Lots of updates...

Whew! It's been a busy couple of weeks! Let's see.....I finished the pink dress, picked 50 pounds of peaches, read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", canned some peaches, planted my garden, crocheted a Hello Kitty purse (and just realized that I forgot to take a picture, d'oh!), and eagerly run out into the backyard every day to see what has sprouted. First, here's a picture of the pink dress. It is also a Folkwear Sporty Forties dress, and I LOVE it! The picture doesn't do it justice. I'm almost done with the yellow gabacha, and I'll post a picture when I'm done.

We went up north of Wickenburg to Date Creek Ranch and picked peaches last Sunday. We ran into a monsoon storm and had to pull off the road on the way up there, but it was nice and cool and drizzley the whole time we were picking. My son wasn't too discerning with his peach selection, but did well for a four year old. We picked for about 2 hours give or take and ended up with 55 pounds of peaches (we were picking for a friend, too). My husband had never had a peach right off the tree, and now he knows what a peach is *supposed* to taste like. We ate a bunch fresh, and I still had enough to try my hand at canning. I ended up with 3 quarts of spiced peaches and 4 pints of peach butter. Peach butter = yummy! We are already planning a trip for September to go pick apples. And we hope to order 1/2 a cow with the same friend we were picking for this fall from the same ranch.

I was finished with "Deathly Hallows" by Monday afternoon, and then it was my husband's turn to read it. No spoilers here, but we really enjoyed it and thought that it tied the series up nicely.

I planted my garden last Friday, and had sprouts coming up this Thursday. Aren't they cute? Our monsoon season finally started up in the past week, and my garden is loving the rain! (Doing a happy-dance for rain in the desert.) I have more coming up now, and the varieties are: Triple Treat, Small Sugar, and Jack Be Little pumpkins; pinto beans, navy beans, California Black Eye peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Jenny Lind, Hearts of Gold, and Sugar Baby melons; sweet corn, and winter squash (I'm not sure if the Hubbards or Acorns are up). I'm still waiting for my California Wonder peppers to sprout. I think everything is coming up well considering the seeds are from when I last tried a garden 2 years ago. I also planted some sunflowers a few days ago in my son's garden. The only downside seems to be that crickets are munching some of the sprouts. I have everything covered, but not too tightly. I was more concerned with birds getting at the wormy-looking sprouts. :(

Hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I post again, but hey, life happens, right?

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I have been busy with multiple projects, including sewing the pink dress (done, and already worn twice, but I haven't taken a pic yet), nearly done with the yellow dress, have the blue flowered one cut and ready to go, re-reading the Harry Potter series before "Deathly Hallows" comes out (I'm through "Goblet of Fire"; don't know if I'll make it through "Order of the Phoenix" and "Half-Blood Prince" in time for the new book release), although I am currently taking a break to read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, since I had requested it from the library and this will probably be my only chance to read it any time soon. I like run-on sentences, can you tell? I also cooked in the solar oven twice last week, in the same day, no less. I made the Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp that is in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", and I combined two recipes to come up with an excellent Cilantro Chicken, um, stew I guess you'd call it. I combined the Cilantro Chicken recipe from "Solar Cooking Naturally" by Virginia Heather Gurley, and the Chicken Recuerdos de Tucson from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". (You can go here to get all the recipes in the book: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html) Both turned out so yummy that we inhaled it before I could take any pictures. :( (edit: I *was* able to take a picture of the crisp before it was gone! :) I love strawberry-rhubarb pie, but I never would have thought to make a crisp until I saw the recipe. Now I am going to be on the lookout for other fruit to make into crisps. This week I'm going to try more recipes in the solar oven, and I'm also going to be doing some planting in the garden. We have a good chance of rain this week, and I want to take advantage of it. I need to get out back and do some tidying, and then I'll be able to take and post some pictures. Now, do I go read or sew? So many fun things to do.....