We lost our crop of beans this year to some hungry critters early this summer at our home garden.  Very disappointing!  However, we also have a garden plot at our church community garden and many of our fellow gardeners needed us to harvest their beans when they were on vacation so they wouldn’t go to waste.  Yay!  So somebody else did all the work and all I had to do was enjoy the harvest.  I picked a good bucket full and came home to enjoy the afternoon with Dakota prepping the beans outside.

It was a gorgeous day…felt rather fall like…and Dakota behaved herself.  I let her enjoy eating the ends of the beans that I was breaking off, but when I realized she was going to eat every end I dropped in the bowl I decided I better cut her off before she got sick.  A quick dip in boiling water, some ice water, and my freezer is now stocked with beans.

We also did a little canning of our peppers.  Tony really enjoys sweet banana peppers on his sandwiches, Mexican food, and burgers so we gave our first try at canning them.  I pulled out grandma’s big old canning pot and we had ourselves a canning afternoon.  Not much to it.  Some boiling vinegar, pickling spices, and sugar, poured over the peppers in the jars.  A little boil time in the pot and the sound of popping lids on the counter.  I feel like a regular old homesteader now.  Think of all the things you could store up on for the winter.  I wonder if we could really make it year round with the things we grew on our own?  Maybe someday…  For now I have beans and peppers.