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In the past whenever hanging our clothes outside on the clotheslines, I've always had a frustration. No matter whether I used wooden or plastic clothespins, I would regularly break two or three of them every wash day.
It must have been my disgruntled groaning week after week that caused my dear husband to go on a mission to find a clothespin for me that wouldn't snap into pieces.
A year or so ago, he presented me with a bag of . . . tah -da! Metal clothespins.
I'd never seen a metal clothespin before, but in short order I knew they were just the greatest, and now I won't use any other kind.
They're nearly the same size as both wooden and plastic clothespins.
And do they ever perform without breaking! My crocheted rag rugs are very heavy when wet . . . and thick besides.
These metal clothespins grab on to the rugs and hold them like no other clothespin can. The same goes for hubby's heavy work pants especially when there is a stiff breeze whipping the clothes around.
They're constructed very well with a strong spring and I'm confident they will last forever.
Hmmm. Clothespins. Yeah, I know I may sound like I've been living in the woods too long. It's a strange thing to get so excited about. But what's that expression?
Ah, yes. It's the little things in life that count!
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For any of you who may be interested, Papa Pea found the metal clothespins at Lee Valley.
Fifty miles north of us woke to a temp of 39° this morning. I'm happy to report (that's for sure) that we were a good ten degrees warmer than that.
The red-lettered warning I saw last night? It's still posted this morning. Guess it just goes to prove the old axiom you shouldn't believe everything you read.
Now I'm going to take my morning latte and go walk through the garden and talk nice to my brave little plants that continue to hang in there through it all.
Fer cryin' out loud, I just checked the home page of our local Internet server to see what the weather was going to be like for the next few days.
What do I see at the top of the page in red letters? A frost warning for us tonight from 2 a.m. until 7 a.m. I am being warned to cover sensitive outside plants that might be damaged by a frost.
Have you see the size of my garden, Mother Nature? No, I'm not going to attempt to cover anything out there. If we should lose a bunch of the garden produce to this nearly unbelievable weird, whacky weather this summer, I'll find something profitable to do with the time I won't be spending canning and preserving. (Like maybe getting a part time job to pay for the food we'll have to buy.)
Geesh. This is getting unsettling. And a smidge bit upsetting, also, but we have no choice but to roll with the punches.
I'm choosing to take a positive view of the situation. I don't believe we will get damaging frost over night. No, no, no. Nuh-uh. UH-uh. No way. Ain't gonna happen. (Do I look funny with my head stuck in the sand like this?)
Addendum: Worry thee not, bloggy friends of mine. Getting ready to go to bed and by our temperature now, I don't think there is any way our temp over night is going to drop lower than the 40s . . . it would have to plummet 20 degrees to hit freezing. (Don't cha sometimes wonder what these weather forecasters are smokin'?)
No sign of that big golden ball of heat and light in the sky again today. Another day of sprinkles and much grayness. Our high for the day was 55°. I know of a certain lady blogger who probably had a temperature of exactly double that today. Oh, my.
I've got a good stand of carrots in this bed with the tepee trellis in the middle with morning glories planted around the base of it. They have yet to make it much more than halfway up their support, but I do see blossom buds. If the buds don't get the chills and die, we should see some color soon.
This sample carrot I pulled doesn't look too bad as far as length goes. But it still needs to increase a bit in girth!
Picture of broccoli plants taken through the screened frame over their bed. They're not even thinking about forming heads yet.
My bed of beautiful Lauren's Grape Poppies. Seeds are from Sue's garden in Michigan. Are they not absolutely luscious? Our honey bees love them, too.
Here's my jungle bed of Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes. No fruits yet but the two plants are covered with blossoms. The good thing is the tomatoes have a wonderful flavor. The bad thing is they are the size of marbles. Small marbles.
My potatoes haven't looked this good in years. No blight (hallelujah!) and next to no insect damage. I don't recall ever seeing so many blossoms on the vines.
