late, but still good!

I found this pressure canner for only $35 this weekend at the Village Antiques!

I have been thinking about getting one, but just didn't want to pay a much as new ones cost.  Even on Craig's List they were $50-$100 and then I'd have to drive to some faraway place to get it!  this one required 2 trips actually - we went to the Antiques Village yesterday but I didn't get the canner and the fella passed up a couple sports coats, so we decided last night to make another trip today!  silly.  but now I'm happy!  It's from 1975, but seems to be in great shape - it's a Presto and it still has the original instruction manual and came with a jar lifter too.  I have a waterbath canner, but this will be great for beans next year!  Unfortunately, it's a little late for this year because this is what the garden looks like now :(

It's the end of the season for things like beans and squash and cukes - powdery mildew got ahold of our melons and tomatoes, but we still got lots of tomatoes, but the melons just never got to ripen as they should.  Next year I'm going to plant spaghetti squash on the little fence!  

This is where the corn was.  I planted a couple rows of sugar snap beans here and 3 red cabbage plants that I started from seed.  Borris is supervising while recovering from this run in with the car in the road.  Maybe not the best idea, but it sure raised his spirits to be out there - never unsupervised, of course!  he's still very limpy, but he doesn't seem to realize that he needs to limit himself!

More cat stuff

We've had more than our fair share of terrible cat issues lately, I feel!  almost 2 weeks ago, our Borris got hit by a car out at the road.  Thankfully, it clipped his back end and his injuries were fixable.  He broke his femur, which is a pretty significant injury - the vet had to put 2 pins down the length of his thigh bone to fix it, which means he's got a whole leg full of staples.  The inside of his other leg was also pretty torn up, but he stapled that too.  No internal injuries - which is amazing!  For a week I felt like I was at the vet almost everyday!  he kept pulling out staples, then had to get a cone, which he hated and tried to pull off every chance he got, then he wouldn't go to the bathroom - he could barely stand, and definitely couldn't squat.  it was just terrible because you knew he was suffering but couldn't do much to sooth him.  I slept on the floor next to him every night.  Suddenly, in the past few days, he's made recovery by leaps and bounds - he's getting up on his own, walking about (even on little walks outside!) - it's great to see!  His staples will come out on Tuesday and then the dreaded cone will be gone - he'll be a happy guy!  It warms my heart to see him acting more normal - he's an amazing cat and i don't know what we'd have done if he didn't make it!  I took pictures of him all laid up, but I imagine it's not the way he wants people to see him!  soon, he'll be back out in his favorite spot...tracking field mice!

THEN, if you can believe it, we were walking around up near the front of the property, which we haven't done in a while since we've been taking care of Borris every minute, and heard a meow, meow, meow coming from the hill down to the culvert.  We've got a bunch of crown vetch there because it's too steep to mow.  I said "where are you" (well, first I said "ooh no") and saw a big rustle in the leaves down below and then this guy climbed his way up the hill through the crown vetch and popped out the top!  he was super sweet and lovey right away - like he'd been around people, but was super skinny, COVERED in fleas, and had a bum leg.  oh, another cat with a messed up leg!  but what could we do? you can't just put him back in the ditch!

So i took him to the vet where he was diagnosed with a broken lower leg, but that we probably didn't need to do anything - kittens are pretty resiliant and he'd probably heal up just fine.  He does walk on it, he's just all gimpy (i actually thought maybe it was a birth defect, but there are wounds there that are healing)  He got some shots, and some blood tests and we took him home and gave him a hell of a bath, then some Revolution to take care of his fleas.  He's probably 14 weeks old and now we have yet another kitten!!  oy!  i've never met a more lovey cat though - he's sweet as sugar and super affectionate!  we're still tossing around names...more to come!

summer dining al fresco

Yesterday we made dinner over the fire and ate outside!  it was fantastic!  I've made little foil packets of potatoes, onion, peppers, squash, etc. to send with the mister when he goes camping, but I've never had the end product myself!  So yesterday he made a fire and I made some packets and foil wrapped corn.  We pulled out the table and ate right there!  oh, the red corn stayed red when we cooked it over the fire!

But just to get back to showing something other than gardening/food, let me show a few things I've been making for a friend who's wife is having a little girl soon!  I'm so excited to make little girl things! She's due in October, but I had this little dress cut out from ages ago, so I made it with the intent of making a little shirt and leggings or tights to go under it (I always think of these little cross-over dresses as pretty springy).  I used my embroidery machine to do the little bear on the front!  note the rick rack edging - it makes everything cuter! 

And I'm also making her this little quilt.  I started embroidering these blocks ages ago, but never did anything with them, so I finally pulled them together into a quilt.  I love all the shades of orange together!  I'm still working on the quilting part - I'm not very good at it, and I'm already regretting some of my choices, but babies rarely complain!

I also knit her this February Baby sweater - I've always wanted to knit this!