Day 55 - Heat!

Decided that today would not be a good day to crank up the old oven or the water bath.  I realize in Iowa it's not going to get much better from here on out; but for today we'll keep the energy costs down.  This means I am probably going to have to rework my daily schedule so that cooking is done early morning or late evening.  Of course when canning season truly heats up (ha!) I'll have to can as veggies need processing.  It's amazing what that water bath does to the house.  Not to mention my hair - if anyone reading watches Phineas & Ferb on the Disney channel my hair does the same thing as Isabella's.  I may need to download the song "Izzie's got the Frizzies" for motivation.  This is why I have gone to wearing a bandana or scarf on my head.  It's mainly to protect the food and keep hair out of my face.  Grant at first found it weird and had to lift it up to make sure my hair was still there.  Now he just finds it funny.

Last night after posting the blog, Clark and I went out to the garden.  This was his first experience eating fresh peas straight from the pod.  He handed me his lemonade icy so he could work open pods and eat them as fast as I could find ones that were ready.  This morning at breakfast he asked if we could eat garden peas.  I had to tell him it would be a couple days before more peas were ready (if the heat doesn't completely stop them).  Peas for breakfast - what a champ!  Oddly enough my boys enjoy frozen peas as a snack and won't eat heated peas.  Thank you grandma!  So fresh or frozen - only way my boys eat peas.  Seriously if you have a child who won't eat peas try giving them frozen peas - thought my mom was nuts but now that's how my boys eat them and think they're quite a treat.

Worked for 2 hours weeding last night trying to get as much done as possible before it gets unbearably hot and rains more.  This morning I figured I had to get the isminis in before it ended up being July.  I planted them in with the glads since both bulbs have to be dug in the fall.  The bulbs looked good and I am sure they will do well.  I have planted them later (not intentionally) and they have still bloomed and/or at least developed enough of a bulb to harvest and store.  Can't wait until they bloom!

Everything is now up in the garden.  Clark goes to check on his gourd plants daily.  This morning he hoed around them (under close supervision by mom) to make sure those pesky weeds went away.  He likes going out to check the garden with me and is always reminding me that we need to water (lately I have had to tell him God has been taking care of that for us).  Tonight after making our evening rounds - garden check, watering the container plants, putting chickens to bed, he ran under the hose for awhile.  He thought it was great fun!  Hmm, maybe we should get the old stock tank out.  Can tell I'm a country girl can't you - you bet stock tanks = swimming pools.

Have some strawberries that I crushed and boiled cooling on the stove.  I will put them in the cheesecloth in my new jelly strainer and see how much juice I have in the morning.  Depending on how much I have I plan to either make jelly or syrup.  We are running out of the mulberry syrup I made last year.  Decided not to bother with mulberries this year.  However, we really like using homemade fruit syrup on pancakes and waffles instead of maple syrup.  I usually heat up some frozen berries to go with the syrup.  So yummy!  I hope to have enough black raspberries to make raspberry syrup in a week or two also.

Child Milestone:
OK - if you read the blog and you're not family or don't want to hear about potty training issues you may want to stop reading here - NOTE: you were given fair warning!

Whoo Hoo!  Clark finally went poopy in the toilet today!  So excited we had to call dad and grandma right away!  My son is a clever little fella.  He knows where he should be doing this but will wait until nap time when we put a pull-up on instead of underwear to do his business.  He is great when it comes to urinating and we haven't had an accident in a very long time - even nap times he usually stays dry but we just couldn't convince him to go in the toilet when it came to poo.  Today while I was planting isminis he came running up saying he needed to potty.  I figured well let's just do it outside.  He informed me, "no, mommy, poopy has to go in the potty."  I told him he was right pulled his pants back up and headed for the house.  He was a good boy and sat on the potty and then informed me it wouldn't come.  Told him patiently sometimes it's not as easy as just going pee.  He became frustrated and would no longer sit on the potty.  My patience ran out as I heard Grant start to stir in his crib and as my last ismini bulbs sat out in the sun.  I told him I was going to finish planting the last few flower bulbs and then would be right back and in the meantime no pants (but shoes if he needed to go outside).  If he needs me he knows to call into the baby monitor which reaches the garden and I would come right back in.  I quickly finished up the planting and ran back to the house.  Clark was waiting for me at the screen door with a huge smile on his face, "mommy, I did it, I poopied in the toilet!"  So we raced to the bathroom for him to show me his accomplishment!  I gave him a HUGE hug.  I guess mommy just needs to leave him alone to do his thing (without underwear on).  We have finally crossed that final hurdle - I am so happy!  Since Alan had a meeting  tonight I took Clark and Grant to Hickory Park to celebrate.  Clark really enjoyed his mint chocolate chip ice cream along with everything else.  I told him that was mommy's thank you and congratulations for reaching such a big boy step.  From his seat he said, "Thank you Mommy" in the cutest, most sincere little voice.

I realize we will have accidents along the way but now that he knows it's not such a scary ordeal I know he'll do great.  Maybe my pep talk last night on the fact that everyone does it and listed off how all of our farm animals and pets go helped.  Or maybe mommy just needs to not be in the bathroom.