Of putting up fruit, County Fairs and Maleficent~~~~

Hello Darklings,

I am taking a break right now and so is Sis, we have been up since "Oh my God its Early in the A.M."

Why you ask?  Well today and tomorrow Sis and I are putting up  and have put up plum jam, apricot halves, and cherries,  the cherries have a tendency to blanch but the flavor is good.  Today the apricots, tomorrow the plums, it is an all day affair, but worth it in the end, at least I have next week off.

Well my Boss said  I needed to take some time off so I won't go over my hours since I'm working half time now, which is fine, more time for ME time.  And financially I'm in good shape to be doing it.

But the sweet smell of the apricots is just heady, and now we're finishing off the cherries, we still have some apricots left but Sis is going to make them into a cobbler, she's taking some time off as well. 

I love doing things that are old-fashioned, we even have an old style apple peeler and corer which will be put into use come fall, apple sauce and apple slices.

Doyle wisely stayed out of the way but he's offered to print out the labels for us, item and date put up. And to go into our pantry, although we do go to the Farmer's Market and get home made goodies there as well, there is a sort of satisfaction of doing our own.

Now there is a lady whose Loganberry bushes are ripening, more jam to come.

Tonight of course dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant, perfect!

This has been a very busy week for me, I was only working a few hours just a few days, then next week off, just busy, first fruit picking,  we had bags and bags of fruit and we used the re-useable bags we get from the grocery stores, and then the bags will have to be washed later, they are sticky with fruit juice, using the ladders, getting leaves and dust on us, gave us sneezing fits, blowing off the lady-bugs, and shrieking at spiders, good thing we wore long sleeves and garden gloves, and then the long slow hot showers afterward, and Doyle and Brian (they helped)  grabbing pizza for us, it was their choice.

Then the next evening girls night out with Sis, Coralline, Monica and myself, we went to see "Maleficent".  And then went to dinner afterwards.  Angelina Jolie was perfect for the lead character, but as a re-work of the old tale I liked it, not only with the basic story but also with the several areas of sub-text within it. 

Coralline was asking us questions like why did Stephan do such a horrible thing, why couldn't the fairies and humans get along, why was iron so painful?   Yes all the sub-texts,  I feel that all Mother's should take their daughters to see this movie, it does address although in a fairy-tale way about some truths in life.... But its also not the family you're born into but the family that loves you. 

Coralline wished there was a book version of this, when she and Sis went ahead of us into Fenton's Ice Cream parlor where we stopped for dessert, I whispered to Monica that I had bought the book version already, she was relieved, because she had already bought one of the doll sets, the one with both Maleficent and her helper. 

Coralline is learning, she is still a child in many ways, she seems to reject the adopted sophistication of her peers, but she's not backwards, she is on their intelligence level with them and in some ways maybe advanced.  And she seems to have her own style of sophistication, she just rejects their version of it.

One time I asked her if she wanted to act more like her school mates and she said "Why? They just get into trouble, and I like having fun, some of them are getting creepy talking about boys and having babies."   I asked her Mother about that and she told me that she was surprised to hear from Coralline that Coralline thinks those classmates who are too into boys are going to make bad mistakes. 

I asked  Monica if she thought there was any boy Coralline liked and was told that the neighbor Boy who is studying reptiles and wants to be a zoologistm she likes a lot,  they get together either at her house or the boys' parents house from time to time to study or watch movies, just like she does with her friend Marisa, but now Marisa is in high school, but they still get together with us and we play board games and watch horror movies with Doyle and I. 

So she is in transition, someday I will miss the child version of her when she grows up, but who knows what will develop.

But that did not stop us from going to the County Fair, it was just Doyle, myself, Monica and Coralline,  Brother and the boys wanted to watch the Soccer games so we went.

 We took in the livestock large and small, cows and goats, and we saw a 6 hitch team of Clydesdales, not from the Beer Company but from a rock quarry company that use to do the same type of delivery of their product, we saw free performances, the 4 H exhibits, all the huckster stuff they try to sell you but we did buy the Fair Fudge to take home.

And if they can deep-fry it they will, deep-fry Oreo's, pickles, pine-apple upside down cake deep fried,  and there were the standby's like corn dogs, frozen bananas, Funnel Cakes, Big Bad Bubba's Bar-Bee-Que Ribs, Turkey legs, enough food stuff to get sick on.  If you want to find and try weird foods just go to the County or State Fair---Jeff Foxworthy could do a routine on the Food alone not just meeting your weird relatives.

But we did stock up with goodies from the Watkins booth,  I love the Watkins products, if we run out I order more, and poor Doyle he walked a lot with us, its a good thing we took a folding wheeled shopping basket to hold our purchases.  

Then in the evening Doyle took our things to the car, (we got privileged parking) came back and joined us so we took in the Carnival, the merry go round, the Ferris Wheel, and some of the easier rides for us, although Coralline wanted to go on one I think called the Zipper, brave Doyle went with her and came down looking a little green, fortunately there was a nearby men's room, and he looked a little better when he came out.

I did warn him to not try the deep fried pickle.

But all things do come to an end and home we went, with Monica and Coralline stayed over night with us,  tomorrow they will go back to the county fair with my brother and the Boys, they want to see the shows and exhibits that are only open on the weekends,  like the Farm tools and the Blacksmith shop and some motor cycle stunt stuff.  I warned Monica to keep the boys away from the deep-fried food, especially if they go on the carnival rides.

And now the jars are cool and we can put on the labels and put them into the pantry while Doyle goes to get dinner.  Sis is beaming with what has been accomplished and I have to agree, it reminds me of those summers from long ago, at least every other day we were putting up something, Mom could even do vegetables, and it would last all fall, spring and even part of Summer when we did it all again,  picking the tomatoes, the string beans, carrots, and other summer time veggies,  I think keeping them in glass jars may have been healthier, but now it's either frozen or fresh, and we have to do our meal planning ahead of time with what we have on hand and with what we need to purchase.

But for tonight it's Chinese and tomorrow KFC, oh well sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

Later Darklings