Pickles!!

I am so proud of myself!  This past weekend I made pickles for the first time ever!  The best part is the cucumbers came from my very own garden!  That's right!!  I grew them myself!  I only ended up harvesting enough to make 4 jars of pickles but it was super exciting.  We have to wait a few more days before we can try them but the boys are excited to be my guinea pigs.  For Christmas my wonderful hubby bought me Food in Jars so I could get more canning tips and try some new recipes.  This is a fabulous book and the author has a wonderful blog full of tips, tricks, recommendations on equipment, give a ways, and more. 

Since I started my hand at growing vegetables, I have wanted to grow pickling cucumbers so I could make pickles.  I finally did it this year.  To my surprise it was super simple.  I didn't have great luck growing them.  I expected to get a much larger yield than I did, but I'll cut myself some slack as it was my first attempt. 





Hopefully they will meet my expectations and taste fabulous!

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Camping Cut Short

Camping in the Northwest can be iffy pretty much year round.  You might call it a box of chocolates.  You never know what you're gonna get.  Camping the first week of August, in the middle of the state however, pretty much guarantees you dry weather.  Well, not this year.  We had planned to spend two nights camping.  Instead we spent one night camping, in the rain.  Woke up to two sick family members.  Tried to have fun anyway and went bowling and played mini put-put.  Thing 3 threw a fit about 7 holes in, sat down and refused to play.  Then refused to move from the shade under the tree.  Back at the campsite a swarm of bees had made themselves at home.  Thing 2 wouldn't even go into the campsite!  So we called it.  Packed up the gear and headed home while the rain started to come down again. 

I did get to try out my birthday present!  It took a while to figure out the cooking with coals thing, but managed to make a delicious raspberry dump cobbler and used the lid for pancakes.  It definitely cooks slower but I think it just takes time to get the ratio of coals for the food and conditions.