4th of July Weekend

We had some of John's sisters' families over for a barbecue for the 4th of July. This was the first time I didn't tell anyone what to bring. I told them that we were bbq-ing (not sure what we would cook but it was coming from the freezer since we are trying to clean out the freezer - more on that later). I told them we would eat whatever they brought. EVERYONE brought salads - including me! We had pasta salad, cucumber salad, and two kinds of fruit salad. With the barbecued steaks John cooked, it was a scrumptious feast! One of John's sisters, Kay, brought me this lovely bouquet of flowers from her yard..a simple canning jar with flowers, tied with a red bandanna bow! Perfect!

On Sunday, John decided that, since there was no wind, he would light the burn pile behind the barn. He'd been saving a bunch of the leftover panel pieces from when we built the house - he finally decided he wasn't going to need/use them so it was time to light 'em up! Being a former 'firefighter' in the Navy, he spent most of 2 hours just standing out there, watching the blaze to make sure it didn't spread. The fire didn't seem to bother any of the cows...they even stopped to watch for a short while.

I spent the rest of the weekend sewing...Jill had asked me to make her another apron like the one I'd recently sent her....here they both are.

This pattern is a cinch to sew up. I might adapt it to Miss Emily...and maybe one for Miss Charlotte. Will have to see.

I'm still alive in Sock Wars IV! I have no idea how this happened. But I keep on knitting and killing and I'm still kicking it! I made my 3rd kill last week and my then-assassin was killed off the same day. She mailed my death socks to North Carolina but that person was killed off last week. Once she gets those death socks, she has to mail them to another lady in England. But she is expecting her own death socks anytime and will probably be dead by the time she gets mine. And then they were supposed to go to New York but New York was killed today, too. So who knows where my still-unfinished death socks will land? I'm just knitting away and killing away till mine show up! I started another pair of death socks today - these will be done by the end of the weekend, I hope, and then will wing their way to Washington state! Will keep you posted!

Ok, I know you are all jonesing to know why we are cooking everything from the freezer in such a frenzy. Well, John took our Huevo to the butcher on Monday and we need the space in the freezer in about 10 days! We told Huevo he was going for a ride to be re-purposed and since cows don't understand really big words like that, he didn't get stressed about the trip and the meat won't be stressed, either. Anyway, Huevo weighed in at 1175 pounds - live weight. Hanging weight turned out to be 664 pounds. I'm told by the butcher that this comes out to 57% and that's great for home-grown meat. But now we need to find space in the big freezer and the smaller freezer for 664 pounds of prime home-grown beef!

Ok...enough of an update for us. I'll update soon. Thanks for stopping by.