Grasshopper or ant?

Grasshopper: 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labor and toil?'

Tis the season for food preservation. I started this evening by freezing some fresh crushed tomatoes in quart bags for later use in stews. Tomorrow I am picking up a bushel of peaches for canning on Thursday with help from a neighbor. She'll come over to help with the prep and canning and we'll split everything. The time goes by faster and it's half the work! Saturday I hope to freeze a bushel of green beans.

I was sewn before the canning season started!

I am doing a bit of record keeping this summer season. I plan on recording the amount of fresh produce purchased, cost of fresh produce, variety if known, how much it yielded, and eventually how long said preserved produce lasted us during the winter season. Hopefully these details will help in future years to remember what varieties we liked best and if we stored too much/ too little.

Linen top, scrap of white eyelet, hand stitched vintage crochet trim, vintage button closure.

A few weeks ago I started harvesting my fresh herbs. This year after I washed everything I let all the leaves air dry for 24 hours. Then I wrapped them up in a dry paper towel and placed in freezer bags. I checked the basil, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and sage yesterday and they are all looking excellent. In fact upon reopening the plastic bags I was surprised how aromatic the herbs were. We'll see how they look in 6 more months.

Which this reminds me... someone requested I give my recipe for the rosemary/lavender hair rinse. (Sorry, I forgot about that!) There are more recipes than you can count out there including some that have you seep the herbs in water for 3-4 weeks in a sunny window sill. Over kill maybe? In the end I decided to do it this way:

1. I took one water bottle (about 16 oz size) with a sports cap and filled it with water.
   
2. I put that measured amount of water into a small sauce pan and brought it to a simmer.
3. I added about 3/4 cup of rosemary leaves and 1 heaping tablespoon of dried lavender buds in water and let it seep for 15 min and strained the liquid from solids.
   
4. Once the liquid was cool I put it back into water bottle.
5. I took this bottle into the shower with me. It lasted 2 rinses.

I really loved the results! I have dark, long, thick hair. Rosemary is suppose to help darken hair over a period of time and has properties to prevent dander. After my normal shampooing I for-goed conditioner and just used the rinse. Amazing my hair was tangle free, had a wonderful fragrance, and was super shiny the next day. I used this recipe multiple times with great results. More recently I switched the rosemary out for mint and absolutely loved the smell of that. That scent lingered into the next day and I got the thumbs up from the husband.