“A cow just walked by my window” is not what you want to hear any morning, but especially on a morning when you have plans. The girls and I planned to hit some garage sales Saturday morning during the local citywide garage sales, and those had to be the first words I heard that morning. Thankfully, it ended up being a 4-H animal that had walked through the fence where a deer must have gone through it. My oldest approached her with a snack and a halter and had her back in in a jiffy while I got all the milking equipment put together for the morning milking. The girls and I left to go garage sale-ing while my husband left to go fix the fence.
My mom took us garage sale-ing every year while I was growing up. Good bargains were a blessing for a stay-at-home mom raising a family. Once grandkids came along, she’d tote them around to sales as well. It just wouldn’t seem right not to take my own girls to some garage sales every year. So, we load up, miss my mom a little extra, and go. These days, I really don’t look for too much, but I somehow always come across a decent bargain. Weeks ago, I was excited to find a stainless steel food mill. I had considered buying one last year because I had no idea how else to get tomato seeds out of our homemade ketchup without one, but after pricing them, I decided the seeds weren’t hurting anything. For as often as I’d use it, I couldn’t justify buying one just yet. Thankfully, I didn’t, because it was sure an unexpected garage sale find!
This past weekend, I came home with the cutest little wide-mouth half-pint canning jars, jelly jars, a sustainable pantry book that looks fun to flip through, and some clothes for the girls. Bargains were found and memories were made!
After a morning of garage sales, we came home to the most perfect gardening weather. Since the rains, the plants have started taking off a bit more, along with the weeds and grass. I pulled up the irrigation pipe pieces from around the pepper plants, picked any weeds growing around them, and put down some straw. The pepper plants are getting quite bushy and look so happy and healthy. I put straw down around all of the squash mounds, picked weeds in the herb spiral and re-mulched it, and started tying up a row of tomato plants. I still need to put cattle panels by the rest of the tomato rows and tie them up, as well as finish putting straw around all the potato plants.
Hopefully, the weeds won’t get the chance to become terribly out of control with what was accomplished, but that never seems to be the case. Thankfully, I enjoy weeding for the most part. Even though some plants are barely coming up, we are so anxious for fresh produce. I can’t wait to see all the growing the garden will do over the next couple of weeks. What we get out of the garden is so worth what we put into it.
This strawberry rhubarb lemonade is sweet and tart and the perfect drink to enjoy in between knocking out some 4-H projects!