Busy weekend! Tomatoes, berries, and flowers Oh My!

Tomatoes of all colors are ready in the garden. I am harvesting vast amounts each day. Here are some pictures from Friday's harvest:

We spent a good part of this morning at our friend Joan's house. She has a beautiful garden and lots of raspberries that she let us pick! Yum!
Thank you Joan!!

After picking and also enjoying a nice lunch at Joan's we headed to Rising Sun Farm to buy some eggs and maple syrup. If you haven't been to Rising Sun... you should. A local organic farm with a wonderful supply of all things grown right there.

Right next store to Rising Sun is the White Pine Apple Orchard. Another local organic treat. This is a farm you should absolutely visit. Organic apples are hard to find locally, and wow do these farmers earn their money. The owner of White Pine, Keith, is a gracious friendly man and full of knowledge. The apples can't be beat!
Keith's tractor-

When Arden was napping upstairs (a miracle in itself) I had time (another miracle) to do some work with my pressed flowers and leaves. Jared was kind enough to build me a huge press that will surely increase the number of dried items in the near future.

Here are some of the items I placed between laminate sheets. Now, what will I do with them????

On other things and growing too

Where I sleep.

I have opinions on where I sleep, shower, and in general relax. When traveling and selecting a hotel/motel I have minimum standards. Yes, I read the feedback online at every site I can find including TripAdvisor(the one I like most), yahoo, hotels.com, and in addition I rely on opinions from people I know who live in the area or have stayed at locations in the area. Sounds logical. I think perfectly logical?

Of course other people have differant standards. So, the less scientific part is where I take what they say and then apply to what I know I can tolerate and voila! I make a decision. Not a problem in any way. I decide where I will sleep, shower, and in general relax.

No issues with all of that- right?

WRONG.

Apparantly if you travel for business, leaving the comfort of your own home and family... in order to represent your company. In exchange for that you get...nothing. Well, you get behind in your everyday work, you get a larger daycare bill, and you get stress. But also...and here's the kicker. You get no say whatsoever in where you sleep, shower and in general relax.

Quick logical solution. Yes, look at me being all logical again.

Logical solution= I pay the differance in cost between the hotel they pick and the hotel I pick.

No one loses. All is good.

WRONG.

Everyone and their brother (no really) gets in involved and we will meet about it again on Monday.

Oh and if they agree to that logical solution you can add to the list of things I get for going on the trip- add lose more money so that you can stay in a place you are comfortable in.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

New topic.

Ragweed is kicking my ass this week. I have made a drowsy friend named Benadryl. Yes, I have tried all of the perscription stuff it does not work for me. These allergies are limiting my time in the garden which is sad since the days are numbered. Fall is in the air. 42degrees last night! That is too close to freezing for me. Doubt my tomatoes love it either. Most of them are still avoiding turning color. Here is a shot of yesterdays harvest:

Also spent some time yesterday freezing broccoli, cauliflower, and making basil pesto. And one final round of bread and butter pickles (yum, and thank you to Pearl for the recipe!).

Final picture of the day, had a fun night at our friend Nora/Brent/Blake/Paige's house last night. Kids played, hurt themselves, ate pizza, watched Spongebob, and were very loud. Grown-ups drank, ate pizza, and were very loud. A good night. These folks live out in the country and are surrounded by some beautiful land on which cow's graze. This particular cow and I had a staredown- in insured him I had no plans to eat or wear him and we came to an understanding so he posed for the picture: