Is This How A Squirrel Feels In Fall

Is This How A Squirrel Feels

Have you noticed when the temperatures began to feel like fall, the squirrels stopped chasing each other and started their search for food to bury for the winter?

I get the same urge though I don't bury food. I've seen how forgetful the squirrels are when it comes to finding their food supply. In the spring, their acorns and walnuts sprout in my flowers. I would be just like the squirrels if I tried that except my tomatoes or cucumbers wouldn't come up in the spring to remind me where to look. The safest place for what Harold brings in from the garden is going into jars stored in our basement or baggies in our freezer. That way the food supply is centrally located for me to get at when the ground is snow covered. Perhaps, that is a suggestions the squirrels should try. Pick one spot, dig down and bury all the nuts there to make it easy to find. The idea works for me. I wouldn't have so many tree sprouts to pull up in the spring.

We are fortunate to be able to raise our food. Gardening is good exercise and a safe way to have healthy food. We have a large garden, but there are times we wonder if it's going to hold all that we want to plant. We like a variety of vegetables so we plant our spring garden as early as possible, and when that has finished producing, we start over with a fall garden. Just like last year, we're now carrying water to the plants. Our new lettuce, radishes and carrots are up and growing, but some of the other veggies have yet to sprout. The seeds are dormant under the soil. What we need is a good soaking rain and soon.

Picture is of radish rows in what was the potato patch. Wire rolls are old fencing I use to discourage the chickens from scratching my plants out of the ground. I've tried so many recycling ideas to get rid of varmits in the corn patch and berries that one of our neighbors says our garden looks like a land fill. Beyond the radishes is the strawberry bed.
Preserving all the good foods to eat this winter really limits my time on the computer. I'd like to spend more time working on a new Amish story right now, but I console myself with this winter when I'm making lunch with quick to cook dishes from the freezer or jar, I'll be writing more.



Right now my writing project is a special one. If you remember I just finished publishing a book written by a cousin about his time spent in the Vietnam War - 199th Light Infantry Brigade Redcatcher M.P. Now I'm soon going to publish another book for a dear sister-in-law that lost her battle with cancer recently at age 60.



The two of us started out in the late eighties thinking we would like to write a book. I signed up for a six weeks summer writing course in the back of the library. That was a very helpful course and fueled my fire to some day be an author. The next summer the course was offered and both of us signed up. There was only a class or two before the classes were canceled. We were on our own again, and life seemed to get in the way. After that, our conversations weren't on a possible book. Though I kept working on my skills every time I had a spare moment, the sister-in-law didn't. Her possible book was placed in a metal box for safe keeping until she had the time to finish it. She didn't get the chance. The metal box surfaced recently and brought back memories of our bright hopes to be authors.



So now I'm going to make her dreams come true by publishing her book. The story is a romance. It needs much work and an ending which I've already figured out. So the day will come when I'll be able to share the book with the author's name on the cover. What a special legacy for her to leave her children and grandchildren. This woman lived her life with courage. She embraced her life with humor and bravery in the last fourteen years all the way to the end. She enjoyed the few remaining years and then months and days she had left and always kept in mind ways to make it easier for her loved ones to live life with her and without her. We were sisters with a common dream. If the situation was reversed, she'd have done the same for me.



Now time to get busy again. On my list of to do today, as a reminder that this is still summer, is making homemade ice cream from an aunt's recipe.



Pudding flavored Ice Cream



4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 small bowl of Cool Whip

2 3oz. boxes of instant pudding or one large (any flavor) We love Butter Pecan. Doesn't come on the grocery store shelf anymore, but can be found in bulk in many of the Amish stores. I buy a supply just for ice cream.

½ gal. cold milk. (I've been using Silky soybean milk.)

1 tsp flavoring to match pudding or use vanilla. Can even omit since the pudding makes the ice cream's flavor.



Beat eggs in large bowl. Add sugar and pudding. Beat thoroughly. Stir in cool whip and flavoring. Pour in freezer can and add milk to the fill line. Freeze.