Hot Stuff

Yesterday, we turned on the air-conditioner for the first time this summer. It's always a question whether it will work when we turn it on the first time. So far, so good. It's the original air-conditioner that was here when we moved in 18 years ago. There's no telling how long it was here before us. We turned it on when we left to go grocery shopping. When we came home, the house was cool and comfy. Mike thought to close the vents in the basement, and that kept the sewing room from turning into a deep freeze. Now we're set...as long as the air-conditioner doesn't decide to give up the ghost.

After we had the groceries put away, I went to work making something new to the pantry in the form of this Hot Cherry Pepper Jelly. My yield was eight half-pints.

I love pepper jellies. They're great accompaniments to meat of any kind. This one is particularly good. When I went to bed last night, I worried whether it would set up. I took the advice of Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars, who told me to chill. "Just walk away," she said. And so I did. When I got up this morning, it was set up and looking fine. Phew!

Okay, so it was time for some sewing. I finished sewing together all the sections for "And On that Farm." 

There is still some applique to do at the bottom. There are sunflowers to add next to the cow. The goat is holding a quilt in his mouth, and that is still loose from the rest of the quilt. There are also the duck and ducklings I made before our camping trip. There are some carrots that will fit below the kitten and duckling block. All of that will have to wait until I finish sewing the three borders on. Before I quit for the day, I had the first one finished.

I'll be switching to a different fabric for the second border...this one:

Now here's the thing: the pattern tells me to cut 7 WOF (width of fabric) strips 3-1/2 inches wide. By my calculations, I need 24.5 inches to accomplish that. Only, my kit contains less than 23 inches of fabric. Drat!

So, okay. I also calculated how many inches of border I would need. I can get 6 WOF strips from this. If I sew them together end to end, I should have 11 inches left over. We'll see. I'm hoping to finish this border and the next by day's end.

When I went upstairs, I found this little girl sunning herself, despite the closed vertical blinds. The sun shines in here in the afternoon. Both kitties like to sun themselves here, but it was too hot to let the sun shine in yesterday. No problem. She can work with this.

After dinner, we went down to our neighbor's house to pick the tart cherries from her tree. Yum.

The neighbor is gone to the beach. She mentioned she also had raspberries. I was thinking of making some raspberry-infused vodka, but we couldn't find the raspberries. Oh well. I can get those at the grocery store. As for the cherries...these will be today's project. I'll be canning some cherry pie filling. If there are enough left over, I'll make a fresh cherry pie for two and we can enjoy that for dessert tonight.

So, it's another busy day ahead, and we still have cherries to pick from our own trees. Including today, I expect I still have about four days of canning left for this go-round. And then...the vegetable garden is just getting started. I imagine zucchini will be next. Isn't summer great?