The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

OK.... it is 1:12 a.m. and I've been trying to download pictures for over an hour. I can hardly wait until we get our high speed internet!!! I'll try to ad more pictures to this post tomorrow, so check back to see the picture of the kids with the pot of berries.....

Today was a busy but fun day! We are so blessed to have many Amish farms in our area that sell GREAT produce! I purchased $75 of Strawberries and a large bundle of Rhubarb. While I was chopping up the 36 cups of Rhubarb Caleb & Elizabeth de-hulled all the Strawberries. You'll see my largest blue speckled pan filled with de-hulled berries on the chair. After shaping our bread loaves and setting them in a warm spot to rise we started the process of making Jam. I have never made real jam before and it has been about 10 years since the last time I made freezer jam. We made a total of 35 pints of Jam and still have about 12 Cups of fresh strawberries left. It was such an enjoyable process with all the help from Caleb & Elizabeth! Tomorrow I'm making a fresh strawberry rhubarb pie and a rhubarb cream meringue pie, both at the request of my dear hubby.

Phil and Samuel drove up to Pembine to get another load of stuff from our house. Somehow we forgot the vacuum on the first two trips. We also needed to check our mail and pick up canning jars. Soon after they got home our new Pastor came over for our first new member meeting. We had a great time sharing our testimonies and going over a portion of the churches constitution.

This evening was spent finishing up Jam while making Tapioca (Phil's Favorite) pudding. Yes, the picture with Elizabeth stirring berries & Tapioca at the same time was posed. She did help quite a bit with the entire jam making process and I think she enjoyed it! She is starting to show more interest in learning how to cook and bake. I'm enjoying teaching her little things here and there as we prepare our meals. When the kitchen was cleaned up we headed outside for a garbage bonfire and some firecrackers that Phil picked up for the kids. :-)

While at the bonfire Thomas said, “Mom I'm hungry for something.” I asked him what he was hungry for and he said, “Some Marshmallows!” He didn't know that I actually had some in the cupboard and I didn't tell him since we are saving them for our 4th of July bonfire.

I'm sad to report that we lost poor little Elizabeth the goat a couple days ago. We are still going to try to get some goats but will get adult goats NOT little kids. Before getting more goats we need to get our pig pen finished so we can get our pigs. I've been saving scraps and freezing them to pull out for the pigs when we get them. I just hate to throw away food and love the idea of giving the things that are leftover to the pigs rather than just throwing it away. My freezer is getting quite full! Phil went to get some ice cubes tonight and made the comment “We really need to get those pigs!!”