Ahhh - gust

We've cooled down a bit here in the foothills. August has been more like September, and I couldn't be happier. I'm really enjoying the moonflowers I showed you in my last post. This is a better shot as I took this one just before dark in the evening.

I've been busy, as usual, in the kitchen and garden. I had some tasteless fruit from the grocery store a few weeks ago and ran across this post over at A Sonoma Garden around the same time so I decided to make fruit roll-ups with my lack-luster plums and peaches. This is the peaches. I did them in separate batches, but I'm showing pics of both in this post. I peeled and chopped the fruit and added about 1/3 cup of water and let it cook until the fruit was soft.

 Then I poured the fruit into a parchment lined pan and let it dry in the oven. This is the batch of plum fruit.

 After it dried out well I cut it in strips with kitchen shears, This batch was a bit thick and took two days to finish drying, but it's very tasty and worth the bit of effort to make.

Our garden is still producing in spite of the high temperatures for most of this growing season. These are a dozen pie pumpkins which are the one of four different kinds of pumpkins that we planted. The other varieties gave up in the heat.

Each pie pumpkin yields about 2 cups of pulp, enough for a pie so I'm not complaining.
ETA: I didn't can this jar of pumpkin. I froze it.

We're, also, harvesting watermelons. This one has yellow flesh.

 Don't pass out from surprise, but I have knitted a dishcloth. Most of my blue ones are looking raggedy.

 It's called Vineyard by Danielle Cote, and the pattern is free.

Have you, who live in the South noticed how early all the spiders a preparing their egg sacks? Goodman and I were moving our firepit when he noticed it was holding water so he tipped it over and discovered this little gem, a black widow spider...ewww.

Rocky wanted to say Howdy to all his fans.  He's six months old now and ready to chase rabbits anytime he gets the chance. Yeah, we let him give Peter Rabbit a heart attack now and then. So far, Peter has won, but Rocky's getting faster everyday.

Have a great week, Y'all!

Shared at The Art of Home-Making Mondays