Tons and Tons of Tomatoes

Every summer since marrying Tyler, I’ve been fortunate enough to join in the family tradition of canning. His parents, sisters and I each grow our tomatoes, but his parents have over 50 tomato plants. What this means is every weekend in August, I’m up to my elbows in tomatoes.

We tend to grow all those tomatoes in order to can them, and last weekend we started the process by doing tomato soup. I cannot entirely represent how much better homemade tomato soup is compared to the stuff you can get at Wal-Mart. You just have to taste the difference. Once you do, you’ll never want to go back to the store version.

The next project usually is Salsa. What’s wonderful about thousands of tomatoes is the amount of salsa we can have. The options are endless. So, the next time you have chips and salsa, or put a spoonful of tomato soup in your mouth, think of me. If you are brave enough, you can have a melody of flavor on your tongue.

My Father's World

A favorite movie of mine while growing up is entitled City Boy. The main character in this movie sings a song that I would like to pay tribute to through pictures I took in my gardens.

This Is My Father's World

Text: Maltbie D. Babcock
Music: Trad. English melody; adapt. by Franklin L. Sheppard

This is my Father's world,

and to my listening ears

all nature sings, and round me rings

the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world:

I rest me in the thought

of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;

his hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world,

the birds their carols raise,

the morning light, the lily white,

declare their maker's praise.

This is my Father's world:

he shines in all that's fair;

in the rustling grass I hear him pass;

he speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world.

O let me ne'er forget

that though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father's world:

why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!

God reigns; let the earth be glad!

Tyler and I have cultivated our flower beds and also our vegetable garden.

It takes a great deal of work, but it's something that we enjoy doing. Our corn is now producing and ready to pick.

Our tomatoes are red and delicious. I've eaten many of them and I can testify that they are delicious.

The flowers add that little detail to our yard out front. I hope that in the years to come I can do more with this area and perhaps landscape it further to add another tier to the flower bed.

My hopes are that by doing this, I will make it both easier to garden and also use the look to change the front area of our house.

Seeing, just not Believing

I was sick today, to the point that I had to take a prescription to ease away some of my symptoms. Without telling too many details, let’s just say that the medicine I took had the ability to carry me out of this world of perception and into another.

A good friend of mine lives close by. She asked if I needed help with anything. I gave her a short shopping list of vitamins and things that would naturally bring me back to health.

She graciously picked them up for me and dropped them by. As she left, she noticed a red Jeep Grand Cherokee pulling up near my house. She asked if I knew anyone who drove such a machine. I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.” She concluded that maybe they were turning around or going to a neighbor’s house.

My friend left and I went into the kitchen do get a knife to open the seals on the my vitamins. About a minute and a half later, my doorbell frantically rang. Maybe she forgot something, I told myself as I hurried across the room to it, knife still in hand, I opened the door to see, at first, no one.

But then, my screen door burst opened (it’s one of those half screen and bottom half opaque metal). A little girl charged passed me and into my house. I didn’t recognize her. I just stood there. Remember the medication I’d taken previously had played with my perception of things. There I was, at the door and little girl running around my house, asking where the kids were, the toys and everything. And I’m thinking, But I don’t have kids, in my head.

(This is a Photoshop-ed image to help you visualize this little girl in my house)

Then her mother rounds the corner, toting a toddler in arms and she gasps when she sees me. “Oh no, I have the wrong house, don’t I?”

I’m dumbfounded, but I nod. Is this real?

“And my little girl just ran into your house, sorry.”

I just shrug. I hope she doesn’t see the knife. She probably thinks I’m a criminal or druggie. The lady finally manages to convince her daughter to leave my house and I still stand there, knife tucked behind my back, like a deer in headlights.She apologized a million times, and I couldn’t say anything. I was too…disbelieving to say anything. After I closed and locked my door, I hesitated. Did that just happen? I asked myself. Were they real?

I finally sent my friend a text to tell her what happened (and to verify to myself that they were real). I mean, seriously this lady and her kid show up thinking my house is their friend’s place and she sends her kid up to ring the bell while she gets her things together.

