Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Fall Backyard Birds #2

Here's the second installment of Fall 2024 Backyard Birds. Not sure when the next installment will appear. That being said, Lord willing, there'll be another installment!

Bluebird

Cardinal

Downey Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Fall Backyard Birds #1

It's been a while since all the variables came together for me to be in the backyard with my camera. Here are some snapshots from Thanksgiving weekend.

Carolina Chickadee

"What are YOU staring at."

Blue Bird Reflections?

Waiting his turn at the worm tray.

The always entertaining Carolina Wren.

Monday, August 12, 2024

Salsa Season 2024 Opens with 24 Pints

It's salsa season again here in Graham, North Carolina. It's been an extreme growing season in that it's either been very, very hot or very, very wet. Sometimes both at the same time. But then this IS the South. That being said, June was one of the driest Junes in recent memory and July turned into the wettest month in a while. August? Well, we'll just have to see.

As mentioned in our recent newsletter, 2024 will be a veritable pepper-palooza for sure. Tomatoes...well our first batch was 24 pints and it looks like we might get a second batch in that range as well. Should know by this weekend. Typically we'd get a third batch but with the weather breaking from the normal cycles...we might not get a third batch of salsa. We'll see. We will be pickling peppers for sure.

Part of our first batch

Prepping ingredients

Sadie was our Salsa Assistant

Salsa in the pot, hot, hot hot!

Three batches boiling on the stove. The big blue container is heating up for the canning process.

Karen delicately delivers salsa into the pint jars.

23 Pints! (we pulled one pint for taste testing.)