1. Started the garden/seedlings (yes, we are still looking for a house, so the garden thing is a bit of an issue). I’ve planted spinach and pea seeds and started tomatoes and peppers inside.

2. Skiing/snowboarding. We’ve been a good bit this year since we got season passes, and we’ve had fun times with friends like the Potorffs, Thomases, Simmons, Clendenins.

3. Joel had jury duty again, but he got dismissed right away. That was a relief after the terrible case he was on in Nashville.

3. We finally had our “Boo-rito” party that we won from Chipotle on Halloween. We had our small group plus some visitors over and had about 20 people in our skinny house!

3. We had a short but fun visit with Joseph while he was in town.

3. We got to hang out with the Mortons! They were in town for a youth rally, and we were able to spend two fun evenings with them.

4. My cousin Brent had a conference in town and spent the weekend with us. We had a great time snowshoeing, hiking, etc.

Joel’s brother, wife, and their daughter visited us last weekend, so here are pictures of our niece chowing down on some of the quart of cherry tomatoes we picked.

Since I knew the frost was hitting this week, I spent some time on Monday picking the last tasty treats despite the cold, gusting wind.  The cherry tomatoes are ripening nicely, but I don’t have high hopes for the peppers and tomatoes that weren’t remotely beginning to ripen.

Otherwise, I’m just hoping to keep a few of the herbs going as long as possible.

Tonight, I picked a zucchini and 3 more butternut squashes. The cherry tomatoes have slowed down, but they are still producing some nice ones. We don’t have a freezing night in the forecast, so that is great, but we shall see…  Update: Although the low is only 43 tonight, we do have a frost advisory, so I better work on that tonight.

Last week, my friend Laurel invited me over for a grape jelly party. Her neighbor (also a church friend) has a huge grape vine, and another lady from our church was coming over to teach the art of making grape jelly. We picked tons of grapes (I should have taken a picture!) and made loads of freezer jelly. We had heard of a method of canning grapes with water and sugar to make a not too concentrated grape juice concentrate, and I wanted to try it. So yesterday, I picked more grapes and made the juice! We’ll see how it tastes, but it was at least a fun experiment.

A while back, we had a groupon (50% off deal) for Door to Door Organics. They make weekly deliveries of organic produce to subscribers. The produce is of course not local at all during much of the year, so I waited to redeem mine until a good bit was local. My delivery came yesterday, and I’m excited to use everything! It’s turned out not to be a great cooking week for me, but I’ll see what I can do.

If you’re interested in garden updates from other people, check out the Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.

We also recently picked the first of the butternut squash, but our crop will come nowhere close to last year’s!

Finally, here are a few more tasty treats from the lovely garden. The cherry tomatoes still taste great, but the big ones are tasting terrible right now – I don’t know why!

and these today:

but because it’s our 5th anniversary! That’s right – 5 years ago today, we began our most incredible journey together. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but then again it’s hard to believe it’s only been that long. Either way, it’s wonderful. I thank God every day that I found such an amazing best friend and husband. I can’t wait for the next 5!

Here are last night’s tomatoes. The cherry tomatoes, although out of focus, are doing great obviously. However, if I could figure out what to do about the crazy splits in my big tomatoes, I would be so happy! We had the same problem last year. I’ve read it’s due to uneven watering, but we have a soaker hose on a timer, so I don’t know how you could possibly water more evenly. Our neighbor said hers are doing the same thing.

Our neighbor dropped off a big green cucumber last week, so I sliced it and one of our big white ones and made refrigerator pickles. It is SO easy! All you do is put the slices in a jar, heat up your solution (mine was sugar, AC vinegar, salt, and celery seed), and pour it in the jar. 24 hours later, you have pickles! (the left jar was with AC vinegar, the right with white)

I believe the first Christmas we were married, my brother gave us a kitchen torch. He and his friends had been using one in the dorm to make smores! We did that a few times, but we haven’t used it too much. I had been wanting to try creme brulee and put the torch to the test, so I finally got around to it. It was a success. A very rich success.

In other food news, last week I went to the u-pick strawberry farm on a whim on my day off. I picked 4 quarts of strawberries and a few raspberries. A couple of friends and I went on the last day of the early crop, and this time the pickings were MUCH better!

And then…I canned jam! I made strawberry jam and strawberry lemon marmalade. It went well, and I am happy to say I know how to can.

Finally, here are a few carrots I dug last week. They looked great when I took the picture, and then I put them in the fridge. They got rubbery again! Super rubbery… I must figure out what is wrong, because Joel isn’t getting to eat any of his beloved carrots. I also dug the rest of the onions, and they ranged from large marble sized to golf ball sized. Hmm.

As far as I can tell, there was no harm to anything, since the hail was pretty small. I was sitting outside afterward and thought I’d take a few more garden pics. Here’s the main bed and a smaller one.

Notice the massive potato plant spilling onto the sidewalk above. We kind of made it do that, as it was eating two parsleys, a marigold, and a pepper! Here’s one of my earth box with thyme and sage that are flourishing…and oregano that is not.

I am not ashamed. This was once a cilantro plant:

And finally, here’s one of Joel as he was getting home from work after the storm. I was sitting on the front porch and snapped an awkward pic for ya.