Garden ~ Kitchen-ness ~ Utility Room Purge (the room that holds way too much ha ha!)

Our 4th of July started out very foggy, but the remainder of the day was in the high 80's, and sunny. We spent the morning tying up tomato plants, until the heat index turned 91°F.

Those tomato plants are not all of them, I have a main tomato patch as well.

Our zucchini plants are about 5 feet wide this year. Never in our life, have we seen them this large. Don't mind the weeds, I'll get those when the ground is a bit more dry out here. You can see the small whirly-gig, and can compare that to the plant. Amazing!

I'm still trying to resurrect the green onions. Golly they took a hit with the heat and recent drought. I was hoping for the rain to help, but it will take some work to bring them back to life.

I like to keep healthy snacks prepared for hot days. Some days we don't feel like eating a large meal, so I whipped up some hummus, and added spinach this time.

One of our favorite breakfast casseroles with chili peppers and cottage cheese.

Craft containers on a shelf in the utility room - the purge/extreme clean has started.

I dumped out 3 containers, of the "jewelry" making craft supplies. I went through them to either toss, donate or keep, and filled a bag to donate. However, I think one daughter wants to look through it first. Keep in mind, we have 6 kids, and that was years and years of crafting with them. The girls really used these, and there was a mess in the bottom of each container. I found a small set of screwdrivers, that will go to the garage.

All of my patterns were put back into a binder, but my binder ring in the center broke. I'll revisit that project when I have a new binder, but the patterns are all in there, and in their properly marked section.

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Horsetail Salve ~ A "first" this Year

We purchased some horsetail salve to try last year. It is said to help with severely dry, cracked skin. My husband was the first to try it, with very, very dry and cracked hands from work. He loves it! He joked I could not have it back. I started the infused, horsetail oil the last part of March. Something I learned: horsetail is also called shavegrass. I infused horsetail in oil, and strained it. I then made horsetail salve. I remembered to label my jar with what oil(s) I used, so I can journal this all in my "Herbal Remedies" journal. I often forget to write the oil used. Now, the one we bought, has more in it than I put in ours, as far as ingredients (the purchased salve had lanolin, and aloe). We'll see if ours works just as good. I added the sage essential oil, and vitamin E oil. A "first" time experience for us this year. I bought the larger tins at a seed store in an Amish area last year. They a...

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Chit Chat

The pickings are slim right now, but we'll take anything we are blessed with. I made a salad and cleaned the beans. The rain will give us more for a meal in a day or so. The green beans are every so slowly coming on this season. I made a batch of homemade granola, and instead of my homemade vanilla extract, I used my homemade Christmas Spice Extract. It smelled so good in the oven, and while cooling. I picked some purslane, and am doing an experiment with it this time. Update soon. Chit Chat © August 2026 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

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New Recipe Tried and other Bits

I tried a new granola recipe and boy it's good. First, it's a recipe from Mennonite Girls and Cook, and called "Backpack Snacks" online. It calls for granola, so I used my homemade granola that we love. Picture is the dry ingredients. Second, I pressed the final mixture into a 9 x 9, parchment lined baking dish instead of rolling it into balls. The color of these photos are all different, because of the time of day, and how dark the house was from the thick Canadian smoke that was still outside at the time. These cut very nicely, and were very good, straight from the refrigerator. It was hard to eat just one of them. I will be making this again, and switching out the peanuts with walnuts, and switching out the raisins with dates. Oh my! The binder is honey and peanut butter. These are perfect for your hiking days, camping, your grandkids, or just for snacks when you want one. The rain arrived thank goodness, and washed the smoke in...

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