Hummingbird Hills has become pickle palace! Our two cucumber plants have gone wild and besides eating them now, I have made sweet pickles, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, and sweet relish. My pantry is filling up and hopefully there is enough to share during the holidays with family. 

DH and I have already had serious talks about the garden for next year. We started a compost pile, but it won't be ready for when we tear up the garden and pull the plants. We don't think we want to plant much more, but would like ot make the garden a little bigger just for ease of getting around it. 

I had hoped to get enough tomatoes to can a few jars, but not sure if that is going to happen. At least we are getting fresh tomatoes. We've had extreme heat and little rain, so it's been a hot job watering and even if the plants want water, those pesky weeds can grow no matter what. 

We picked our second watermelon. The first one was around 27 pounds. I think this one is close. 

We planted sunflowers at the end of May and they didn't come up so I planted some in July just to see if the seeds were bad. I planted them in a different place and they all came up. I'm hoping we get some nice blooms before it gets cold so I can harvest the seeds for next year. 

One of the goals this year was to plant more butterfly and hummingbird friendly flowers. I hope that worked and my observation skills are spot on. I've seen more butterflies this year than last year and we have a couple of hummingbirds who seem to be visiting frequently. 

We have been eating a lot of stuff from the garden which means we aren't buying as much at the grocery store. That has helped with the grocery budget. 

A lot has been going on so I didn't know what else to title this than Potpourri.

My last post was I would start keeping track of how much I saved using coupons, digital or paper. This week Kroger has a special on Quilted Northern Toilet paper, the digital coupon was $5.99 for a 9 roll package. It's normally over $8.49 at Kroger and at other stores, it is $9.99. I bought some a few months ago when they had it down to $5.99, but we just opened our last package the other day, so I was hoping they would be running a special. They did, and they had a limit of 5. The kicker is I had an addition $2 off a package that was on the digital coupons  a couple of weeks ago, so that made it $3.99 a package. I had a few other things on sale with coupons, so my coupon savings this week was $22.49 and a total over the past two weeks is $25.09. 

My husband has been calling me his prairie woman because I do things he thinks prairie women do. We planted a garden and the bulk of the responsibility is mine, but we do share some of the labor. Our cucumbers have been coming on which is a blessing. I've made the refrigerator cucumbers and onions with vinegar and sugar that we keep a jar of going all the time, and I've made a lot of cucumber dill pasta salad to eat with our lunches. But my first project was to make sweet relish. I had to buy bell peppers for that, but had some onions I had planted and have made 3 pint jars and 3 half pints thus far. I've made sweet pickles and bread and butter pickles too. I had to purchase more half pint jars but there is a reason behind all this. Our plan is to give a jar of each to each one of DH's kids and their families as part of their Christmas presents. I picked wild black raspberries and made jam and I have enough to gift each one a half pint jelly jar of it. The berries weren't as robust as last year because we had very hot temperatures and little rainfall during the time the berries were starting to blossom and then ripen. But it's free fruit and I'll take advantage of it. Plus, I'm adding to my own pantry. 

We planted some tomato plants and one called "Early Girl" is producing small, but delicious tomatoes. I started a small herb garden by the side of the pole barn and although the strawberry plants I planted, well, all but one died, but then there was this other plant that came up. It's a volunteer heirloom tomato plant. They are small little bulb shaped tomatoes, but hey, free food is free food, right? 

I planted a bunch of watermelon seeds and was discouraged that only one plant came up originally. Well, that plant has been a powerhouse because it is taking over the garden. I planted some more seeds and have another plant that is following in the other's plant steps, because they are reaching out. We picked our first watermelon this week; it was almost 27 pounds. We have another one that is growing long and a small one that has started. So, that is exciting. We may be sick of watermelon by this fall if they all grow so big, but at least it is healthy. 

My husband has a woodworking machine called a CNC machine. He's learning to use it, and has a laser on it. I found these small cutting boards at Dollar Tree that are made of bamboo. Bamboo is considered a good wood since it is easily sustainable and if someone doesn't want to use it as a cutting board, they could be used as a decoration. So, we decided to experiment with them. I've designed different things and DH figured out the program and made these beautiful board designs. Again, we will be giving these to the kids as part of the family Christmas gift. But we also made some for other folks. 

I made a solar oven the other day with a shoebox, but my experiment didn't work well with it. I need to find a better recipe, but figure I might as well use what I can as far as solar. We have solar panels where we live. DH is a retired electrical engineer and installed them himself. Since he has an electric vehicle, he put more up last year and I helped with that. But if you are interested in solar panels don't believe the sales folks who claim you won't have an electric bill. Do your research. 

It's been busy here, but it's been a good busy. We've spent some money on materials, but overall, we feel we have saved some money as well. Hopefully the kids appreciate the pickles and jam and the cutting boards. We plan to give them a gift card to a meat market as well as their family gift, but wanted them to feel like they have other stuff too. I kind of like thinking we are doing our Christmas shopping early.