Roy Days Parade

Out here in Utah, each town, whether big or small, has their event. I guess that is typical this time of year. Many cities will host their events around the 4th of July, others pick a weekend in August when the sun is unforgiving and the kids are desperate to make their summer stretch out as long as possible before school reconvenes. Our city, Roy, had its celebration today, the event was called Roy Days. Parade, carnival, car show, band, and much, much more. Below is one of the floats from the parade- it was a cool one!
The part I was involved with was the parade. I will admit that I was excited for this event until I found out I would be in it. I’m not against participating in things, as long as I can usually stay out of the limelight. However, when a vacancy on the Float caused for a change in plans, I said I would fill in. I’m glad I did.
Our float’s theme was “Land of the Free-because of the brave” and it featured heroes from American History since the beginning of the United States as a country. We had Ben Franklin, John Hancock, and another Declaration signer, Molly Pitcher, Dolly Madison, a revolutionary war drummer boy, two Civil War Soldiers, Davey Crocket, A Navy sailor from the Arizona, an Army man with his helmet, and then current day heroes along with pioneers, two active Air Force Men, and three suffrage women… ie many people from history that made our country what it is today.

Most importantly, I was Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Okay, maybe I wasn’t most important, but this is my blog so I can tell it how I want to. If you don’t like it, well… go read someone else’s blog about the event. I’m sure they will think that someone else was more important.

Our float featured 4 different flags (starting with the first with only 13 stars). It was interesting how well the piece came together. We got an award “Most Beautiful” which I think was because they saw my hair and liked it (good job Elizabeth!).
We ran out of candy a ways into the parade. I sure hope those people at the beginning realize how lucky they were to have handfuls dumped on the ground in front of them. I tried to throw my little stash in very conservative and well-placed amounts. Most hit their targets. In case you are wondering, yes I hid candy from some of the participants so that I would for sure have some for the people that I knew were at the end of the parade. It worked out well, so a certain 2-year-old could get some candy thrown by a famous person. I’m cool, huh!

After the parade, I headed home to change and then Tyler and I went back to Roy Days. I wandered through the cars and decided that I like the idea of a project car with the end goal of having my dream machine. Though we have different preferences on make and model, Tyler and I decided that we will probably go the way of the Ford Mustang… unless when the time comes (ie we have the garage space) that something else catches our eye..
Then, to end it all, we ate BBQ sandwiches, listened to Tyler's brother play the drums in his band (it was cool), and we then hung around the rides at the carnival area with our nephew, niece and Elizabeth's Brecklynn. Spending that time with family and friends sure made for a fun adventure.

Hairnets and Manual Labor

It was a bit of surprise yesterday when I called my mother-in-law about borrowing her surger (for sewing) and she mentioned that she was stressed out trying to find people from her ward to fill their canning assignment. She had about five minutes notice to give people at this point and was hearing a lot of "no" answers. She was going herself, so since I've become a bean expert recently, I volunteered to go with her.
We arrived a little bit late and they ushered us in to the conveyor belt. Great, I thought, I can do this. Just don't get dizzy!

About 15 minutes into my shift, however one of the missionaries came up to me and asked if I could repeatedly lift 30lbs. I shrugged and said "I think so," and he took me back to the shipping area. A machine puts labels onto each of the cans and then puts 24 into a box which is tapped and stamped with the time and load # before one guy and myself loaded them onto pallets. He said he wasn't surprised that he was back there since he was one of the only young guys that showed up for the shift. Pretty much, I was a fill in "guy" for the day. We loaded 60 boxes onto a pallet and I estimate that we loaded over 25 pallets.

It was hard labor, but at the same time, it was a lot of fun. One of the missionaries over that area of the cannery was German, so we started to talk about towns, people, and stories from Germany. He told me about when he was young in the 1950s when the Soviets were still in control of things. He was near Berlin and a guy came up and asked him if he wanted to be smuggled to freedom. Duringt hat time, you were constantly spied on and could easily get trapped and later arrested and questioned. That was how the Soviets did things.

Because of the situation though, he of course said yes (who wouldn't want freedom?)and the guy told him to find 20 others. They were smuggled out through Checkpoint Charlie (he said that he was lucky because at that time, there were a couple Soviets even, making money off of smuggling people out). He was at the right place at the right time, thus he was able to have his freedom.

He told me about the different people in his family and friend circle within the church and their associations in Germany. I believe it was his father who helped build the church building in Dahlem (which is the American Quarter of Berlin). I served in Dahlem, so it was neat to think of the legacy of that building.

Anyway, it was once again an adventure of bean-sized proportion at the Ogden Cannery.