A time to every purpose

This has been a busy and productive week for us thus far so I thought I'd blog about the highlights. The green beans and sugar peas are still in full swing, we dehydrate/can some every 2 days and will continue for a few more weeks. I'm expecting our corn to be ready any day now and so then we'll have 30-40 dozen ears to process, but in the meantime we haven't been idle. ;-)


When my sister Dawn brought out the cradle she also brought along loads of comb honey. A man that they know does bee removal and some of the honey he takes out of buildings he gives to them. As you can see, it was not the most aesthetically pleasing honey I've ever seen, so we strained out the liquid honey and got well over one gallon. With the remaining comb we rendered out the wax by repeated boilings and strainings. The house smelled so wonderful during the process!


The final rendered product all ready for candle making or salves. Quite a contrast to the "before" picture, isn't it?

These are Aleks' first Jacob's Cattle beans that he harvested. They are an heirloom dried bean good for baking and soups. They were easy to grow and prolific to boot! He has several other heirloom varieties that aren't quite mature enough as of yet but should be ready soon. After he has all the seed stock that he'll need for next year, we get to eat the rest. The thought of homemade bread with soups and chowders to accompany it almost makes me wish for cooler weather. ;-)

We have been making peach jam quite a bit this week. I made it the same way as the other jams we made: with very little sugar and no added pectin. We added cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and it was delicious (we ate some this morning on cornbread)!

And, on the sewing front: I found this piping cord and I just love its tiny size for baby gowns, the scale is perfect! I used it on...........

My first completed baby gown! I have several white Pima ones almost finished but I was running short on white thread after my chemise marathon so I decided to make up a printed gown.

This gown has a total length of 21" which seems to me to be a more practical length for a gown that will see a lot of use. I believe it was Sarah Jane that mentioned that longer gowns tend to trail about and become very dirty. The skirt is a very full 60" to more easily facilitate diaper changes and the sleeves are plenty wide so little arms will slide in easily. I'm really enthralled with it, I hung it on the jelly cupboard so I could look at it often. :D