Pioneer Woman at Heart

I faced another 8# of ripe tomatoes yesterday, and will be today.  In fact, I told Hubby dinner will be very late.  I'm on a mission to put up all of my ripe tomatoes.  Ha!   I took time, after the tomatoes were all boiled and ice bathed, and draining, to eat breakfast on the porch.  It was nice to get some Vitamin D.  Then it was back to the sink and stove.  By the way, that was leftover sweet potato/black bean frittata (Mmmm!)

I made one last visit to the tomatoes.  I promised myself to not even think about getting more harvested, and just pull the darn plants.  I put the last of the grape tomatoes into the dehydrator, and pulled some green tomatoes.  Even the green tomatoes are starting to look bad, so I'm ready to get them pulled.  I pulled one plant and stake today.  It's a measly start on 100-some plants, ha ha!  The grand total of our tomato harvest, as of yesterday, was 500.8#! I told the kids I'll not do that again.  They all laughed at me.

I took this photo as a light rain was ending.  You can see some of the trees are already turning to beautiful reds, oranges, and yellows.  Hubby and I saw the most beautiful fall colors last night.  We took off on a ride along a river, and the colors were fantastic.   I was on the back of the Harley, hence no photos (very curvy road). Our weekend started out with a funeral visitation about 40 minutes from home.  Hubby was needing some much needed road therapy and insisted we ride the Harley.  I was hesitant, due to the fact would could not wear nice "dress" clothing, but we went.  It was at night, so he spontaneously booked a room in a historical hotel.  I did not have my camera, so the photos are a bit unfocused (taken with my phone).

I just realized, if I run out of pantry and freezer space, I can always utilize my dehydrator. I can make tomato sauce leather.   You simply spr ead out he tomato sauce on par chment paper and dehydrate.  This  would come in handy for backpacking trips or camping meals (uses less space to pack food).  You just combine it with equal parts of hot water, and you have tomato sauce again.  Then you can add spices to create pizza sauce, or make other meals using dehydrated ingredients. The t hing with tomatoes, is that y ou always have so methi ng to make with them.

I'm not sure if it's just this time of year, but yesterday's sunrise was just gorgeous too.  

Yes terday mo rning, the sunrise w as just gorg eous.  I took this in the beginning.  Then I took this pho to... That was about the time the school bus came.  Then I was getting ready to do laundry, and another dog wanted to go out. I ran back inside and grabbed my camera befor e that little bit of rainbow disappeared.  Do you see it?  In the center?  I heard it was a double rainbow, as one of my d aughter's s aw it going to class.   A few months ago, I pre-ordered a 1 /2 pound of Ru ssian G iant garlic. I counted 29 cloves cloves. This is new to the garden.

I snipped a few containers of chi ves and go t them in to the freezer.  We plan to add these to every breakf ast scramb le, soups and whatnot .  Sort of like greens, but a lot more.   As the co oler weather approaches, I go in to panic-mode.  We have not even started splitting wood, so I'm ma dly stocking up the herbs before the first frost.   Today, breakfast was "on the go" as Hubby and I made our first visit back to the gym.  We get up at 4:30am and get about an hour work out.  I pre-made the breakfast yesterday, using my crock pot.  I was completely out of apples, and thankful to have a few straggling pears left from our tree.  I made steel cut oats with pears, organic raisins and locally grown walnuts (which I am about out of).  It's a pity that stores here do not sell organic steel cut oats.