Hi All.  I thought this picture of my morning juice was pretty enough to share.  It has apple on the bottom, carrot in the middle, kale and cucumber on top.  I dug about 1/3 of the carrots in my garden and am busy cleaning them to juice.  I will store some in the cellar, and leave some in the garden.
It is supposed to freeze tomorrow, so I pulled all the onions, and gathered squash, tomatoes, and peppers.  I had one lone watermelon left, and we ate him tonight.  I am still working on those apples....
My Monday night Book Club is reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.  It is a great read, and I urge all you Locavores out there to read it.  I am even considering trying to eat Local for a year, as Barbara does in her book.  I'm hoping that several other folks out there take the challenge, and join me.  We could encourage one another, and post all kinds of good information that we learn through the year.  I think this is a good time of year to start, as the larder is full, and there's plenty of fresh stuff even now with the first freeze looming.  I have a distinct advantage over Barbara (in the book), as I have been gardening for ages, and have all kinds of food put up for the winter.  But of course with winter coming on, it will be quite the temptation to purchase all kinds of exotic fruits and veggies.  Ok, let's see who wants to join me???

Wow the time flies....how many times do we say that?  A LOT!  I will have to live to 2063 to get everything done that needs doing!

So I thought you might get a chuckle out of this picture of my kitchen.  As you can see, it is quite a mess....I had about 5 projects going on at the same time: Salsa in the foreground, apple pie filling on the front stove, peach jam on the back stove.  I am up to my eyeballs with apples this year - apple butter, apple pie, dried apple chips, applesauce.

Of course, I am over flowing with cucumbers right now.  I juice them a lot, so am trying something new this year.  I cut them in long quarters, and froze them.  I think they will be fine for juicing.  I also made a big batch of juice and froze it too.  I cut up tomatoes, onions, and peppers and baked them for a couple hours.  They will make great pizza sauce.

I picked a batch of raspberries today.  Not enough yet to make jam, but it will make a killer topping for some homemade cheesecake.  My son in law has a wonderful melon patch this year - he has kept the whole family supplied with watermelon and cantaloupe.  Yum.

The picture below is the blooms from the Easter lilies I brought home from church and planted in the garden.  They will send up new growth, and bloom again.  Pretty neat for something most people throw away at Easter!