A Bountiful Harvest.....

Well I know it is not officially fall yet...and believe me I don't want to rush the seasons or anything like that. The sun was shining it was a lovely 20 Celsius that's about 72 F yesterday. And today feels like it is going to be another nice one. It truly does feel like fall. The leaves have already started to turn and fall. The blackberries are ripe and ready for the picking. Yes harvest time is upon us, and with that for those of you who like canning or preserving things for a later date to be used as gifts or simply for household consumption the time is right.

I have spent the past two days canning. I am not an avid canner, sometimes I wonder what the heck am I doing in the kitchen...who am I fooling. But lo and behold I did manage to can a few things with more to come. Yesterday I was busy canning beets, yes I know not everyone's favorite but my girls and I just love them. Mother in law gave me a huge baskets of apples from her tree. Originally I was going to make apple sauce or pies and freeze them. I opted to do neither. I made Apple Conserve instead(apple pie filling). I have never made it before so I am hoping it will turn out, it sure smelt good.

Yesterday, I set off early to the market to see if I could get some baby cucumbers to make pickles....no such luck. But what I did come home with was a couple of bags of beans and more beets. So I cut and cleaned the beans...I have pickled them as well. I think they might end up spicy as I added a red pepper to each jar that I had grown and dried and a clove of garlic....I am hoping they will be good to use as a condiment at gatherings or used for Cesar's...hmmm. So after the beets and the beans, I decided to make some pumpkin bread. I just love pumpkin bread. I have a recipe that makes five loaves. So that is what I did, once cooled I wrap them and freeze them and often give them away as gifts as well.

I bought a case of peaches, but I just ran out of steam(no pun intended). Hubby tells me he loves canned peaches so that is what I will do next. Canned peaches and blackberry jam. The tomatoes in my garden are bountiful so I might be making some tomato sauce as well.

I feel like a pregnant woman who is nesting, getting everything ready for the arrival of her baby. It's crazy. I've been cooking up a storm, cleaning, and now canning...gosh whats' up with that...Actually, I know this may sound strange but I find it very soothing and comforting.

Here are a few photos of my labour of love......

I am off to work this afternoon so I won't be doing much of anything except maybe using my stepper.

There's something else I have been working on. A couple of weeks ago I decided to start knitting. Again, I am not an avid knitter but I like to give it the old college try. I decided I wanted to knit an Afghan. Big aspirations I know....but because I like to keep things simple I went on the Internet and looked up ideas for Afghans. I found the simplest idea....just knit a square and crochet them together. Yes I can do this I said to myself. Last year mother in law gave me this huge bag of wool . I made a couple of styles of scarves but that was about it. So I thought you know Christmas is coming I could make something for a gift.

As most of you know I volunteer. One of the groups I volunteer with is the Community based Mental Health. I have a client that I go and do home visits with. She is really a very sweet lady but pretty much house bound. The only time she really gets out is when I take her to appointments or call her and ask her if she is feeling up to going out for a coffee. I know she likes the visits. Along with her mental health she has physical health issues...I think it's one of those situations which came first the chicken or the egg . Regardless, she lives alone and because of her medications shouldn't drive...so she doesn't and some days it takes all of her energy to get up off of the couch.

So as I was knitting it dawned on me. I could make this for her for Christmas....now I am on a mission. It's now given my knitting some purpose.

Then I got another idea. I know bloggers are such a generous group, I wondered how they would feel about knitting a basic square. I thought if I could get enough squares I could make maybe another afghan or maybe even two and then donate them to the Mental Health Society.

So what do you think. Are any of you interested in knitting a simple 8x8 plain old garter stitch square that I could make up into an Afghan? Please don't feel pressured I just thought, there are a lot of generous bloggers out there that might want to help out a cause. So if anyone is interested just let me know here or email me and I will contact you giving you the details(which will be pretty basic). I would love to be able to give the Mental health group a couple of Afghans for Christmas to hand out as they see fit.....and or if I get a real skookum response and am able to make up something a little more elaborate maybe they could use it as a raffle to raise some money for a project or something. Just thinking out loud here. Anyhow, I leave it with you my blogging friends.

To assure you all that I will do something with the squares I will take photos and have some letter of acknowldegment from the organization.

Just sharing the blogger love.......thanks all....have a fantastic day!!