:today:

Today I am:
trying to enjoy this summer heat instead of complaining about it. If not enjoy, at the very least gracefully survive it.

wondering just how it is that my sweet littlest boy turned two this weekend

loving the start of the 'lazy' days and late nights that summer brings

making some iced coffee by the half gallon to keep in the fridge

chasing my neighbors sheep out of my garden, again. And

thinking of ways to have a peaceful conversation with him about this

enjoying the slow start to the crazy summer canning

debating whether or not to clean the leftover birthday celebration mess in the house or get in the garden before it gets too hot (pretty sure garden will win, yet again)

One year and nine posts ago.

Wow. I really have been silent this past year!

Remember this idea?

http://moonlithill.blogspot.com/2012/06/home-preserving-is-it-worth-it.html

Yeah. It kind of fell through last year (surprised? No? Me either)

Anyway. I want to give it another go this year.

I'm not going to go into the whole breakdown of strawberries since I already did that one

http://moonlithill.blogspot.com/2012/06/cost-of-preserving-strawberries.html




But I will say that this years totals are as follows:

Cost: $25.00

Obtained: U-pick

Amount: Almost 16 pounds.

Preserves:

5 half pints strawberry jam
3 half pints strawberry rhubarb jam
5 half pints and (3) 4oz jars berry wine jelly
1 quart strawberry vinegar
1 quart strawberry vodka
5 quarts frozen berries

Plus, plenty of fresh eating.

Really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the summer costs out!

If you decide to join and compare prices in your neck of the woods - please comment below!

::weekend scenes:

Busy but wonderful weekend, with a short reprieve from what seems like never-ending rain.

Baseball season just ended, lacrosse season just started. Makes for a not quite lazy summer most of the time but a lovely one all the same.

Garden Notes.

This post has been sitting in queue for nearly 3 weeks so I'm gonna squish all the updates in as well to catch up :)

Long time, no see!

Well, nearly two years into this third child gig and I'm still trying to find my footing. He still does not sleep. I am still a disorganized mess. Some days are easier than others but I'm still struggling to just let go and embrace what it is instead of what I thought it would be.

Children grow far too quickly. My oldest is almost 15 (don't ask me how that happened, I swear all I did was blink!) and soon enough he'll be off to college and my youngest off to kindergarten.

If I don't take the time to buckle in and enjoy this very bumpy ride, I know someday not long from now I'll be wondering how it went so fast.

Of course, as I type this I have a very tired (cause of the, you know, not sleeping thing) boy nursing and pinching and whining. Sometimes it's hard to see the big picture when you have these tiny little fingers all up in your lens.

I feel like there are a lot of clever metaphors to be had for the transition into what todays post is actually about. But, tiny, pinchy fingers and all.

Inspired by Soulemama

I've been thinking about just how much happens in the garden in a relatively short period of time. How much change takes place over the course of a growing season. How much more we learn every week.



Too many of my pictures are taken (poorly) on my new Iphone (first cell phone in 15 years!), so enjoy some cell phone pictures of the garden progress :)



May 9

May 15

June 9