Oh my word…I love food at this time of year.  Cooking is easy.  Eating is delicious.  My garden is giving me all the fresh tomatoes I want and MORE…Yum.

Kelli was over one night and Karl was here too when I made a supper for them.  It was simple…cucumber salad, sweet corn and a sub sandwich.  The perfect summer supper in my world.  I don’t like fancy food…simple home cooked regular food is my favorite…and I love gorging on the foods that are in season.

I love BLTs but am too lazy to fry up the bacon so this time of year…this is my typical lunch….toast with mayo, lettuce, tomato and ham- Black Forest ham is my favorite.  I can eat it every day for two weeks.

I think this time of year is my favorite for eating are… Continue reading →

Several times through married life Kramer and I tried to made a go of raising strawberries.  We were NEVER successful.  Weeds got us.  We didn’t remove old plants.  That got us.  They never took…we tried raised beds.  UGH.  Nothing worked and we gave up.  It really was a valiant try.

When we moved to the house in town I mentioned to Kramer that I’d like to try again.  Nope.  He was not on board.

So I went to the end of the year clearance sale at the nursery in 2016.  I bought horseradish and raspberries.  I decided maybe I couldn’t do right by strawberries but I might be able to manage raspberries.  Kramer was not thrilled.  He started in on where were we putting them he didn’t like raspberries.  Well I said on the west side of the garage and that’s where I planted four plants.  They grew quickly into this…

Mine are early berries so we’ve started picking them.

Some of my helpers LOVE them and love picking.  They eat most of what they pick and that’s okay.  That’s part of what gardeners truly love about gardening.

The other’s picked a few, tried them and were back off to play.  This little one loved them and stayed.

I’ll admit…raspberries are one of my favorites….very favorites.

This fall I’l trimming them back.  In the short couple years since we first planted, they are already growing everywhere.

For now, me and the kiddos are enjoying them!!

I wish I had more room….I’d have black raspberries too!!

About three years ago I was at a garage sale and found this awesome big hose reel.  I think I got it for $10 complete with all the hoses.  Kramer was SO IMPRESSED with my find.

At the time we had been doing a big debate…How do we store our hoses?  We had planted new trees here at the house and watering them was a chore with dealing with the hoses.  Kramer loved the reel and it solved the problem…but it hurt my shoulder to reel the hose.  We ended up making a deal that he would roll up the hose.

Fast forward to this spring.  UGH.  The place on the reel where the water connects broke.  We didn’t need that much hose anymore…did we want another reel?  Did we want to try something different out?  Was a 25 foot hose enough?

We looked online at different options.  We thought about buying a 25 foot hose with a decorative stand and then keeping an extra hose in the garage if needed.

This was something we left undecided…so now the decision was mine alone.  I ended up seeing these flexible hoses.

The concept sounded awesome to me.  So, I bought one.

I needed something that wasn’t heavy…something that won’t bother my shoulder at clean up time.  Ah…this just might be the thing.

So I brought it home and tried it….the verdict????? Continue reading →