One Day at a Time

My to-do list is long for the next couple of days. This morning is going to be a bad day for the kitties. We're packing them both up this morning and taking them to the vet for their annual exams, immunizations, and de-worming. Cats who dine on critters get dewormed. It's very empurrassing, and so we don't like to mention this at purrties. Smitty is mad I'm bringing it up just now.

We had our grocery shopping done early yesterday. I was in a hurry to get going on my Cherry Salsa. It's important to wear the right uniform, and so I suited up.

This is something new to my pantry shelves. I was looking for something more to do with our cherry harvest when I came across this recipe. I chopped the cherries and vegetables using my food processor, and that made pretty quick work of them. Here's how it looked when I turned on the flame.

It simmered for about 20 minutes, and then I packed it into jars for 20 minutes of processing (adjusted for our elevation). When it came out of the boiling water bath, it looked like this. Pretty, huh?

Of course I tasted it. It is a fruity salsa, but I'm not sure I'd recognize it as cherry if I didn't already know. 

During last weekend's heat wave, I got a yen for lemonade. While the salsa was processing, I juiced two bags of lemons to make a jug of lemonade. And let me just tell you, this stuff is good. Mine uses 2 cups fresh lemon juice, 7 cups of water, and 1-1/2 cups of sugar. You could use less sugar if you like, depending on your lemons. Also, I've seen lemonade sweetened with maple syrup. I have an electric juicer...this one...and that makes this a pretty quick job.

Can I tell you a secret about the lemonade? We filled two rocks glasses with ice, put in a shot of bourbon, and then filled the glass with lemonade. Pretty yummy. I got the idea from Smitten Kitchen. She's the one who uses maple syrup to sweeten her lemonade, and she calls that cocktail Vermontucky Lemonade. There's no maple syrup in ours, and so we're just calling it Kentucky Lemonade. It was very tasty, but don't tell anyone we're adding bourbon to our lemonade, okay? 

It was late in the afternoon by the time I made my way into the sewing room. I added three more vertical columns to the Sonora Desert piece. It's looking better to my eyes as I get closer to the finish line. I still have some ideas about how to spice it up a bit. For now, I'm just hoping to get it all pieced together before the end of the day tomorrow. I think I can make it.

And that reminds me...I need to choose a goal for July's

After giving it some thought, I've decided getting the bear quilt finished and on its way to the new baby is a worthwhile endeavor. It needs quilting and binding, and then it can be packed up and mailed off.

The quilt top was finished last week, but I've been waiting for the backing fabric. It was delayed a few days, and it arrived yesterday.

After dinner, I went out to fill the bird feeders. While I was out, I noticed one of the sunflowers is showing some color. This is one of the giants. It's only about waist-high right now. I would expect it to be taller before blooming, but it's been a weird year in weather. Maybe the sunflower feels as if blooming now is the best bet.

The bee garden is just starting to bloom behind it. So far, all I'm seeing is the usual crop of flowering weeds. I'm hoping the 2 lbs. of wildflower seeds I threw down will make a showing eventually. The bees don't care. They like it just the way it is. While I was standing there, the area was humming with them.

The purple hydrangea is doing beautifully. We worried about it during the hot weather. You can see that some of the flower petals are looking a little toasty, but the plant itself seems to have survived just fine. 

Okay so kitties to the vet this morning. When I get home, I'll can some cherries in simple syrup. I've readjusted my canning expectations as regards the cherries. I realized I still have four jars of cherry pie filling (in addition to four jars of apple pie filling). Probably, I don't need to make any more pie filling this year. So I'll can the cherries in syrup today and pit the cherries for the sweet cherry barbecue sauce. Then I'll freeze those for processing after we get back. It takes a bit of the load off my shoulders. I really want to finish piecing together the desert quilt, and maybe I can get that finished today. There's still more cooking to do for our trip, and packing, and getting the garden watered and weeded before our absence. Taking the cherry pie filling off the table opens up several hours to accomplish other things.

For now...it's breakfast time. While I was making room in the fridge for the lemonade yesterday, I fumbled and dropped a carton of eggs. Only one broke, and I was able to savage it for some scrambled eggs this morning. I missed out on my slow-stitching time yesterday morning. There might be a little time this morning.