Day 17 - Beans; Part II

Yep, beans!  Lots and lots of beans.  Green beans, yellow beans, kidney beans, garbanzo beans.  Beans for processing, for 3-bean salad and for supper.  Grant badly wanted to help so after I measured out the yellow beans for the 3-bean salad I gave him the extra to play with.  He loved moving them between bowls.  He did try to eat one but quickly spit it back out making an awful "yucky" face.  Well, can't blame him - I'm not a fan of raw beans either.  He did however, gobble down the green beans we fixed for supper with one of our ham hocks and some onion.  He finished his and pointed at his daddy's plate to indicate he wanted more.

Here's Grant looking at the large quantity of green beans for canning.  We ended up with 12 quarts at the end of the day.  Even though the pressure canner still makes me nervous I will brave it for canned green beans.  Frozen green beans just don't taste right for some reason.  Only way to go for our family is canned.

Mmm - can't wait to pull these out this winter and savor the taste of summer.  We would like to do another 12 quarts before calling it good on beans for the season, but we'll see how it goes.  Currently, the pickled three bean salad is sitting in the fridge overnight.  I'll process tomorrow after they have time to sit and marinade.  While I was waiting for stove space; Clark saw the chopped celery for the 3-bean recipe and wanted to try some.  He started gobbling it down and then Grant wanted some.  Grant also thought the celery was good.  Alan suggested some ants on a log.  Clark thought this sounded funny.  We cut up some celery and spread it with peanut butter.  The boys put their ants on.  I still can't believe the one year old gobbled up the celery.  He did a pretty good job eating most of it.  He really liked the "ants" though and ate them by the fist fulls.

Here's Grant spreading the peanut butter out some more.  Clark is already in the process of eating his.

And Grant putting the ants on.  He was very adamant he would do it himself.  This is why I never assume my kids won't eat something.  My boys rarely turn down a veggie.   I consider myself extremely lucky that my boys don't have an issue with veggies!

Finally to end tonight's blog I thought I'd show you some photos of our caterpillars.  Every year I leave a certain area in the garden full of milkweed plants.  No, I don't propagate them but I also don't weed them out.  Why?  Because they harbor so many beneficial insects.  From adult monarchs to monarch caterpillars, lady bugs (the real ones not the asian beetles) and bees.  There was so much activity going on today on the plants. I find monarch caterpillars so pretty and regal.  So here are the two that are living on our milkweed (and chomping it down to the stem):