Strawberries!

It has been a long time since I posted last! Time is going by very quickly of course as our wedding deadline approaches...
I had a lovely bridal shower thrown by Amber this weekend and my best friend Megan flew in to town for it. We had a really nice visit, and on my way back from the airport I stopped in Boring to pick strawberries. The Gorge isn't the best place to grow strawberries, and this year no one has any due to the cold weather. So I picked 16 pounds.


We made two strawberry pies (YUM).


Canned a bunch of half pints, and made 4 half pints of freezer jam as per Aaron's request.


I love how ruby red it is, and how satisfying it is to open our cupboard and see all the beautiful jars of summer goodness.


So I've been very hush, hush about the wedding planning. I hope that when it's all said and done I will take the time to go back and recount how we did everything. If I were organized I would be writing the posts now and publishing them later. But I'm not very organized, so we will see what gets written about. But for now a sneak peak at my earrings - Aaron made them for me. I found "the" earrings about 5 times. They were $400 and up every time. Since what I wanted is so simple I figured we could just make them. I have ordered some larger stones as well, I think these will be good everyday earrings after the wedding, if I decide to go with the bigger ones. It's good to have options you know? But I love these, they are just what I was envisioning!

Around the Farm

Joining in with Farmama Sara's weekly around the farm updates.
We had a few days of beautifully warm, sunny weather. Then we paid for it with a crazy thunder storm. We had a gorgeous day, and went out to get pizza at Double Mountain. It was obvious it was going to rain, but while we were eating the skies unleashed and a deluge of rain came pouring down. There were rivers going down the sidewalk, thunder, lightning, the whole thing. Hood River gets thunder storms every few weeks, but I haven't seen one like this since my summers in Maine. The power flickered at the restaurant, but came right back on. We made our way home and the power had surged at our house too - and taken our Time Capsule with it :( I had also left out my pepper and melon plants and they were drenched. The flats were full to the brim with water, soil had washed out and roots were exposed, it was a mess. So far I've only lost one honey dew, hopefully that will be it. Melons don't like wet soil, so I need to get them planted and out of those wet pots.


After a few days of cold, raininess, we are due for some warm days starting today. I think the garden is going to do really well over the next week. Broccoli:


Carrots - can you tell I hate thinning because I feel like a murderer?


New red fire lettuce - again with the thinning


Tomatoes are still small, but starting to flower


The potatoes are growing like crazy. We had some flea beetles hatch and completely cover all of my nightshade plants over night. I dusted them all with diatomaceous earth and it has helped immensely.


Popcorn, growing, growing, growing!


Green beans


Yellow beans


Asparagus beans - yard long


Onions


All the cool weather crops are doing great, just waiting for that sweet corn to pop up and all the squash too!