Summer Dwindling

I have been silent these past two weeks or so. It is really hot and humid here in Minnesota - more so than usual for this time of year. I have finally wrapped up my work in the homeless shelter while the work in the food bank is popping all over the place. Mother is struggling and I am trying to have a life in the midst of it all. :)

Can someone please, please tell me what happened to my ability to upload photographs on blogger. The icon to upload is gone from the toolbar at the "new post" screen. Is there some new place to find the upload button? I have photos to share and it is frustrating not to be able to do so.

It is supposed to cool down here in the next couple of days and I think we are all looking forward to the relief this weekend. I will do my best to create a longer post soon - there are some neat things happening in my life - I am reaching out to connect with new people in new ways....very exciting. More to come.....

Still on the Planet

This has been an incredible month. I started a new leadership transition on July 9th and am still winding down the last transition in the family homeless shelter AND my mother is taking incredible amounts of my time. My new gig is about feeding hungry people - a mission that is dear to my heart. To make things more complicated, the food bank is a 28 mile commute (each way) from my home. I am not complaining but it is challenging right now.

One thing I have managed to do is to begin my summer food preserving - last weekend I put up 7.5 quarts of garlic, kosher dill pickles - yummy!! I have a few more cukes and I think sandwich pickle chips are in my future before the end of the week. I wanted to upload photos of my pickles but blogger is being stubborn right now. Maybe later.

Really exciting news: my bestest friend for over 40 years, J and her husband S are moving here from Florida in September. Hooray - we have wanted to do this for so long. The last time we lived close together was many, many, many years ago in Northern California. They plan to try out Minnesota for a year and see what comes next. I am excited and feel very blessed.

I will try to blog more often - even though I am not writing, I am reading everyone on my feed - trying to keep up with all your activities this summer. Take care.

Catching Up.......................

This is the longest I have gone without posting in the four years that I have been tending to this blog. It seems very strange = here is my story.

Of course, I am still doing the executive transition project - it is nearly done, the new CEO begins September 21! I shall be released! The work has been crazy-making and one of the most profound blessings in my entire consulting career.

My friend V was here for a month and we had a lovely time. He has decided to relocate here from Seattle and will return in October - much more about that to come. :=)

My best friend J arrived on August 23 - a few hours after getting here, she slipped, fell and broke her wrist in 4 places. She had surgery on August 27 and has been staying with me to recuperate. It has been a very trying time for her = painful and filled with tons of heavy duty pills, therapy and rest. She is healing nicely though and the rehab therapist tells us that she is going to have a complete recovery of the use of her wrist and hand.

Yesterday was the Farmers Market and as you can see from the photos, I put up ginger peach jam. I made pesto for the freezer (and our tummies last night). Downstairs is 60 pounds of tomatoes awaiting the canner later today, which I will tackle after I go to my personal trainer for a Pilates session this morning.

J has her follow-up session with her surgeon on Tuesday and is departing for home on Wednesday. Twelve days later we welcome the new Executive to the beloved organization. Once she is on board - I will have plenty of spare time.

Even though I haven't been posting, I have done my best to drop by my dear blog buddies' sites. I hope you are still dropping by here for a visit and I promise that I am truly back on the planet.

As summer turns her face towards Autumn I hope you are enjoying these waning days of warmth and the bounty of the harvest. The journey continues....... Namaste

The Bounty of Summer Begins

Yesterday, I canned 10 half pints of raspberry jam, put up 3 quarts of dilled green beans and dried a lot of my homegrown herbs. It is very satifying to preserve food for the winter. It will be so nice to open one of those jars and taste the summer sunshine in a glistening spoonful of raspberry jam. It is particularly important to me because I can control the amount of sugar - this jam is made primarily with light agave syrup and a bit of organic cane sugar. The agave syrup is much lower on the glycemic index scale and better for you than a big blast of refined sugar. I put some of the jam in a small container to use now and it is good.

When my children were small I did a lot of summer canning. This year, I made a personal pledge to preserve as much local food as I can for the winter ahead.

The Farmer's Market and my own little container garden are bursting with summer's bounty. I had so much fun yesterday - I am bitten by the bug.

Friday

I came back from vacation to more than 500 unread emails and lots of work. I am really glad that it is Friday. I have a busy and highly creative day ahead and am looking forward to it.

The organizational transition in which I have been engaged in since March is moving along quite nicely. We are in new program development and human resources restructuring mode now. The search for the new executive progresses and I should be ready to quietly leave in September.

The garden is exploding with color and lots of veggies. I will take new photos and post a bunch this weekend. Have a wonderful Friday - it is a beautiful day in my backyard, hope it is in yours too.

Garden

I took these photos just after dawn this morning as I wandered around the yard with my coffee and my IPhone. I will take better photos this weekend with my real camera. We are expecting a beautiful and much cooler day today. Enjoy yours!!

Garden

It has been a weekend - I did not feel well Saturday and Sunday but am back to normal today. The client work continues to be incredibly stressful. Here is the progress on the garden so far this year. The pots lined up against the wooden wall are all vegetables and edible flowers. It is fun to watch them grow - cucumbers, zucchini, beans, hot peppers, eggplant, edible lavender, and parsley. The space in front of the house has four types of tomatoes, basil, chamomile, chives and lots of edible flowers.

We are in drought here in the Twin Cities - I am thankful for the hose - all my containers are mulched. I watered the lawn and trees in back very deeply during the spring and they are doing well in spite of so little rain. Soon I will post photos of the back gardens - very beautiful. I will keep the photos coming as things grow strong.

Summer is on the Way

I spent most of the weekend outdoors - planting, digging, raking, mulching,refurbishing pots, just having a really good time. This year I planted very few flowering annuals - almost 100% of all plantings are edibles. You can see my three large barrels are planted with a huge number of herbs - I am hoping to dry most of my herbs for the winter. The other large pot on the stairs is filled with Brussels sprouts. I have loads of johnny jump ups, pansies, chamomile for tea. In the front (where I have not yet taken photos) there are pots filled with tomatoes, eggplant, Italian parsley, chili peppers, yellow pear tomatoes, bush cucumbers and bush beans. I am very excited.

I still have all my tomato sets that I am growing and will plant them next weekend. I also will be planting pots of lettuce to grow in the shade under the big tree in the backyard. Salad right out the backdoor.

This was a relaxing weekend. I will post more photos soon. I hope you had a lovely weekend - summer has begun.