Their flowers are actually quite lovely, don't you think?
My shell peas are finally forming good-sized pods. No evidence of peas inside the pods (sigh), but ya can't have everything. Immediately. (July 27th and no shell peas yet. What's wrong with this picture?)
The lobelia in the herb bed is gorgeous this year. Obviously, it must like cool weather and lots of moisture.
Do you think we should believe the weather people who are telling us we will see the sun come shining forth on Monday? Nah, I'll bet they're just using twisted psychology on us so we don't go completely crackers in this wet, gray Arctic cold we've been slogging through.
And whether the garden is going to make it this year.
Our weird summer weather continues. We're in yet another cool, wet period. One-half inch of rain accumulated in our rain gauge over night. Today we didn't collect any appreciable amount, but we did get enough sprinkles on and off during the day, along with stiff winds, to keep me out of the garden.
First thing this morning the forecast was for a high in the low 60s during the day and a low in the low 40s tonight. We never made it out of the 50s all day and the temp now at 7 p.m. is 51°. Good for the two of us who tend to melt in the heat and humidity, but not so good for growing tomatoes, corn, squash, eggplant and the like.
But truth to tell, the garden is at least looking good right now. I'm caught up on all the weeding and have planted out spots made bare by pulling the first salad greens, spinach, radishes, etc. Hubby mowed the lawn surround the gardens a couple of days ago and things are lookin' pretty spiffy out there. It may be soggy, but it sure is lush and green.
Here's the very first picking (yeah, I rushed it a bit) of my edible podded peas.
I planted only four feet of them (actually eight feet if you count both sides of the trellis) because I've never been able to freeze them so they don't come out limp and mushy. They're still good in soups and stews but once you know what they taste like fresh, that just doesn't measure up. So we'll be doing our best to eat all of them that we can fresh . . . heated until still tender crisp in boiling water, drained, butter and salt added . . . we can make a meal of them. Many thanks to Carolyn Renee for sending me these wonderful pea seeds this year.
My slicing cucumbers are just learning to crawl around and investigate their surroundings. Come on, guys, you've got a long way to go.
Speaking of having a long way to go, here is a portion of the area containing my second planting of corn with rows of pumpkins interspersed. The corn is about 2-1/2 ft. high but the pumpkin plants are still so small I don't have much hope of them setting fruit and maturing. It's just been too darn cold around here this summer.
If weather permits, I'll take and post more pictures of the garden tomorrow. Then in a week, I'll do the comparison pictures of the gardens June 1st, July 1st and August 1st. Even though a lot of the crops are very slow this year, the gardens are about at their best appearance-wise right now. Everything (well, almost) is green and growing and yet it hasn't gotten all blowsy and spent yet. At any rate, I'm thinking the August 1st pictures are gonna look a lot different than those from July 1st.
I made a wonderful cold strawberry pie yesterday that I just have to share with you. It's not my recipe . . . I got it a couple of years ago from Jane on her blog Thy Hand Hath Provided.
Just look at all that fresh strawberry lusciousness!
I put some whipped cream on ours, 'cause I had a cup of whole cream in the fridge that I wanted to use . . . so why not?
The pie tastes very, very fresh and is not overly sweet at all. I'm not fibbing to you when I say I think I could have eaten half the pie. I did restrain myself (difficult that it was) and settled for the very large piece pictured above.
In the recipe Jane said the ingredients are for an 8-inch pie crust so if you are using a 9 or 10-inch crust, increase the amount of strawberries which I did since my pie plate was 9". But as you can see by the picture of the whole pie, I do think the filling would have been ample as set forth in the original recipe because I nearly overflowed my 9-inch crust using the few more berries I did add.
This pie has a permanent place in my recipe box in the pie section as Jane's Mom's Strawberry Pie. If you'd like to try it (you won't be sorry), click here. It is oh-so-good! Thanks for sharing the recipe, Jane.
