Long time no write

I know I haven't written lately, but not much has been happening. It hasn't been bitterly cold around here, just in the 30's mainly. I hope to get a sod cutter this year. Even if I can't I definitely plan to have a bigger garden. More to come soon.

My Favorite Time of Year

Well, things have been kind of slow lately. The tempature is dropping a little and I'm just enjoying sitting outside, smoking my pipe and watching the critters. I've been canning jalapenoes as they ripen and funny thing is now that the mercury has dropped the tomatoes are maturing like crazy and mostly without giant cracks.
As far as fall planting and upkeep, I planted some garlic cloves and laid out some lettuce seed(Black Seeded Simpson). I also topped off the compost pile with a big bag of leaves.
I almost forgot to mention that my parents gave me their old washer. My apartment in Plano came with a washer and dryer but since I moved here I've had to go to my parents house to clean my clothes. It's funny how excited I got when I got to go out and buy a clothesline. It seems to me that clothes dry a little faster on a clothesline than in a dryer but that's just conjecture. I hope everyone is doing well and flourishing.
Jerry

I Want To Can Everything!

I canned two jars of my homemade salsa today. I did much better this time and learned from my initial mistakes. Now I want to make pickles and everything else preservable with a hot water canner. Any and all recipes will be welcome and good luck to you all.

Hurricanes Can Be Good

We've had cooler tempatures lately thanks to the current crop of storms. It's not common for us to have a real fall so I've been enjoying it. I love this time of year, the smell in the air and cool breezes. The bell peppers and jalapenoes have been flourishing and I have been taking advantage of this. I 've frozen the bells and used the japs for salsa. The extra jalapenoes I am attempting to pickle. I've never canned before so my initial effort appears to not be great.
I'm planning to can some batches of salsa in the next day or two and since I've learned a lot from the internet I'm sure it will turn out better.
Other than that nothing's going down around here.
Hope everyone else is doing well.

Lack of Interest

As you can tell I have not been posting lately. Conditions around here went from drought to heavy rain overnight. As a result all of my tomatoes split open and are to differing degrees ruined. My few melons did the same and the pillbugs came in and chewed them up. The only plus this season has been squash and a few bell peppers. There may be some jalepenoes, but I'm not going to bank on those yet.
I'm working on getting a new job and focusing on getting out of the hole I've been in the last few years. I'm not going to give up all together, but right now I could care less about most anything but money.
I'm off to join the sheeple. I'll keep ya'll updated.

Relief

We've been getting rain the last couple of days. I love the smell of the air right after a storm. As a result it's been a little cooler. Last week I got borderline heat stroke and couldn't get out of bed for three days.
I finally switched over to a prepay cell phone. I couldn't justify paying so much for something I use so little. Also, the way home phones are made these days if you lose power your phone doesn't work. I can make 20 dollars of time last a couple of months plus I got to get a phone with a cool camera.
On the garden front everything is plodding along slowly. The bell peppers are finally producing well and the squash, although slowing down, are still giving about 5 pounds a week. The tomato plants are full of big green fruit unwilling to turn red. I'm actually just impatient for the amazing flavor of a home grown tomato. The jalapenoes have yet to produce anything but the plants are beautiful.
There will be corn on the cob by the end of the month. I used cotton burr compost for fertilizer and worked wonderfully. I may even try one more planting this year since I don't see it getting cold until Christmas.
The best surprise this year is the return of the pecans. I had a bumper crop last year and I was under the impression that it would be another year before my tree produced any fruit. I have coddled my tree and as a result it's given a lot of good pies and fudge.
Well that's about it. I hope everyone else is doing well.

Finally!

We finally got about an inch of rain the other day. It was sorely needed after a couple of rainless months. I had one watermelon double in size overnight because of it.
The day before I invested in soaker hoses. I had intended on doing this last year but the floods made irrigating needless. I highly recommend them. I had been using a regular lawn sprinkler and it was not doing the job. I believe the majority of the water was evaporating before hitting the grass which is easy when it's 100 degrees at 8 p.m.
The strawberries didn't make it, unfortunately.
Hope everyone else's gardens are going strong.