The Orange, White, and Blue

With nothing else on our plates for the Fourth, we decided to jump on some garden work. Namely, canning carrots. The pulling, scrubbing, peeling, rinsing, chopping, canning process took most of the day, and netted us 15 pint jars of carrots. And we also did 6 pints of green beans. Keith had never been in the house last year when I used the pressure canner, and was a little concerned about all the hissing and noise it made. But we got through the day with no kitchen explosions (or marital ones, which is always a good thing when both of us try to work on our limited counter space).

The nicest part of the day was spending part of the morning pulling the carrots and scrubbing them outside, while Bert ran around.

And how about that volunteer sunflower? We have to remember to cut the flowers off before it goes to seed and we have a hundred of them next year!

"Hmm...let's try a carrot!"

"I think this one needs to be scrubbed a little more."

"Never mind, I'll just suck the dirt off of it."

Along with the peas, spinach, and green beans he has been eating out of the garden, our little herbivore has also started sampling basil, parsley, and sage. He goes back for more on the basil and parsley, but he was clawing the sage off his tongue. And the nets over the blueberries keep the birds out but don't work so well for a toddler with pretty good fine motor skills.