and eats them all.

Here is the recipe if anyone wants to try making some.

Salsa

(Makes approx. 5 pints)

5 lb tomatoes (about 15 medium)

2 – 6 jalepenos (2 for mild, 4 for medium, 6 for hot)

1 ½ cups chopped onion

1 ½ cups chopped green pepper

1 cup chopped red pepper (or yellow)

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 can tomato paste

1 cup white vinegar

3 T. sugar

1 T. pickling salt

2 tsp. paprika

3 T. finely chopped fresh cilantro (or 1 T. dried)

• Blanch, peel, seed and coarsely chop tomatoes; (I get to skip this with my handy machine) place tomatoes in a large stainless steel pot.
• Add remaining ingredients – except cilantro; mix well. Stirring occasionally, bring to boil over medium heat. Simmer, uncovered 1 hour.
• Fill boiling water canner with water and bring to boil.
• Add cilantro and continue cooking 15 to 30 minutes until desired consistency is reached.
• Ladle sauce into clean hot pint jars to within ½ inch of top rim. Remove air bubbles, wipe rim and apply heated lid; apply screw band just until fingertip tight.
• Place jars in canner. Cover canner; return to boil: process 20 minutes (at altitudes up to 1,000 feet). Remove jars. Cool 24 hours. Check jar seals. Remove screw bands. Wipe jars, label and store in a cool dark, place.

Waterton Weekend

You always have to hike Bear's Hump when you go to Waterton. I was really impressed that miles did it twice! It was a nice hiking group...slow and steady. Not sure what they are pointing at...I think it was just for effect

And as usual it was windy at the top as suggested by the great picture of my hair.

Rachel found a friend by sharing her snack. He got very friendly and bold by the end.

Back at the cabin one Juliet and I had a good time laughing together. She must think I have a funny or face or something because she was really giggling away. It was so fun! And she is so cute.

Saturday we hiked up to Crandall. A nice and easy hike with a pretty lake for a destination. Murray did fine as long as he rested his leg when we were not hike. He was the only one to hike all the way around the lake as well.

And of course everyone had to throw rocks in the lake.

It was a fun weekend with a small crowd of only 17. We fit in the cabin quite nicely now that most of the kids are gone. It rained/sleeted/snowed (on the mountain) on Sunday but that only helped us to keep the Sabbath day holy.

Thanks for the fun weekend family!

Were Back!

Got a new cat so I guess our life can begin again. Or at least we can blog again. Actually we just hadn't blogged in so long that we forgot how. Natalie was the only one who knew the password. They changed blog site email thingy. I couldn't Facebook and blog at the same time...too much technology for me? Well, I am running out of excuses. I will try and be more consistent from now on.

Today wast the first day of school for Anna. Richard, Kristine, Natalie and Krista all started BYU yesterday. Me? Well...I went to the farm to harvest from the garden. We actually had a little frost this morning. The growing season is much too short here.

We had such great summer and I am not ready for it to end.I know I will not be able to catch up on the past stuff you missed out on from our family so we will just pretend not much happened (like Richard got married or Krista graduated from high school and started college and other non consequential things like that.) If you want info like that maybe you could refer to our annual Christmas letter because if your are reading this you probably got that. Anyway don't hold your breath for the next blog but hopefully it will much sooner than the last one.

A death in the family

There has been a death in the family. Belle has been in our family since Natalie's third birthday in Orem Utah. She was a joyful and active kitten and has always been a very beautiful cat. She moved with us to Indiana where she suffered depression for a while, never venturing out for a whole year while construction proceeded around our new home. Her inactivity gained her the "fat cat" designation that we loved to call her. She weighed in at 18 lbs at one time in her life. By the time we moved to Alberta she had been on a diet for some time and had brought her weight down to 15 lbs.
Last month after our trip to Utah she started to rapidly lose weight and refused to eat. Last Wednesday August 15th she passed peacefully away under the futon in Natalie's room. We buried her at the farm under a nanking cherry bush with a marble headstone and flowers on her grave. She will be dearly missed.

Snowman in the summer?

Krista is a movie star!

The Hair Cut

The biggest news since we moved in...Anna got a hair cut! She decided she would get at least 10 inches taken off and donate it to the Locks of Love. Before...........during (she looks unsure)...
...the final cut (actually trned out to be 11 inches)...
...and after! She was so happy (and mom was so relieved).

Zip

My family has not been very good at bloging thing so I thought I would do some. When went to the farm recently and we caught a kitten. It is so cute. I brought it home for about 2 ½ weeks to tame it for my grandparents. We named it Zip.

Belle was not very happy for the for the time that she was there, as you can see.But we have to take it back to the farm because we are going out of town for too long. We can see it any time we go to the farm, so it is ok.