New little girl bear

This is turning out to be a REALLY REALLY hot and dry summer...! The grass is crispy brown. Lots of trees are loosing their leaves and my plants are dead!! We've given up on lots of things and are watering the big trees to help them through this...

But bearmaking is still going on!  This is the newest little one... hand-dyed mohair and a crocheted hat and scarf.

My son has been on vacation this week and has pushed me into canning. He wanted to try more things. We went to the Kansas City Market on Saturday and bought fruit for jams and canned peaches. Cucumbers and peppers and onions for pickles. Yesterday we went to a roadside stand and bought over 25 pounds of canning tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. I didn't realize how many tomatoes 25 lbs were  and how long it would take to peel them!!  The rest we roasted  a la Alton Brown  and froze. I'm headed back to his house on Thursday to finish up with more jam!  There are times ( like last night after making sauce all day) when I am glad to only have to drive to the grocery store when we want pasta!!

After a day's rest (LOL) we made two batches of jam!  One a peach, strawberry and jalapeno pepper combo ( Yummy) and the other a strawberry, peach, blackberry and blueberry combo which reminds me of my Grandmother's blackberry pie !
We decided to go on hiatus till this fall  (maybe)  .... and then make apple butter and applesauce.