I would like to start out by saying, WOW!  Being that this is my first year with a big garden, I gotta say, ” It’s a LOT OF HARD HARD HARD tiring, long, hot & dirty work.”  At the end of each day, I find myself exhausted!  Starting early, ending late and in the heat of the summer it is in fact torture.  Heat indexes here in excess of 100* and us without any air conditioning.  🙁

We’ve been plugging along though.  At the Farmer’s Markets I’ve been busily selling baked breads as well as pounds and pounds of my famous Pinto Bean Fudge!  At the Thursday market at the Cocke County Farm & Garden I’ve sold lots of chicks and chickens.  I don’t have a lot of summer produce, as most of my cucumbers & tomatoes were destroyed by mice!  But I have a few pumpkins and spaghetti squash too.

It’s been survival for the poultry too, these temperatures are nearly murder for them!  Each day I fill up gallons upon gallons of cold water, two pools for the geese to swim in and my hose hand set on “mist” hanging from the clothesline.  The mister works so well to offer a cool breeze for those in the coops, and for the Hen House who run around free with the geese nearly all the time have lots of choices on places to stay cool.    The only good thing about filling so much water up and small pools is that I can dump them each day into my gardens, pots & tomato bags!  Which saves me from having to water, depending on how you look at it of course.

Inside the house not much at all has gotten done, as I said we’ve been without air conditioning, so the computer has had to stay off as MUCH as is possible.  Believe it or not, the monitor, power supply, computer and so forth actually put out a LOT of heat!  Heat that we did not need inside the house.  During this month even the nighttime temperatures were above 80* which is pretty awful for sleeping.   At night I would get as much done as I could, but in the end it wasn’t a whole heck of a lot.  So instead I have been educating myself on food and culinary interests, getting ready so that when our A/C does get fixed, I can really get to work on some new sauces and dishes!  I’m excited beyond belief to really get some new recipes online for you all to try.  I’m sure your going to love some of these things I’ve been working on.  There is still plenty of summer left to enjoy the fresh produce too, you’ll see.

Well, I intend to post more regularly again as the A/C is scheduled to be repaired.  YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!  We’ll cook, chat and get everything ready for fall and winter together!  This winter I have to think about how to keep my geese pond from freezing up!  Any suggestions?

Take care, and talk soon,
Dawn!