Another Slow Day

Good morning, my friends. There was plenty of activity yesterday, but it still ended up feeling like a slow day. Pickles were on the morning’s agenda, and so I made one more trek to the garden to find any cucumbers that could be included. Just that morning, I’d told Mike that none of the red sunflowers had bloomed. I planted all the sunflowers from the many seed packets I had from years gone by. I was pretty sure some red ones were in the mix, but I’d kind of given up on them. And then…there they were. The garden never fails to surprise me.

The zinnias continue to delight me.

And how could I not take a picture of these happy little flowers?

Mike was out with me. I needed someone with longer limbs than I to help me pick some plums. Our plum tree was adequately fruitful this year. I have plums for the two desserts I like to make, and a few more for eating. If I were hoping for BBQ sauce from them, however, I don’t think I’d have enough. This is what we picked yesterday. Twelve of them will go into an Original Plum Torte for our dessert on Friday. There will be a few leftover for eating as plain old plums.

And then…oh, the cucumbers. I had about 3-1//2 lbs after adding the three or four I’d just harvested. I had 7 jars prepared. I hoped it would be enough.

And, as it turns out, 7 jars was exactly what I needed. That makes 13 pints of pickles this year. That will probably hold us, and I’ll have a few jars to give away.

Since I’m not needing any more pickles, and the cucumbers are still producing, I inquire of The Google whether pickling cucumbers were good for eating as regular cucumbers. As it turns out…yes. Commenters talked about their bumpy and thicker skins. Usually I peel cucumbers when I’m eating them that way. Also, I have a recipe for a chilled pureed cucumber soup. And, I can make a mean gazpacho. As you can see, the menu items are already piling up as I consider what to do with my cucumber bounty. It’ll give me something else to think about as I attempt to withdraw from harvesting zucchini. By the way, with Mike by my side, I abandoned two zucchini in the garden yesterday morning. No tears.

So that took me to lunch time. After lunch and a nap, I spent some more time with my quilt binding, turning the second corner.

I’m mere inches away from the third corner, and so I expect to get around there today.

There might not be a lot of time for sewing today. We’re going to try again to take our boat out on the river. You might remember we planned to go a couple of weeks ago, and then changed our mind because of the wildfire smoke blanketing our area. Air quality is good now, and it won’t be too hot. We’ll head out later this afternoon. Usually, I try to make us some kind of a dinner to take along. Mike suggested sandwiches from Subway. That suits me just fine. 

Tomorrow, Matthew and I are meeting up again. We wanted to try to get in one more meet-up before Mike and I head out on our Washington trip. The weather will be more iffy when we return from our trip, and so we’re spending time outside while the sun shines. Also, I’ll foist off a jar of pickles on him. He’ll like that. I offered him more zucchini. He didn’t answer. I took that as a no. It was a worthy try.

All right then…off I go. If I’m going to get in any sewing before boating, the time is now. Have a good day, Everyone!