{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ September 22, 2013

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter, as usual. :)  Lizzie tells me that she and Arane read my {phfr} post every Monday.  I think that's fun!  I also think that one day I will be glad to have this week-by-week record of our lives.  Thank you, Rosie and Leila, for the inspiration!

{Pretty}

Aren't these squashes from our garden pretty?  I never stop being amazed how you can rather haphazardly put a tiny seed into the ground and end up with an abundance of food from that one little speck of nothing. . . though in this case, these five squashes are the sum total of our squash harvest this year.  Butternut squashes are exceedingly easy to grow, but this year a fungus killed the plants mid-summer.  Nevertheless, aren't these five so pretty stacked up on our pantry shelf?  

{Happy}

Speaking of my pantry, it makes me happy to walk in here and see how our shelves are filling up with homegrown, home-canned produce, some of it grown by ourselves and some of it given to us by generous friends.  

Here's the top half~

And here's the bottom half~

We have tomato sauce, tomato juice, carrots, peaches, herbs, and a few jars of applesauce and green beans.  There is also some homemade soup.  I love, love, love having homemade soup in jars ready to be opened at lunch or when we need a quick meal.  It's so much nicer than commercial soup and doesn't feel like cheating to me. lol  And we aren't finished yet.  We were given more apples and the gardens are still producing.  The green beans were not prolific this year due to a bunny invasion, so that is disappointing.  But our freezer contains 16 gallon bags of frozen corn and a gallon and a half of raspberries, not to mention the quarter beef we ordered from a local meat processor.  There are turnips in our fridge too.  And as I said, the gardens are still producing.

Dave and I recently visited with an elderly lady from our church who showed us pictures of the garden she maintained in her earlier days.  She had a large family, so she had a large garden and canned hundreds of jars of food each summer!  It was during the Depression and World War II and after.  She said they hardly had to buy any groceries.  Her pantry shelves were five jars deep.  I admire her industry! 

Just a few close-ups~

{Real}

This is what it looks like when I study Greek.  Dave said he approved of my lay-out.  (He also said this should be my {happy}. lol)  That's a Greek New Testament in the front left along with the notebook where I take notes.  There is also a Greek grammar and lexicon and an English New Testament, which I use for verification purposes only, I promise.  Well, okay, usually.  The homiletics and Lutheran theology books are Dave's, thankfully.  Greek is more than enough for me right now!  It's {real} because I have been doing most of the homework the day before class, a practice I want to stop.  I just have to make some time on other days for a little Greek.  It'll be so much better to have a daily sprint than a hours-long marathon!