Lazy days of summer?

Summer is supposed to be vacation time, right? Ha. Well, you take your leisure where you can, on the farm. With the garden bursting at the seams, apples falling off the trees (aakkk - can't waste them!!), the menagerie to keep us busy all hours, grass still growing (the mowers are even getting tired of it...)...well, it's not a vacation, that's for sure.

But the farm is a wonderful place to be, even with all the things demanding their share of attention. I love the cabin, it snuggles into the land and is so grounded that it makes me feel at peace just looking at it. The big windows are actually the back porch. Which smells delicious right now, by the way, with cinnamon apples slices drying in several dehydrators parked on a bench out there.


The beekeeper is busy, too. This is the time of the season to make sure the hives aren't in swarm mode, and for monitering supers. There was some comb made in a place it didn't need to be, which Carrie dug out with her hive tool - then generously shared bites with me, of cream-colored comb dripping with pale sweet honey. A moment of nostalgia for the two of us, of the days she was a kid helping her dad with the hives...

We've made a friend down the road, who is very generous with his apple trees. Dick and his wife Melanie planted them about 30 years ago and now there are too many apples for them to use, so he just gives them away. Says he doesn't have enough people interested in them (good grief) and was delighted when I said we'd take care of them! The first tree ready was the Yellow Transparents...the farm house porch and the cabin smell like ripe apples - heavenly!
Now don't get excited at this next photo, this is all innocent fun. I'm brewing Kombucha, which is a nutritious fermented beverage - NOT in the beer or hootch family. I've got more information on this project on one of my other blogs, check this out:
http://avocadomeetzuchinni.blogspot.com/

(Look for the "Boochie-Koochie" post, should be 2nd or 3rd one down.)

Today I actually got around to bottling some of the first batch, in my fancy-top bottles. Fun! And no matter what it looks like (you'll know what I'm talking about when you look at the other pictures...), this stuff is tasty! This particular batch has ginger, lemon and honey in it, and taste very like ginger ale - one of my very favorite beverages, which I no longer drink because it is loaded with sugar...so I'm delighted to be able to make my own, and it's actually good for me! Next up: applesauce. More on that next time.