So Little Summer

I think we had a really short growing season this past year. Everything was really late and my tomatoes never really did a lot. I had a few off my 3 plants but only a few. Some of my friends at church grew a lot, and some gardens just didn't produce. Now it is raining and supposed to rain all week, it started on Sunday. They said on the news today that we only had 3 weeks of real growing weather. I was very fortunate to get a lot of beans, lettuce, onions, garlic, cucumbers, and summer squash. My basil did well, but a lot of the herbs didn't. I had lots of cucumbers, and made a few jars of pickles. I canned applesauce about 39 pints and I made lots of jam and jelly. I can't eat the seeds anymore, so I took all of the blueberries and made syrup, the strawberries and made jelly, also all of the blackberries also. I think I made around 50 half pints of Jelly and jam. It took me 2 days. It is beautiful and tastes really good, I made it with twice as much fruit or juice as sugar so it is really fine. I froze about 20 bags of beans, and I canned 21 pints of pears. I didn't do peaches this year, as Costco had a great buy on some canned in juice and organic, so I bought those, they are yummy. Our apple tree didn't do anything this year so I needed to buy the apples, but we usually eat all of the applesauce I make, as we eat it on waffles, and pancakes instead of syrup and it tastes really good. I read a really good book and would recommend it to you if you are interested. It is called The Help, and they made a movie also, it was really good too. It is about the black maids told from their prospective in the sixties in the south, really true to life at that time. We got to visit our friends in Grants Pass in July and so we drove on down to Medford and saw Megan, Greg, and Scarlet. It was a really fun trip, and the baby is so sweet and cute. A real keeper, as doctor Meyn used to say. When Rebecca was 16 months old she came to our house to visit and Sharon and I took her to see Sharon's doctor when she was growing up. He was a children's doctor and Rebecca only had an MD in Wyoming so Sharon wanted to take her to the specialist. He checked her over very carefully and pronounced that she was cute, petite, really sweet and If he was us he'd keep her, so after that all of the Arnold kids grew up as keepers. So I think Scarlet is a keeper for sure. I know this is a pretty boring post but since it had been so long I thought I would let you know what is going on with us here. I miss the old days when all of you were growing up and I got to see you all of the time. But those days are gone and of course we all move on and have to grow up. I haven't really decided whether of not to have the surgery on my colon, I am still thinking and praying about it. I would appreciate it if all of you would pray for me to make the right choice and do whatever I need to do. I am working on my weight again, which is also a bore. I love all of you.