Summertime = Berry Time

The berry season is in full swing here in Latvia and we are putting up some of everything.

We worked about about 24 kilogram of strawberries, made some jam, dried some and froze the rest. I love slicing them with sugar and freezing them. We also froze some blended up that are wonderful with pancakes or ice cream.

About that same time we had cherry time- we have 2 huge sweet cherry trees and this year they were loaded. We dried a lot of them- they are great in granola- I make our own and we love it! Made some jam and invited lots of friends to come and pick cherries.

This week we have worked up a different berry every day.

Black currants are very popular here and so healthy. We got 10 kilograms of these.  We steamed some of them in our juicer steamer. The juice concentrate is great when the kids are sick. We also made jam.

Red currants- we again made juice concentrate.

Today we went raspberry picking and picked 6+ kg. We made some jam and froze some.

I love having all of these to eat in winter. It is a ton of work now and a bit chaotic with three kids. I sometimes feel I have a circus at home. Needless to say not much is happening in the silk shop at present.

Oh well.

What are you doing this summer?

Summertime

Nothing seems to happen quite like you planned it when summer is here.

The time of guests, long and short and ones that pop in at any time.

A time of laid back lazy days and quiet moments spent in the sun and by the water.

Grilled meat, fresh salads, the smell of charred food and marinades.

Long afternoons spent in the kitchen-pickling, canning, preserving and freezing.

Evenings in the woods- gathering mushrooms and berries.

The sweet sticky pot merrily boiling as the jam thickens and bubbles.

Too little time in the workroom, no sales and a list a mile long of other things to do.

This is summer.

I love it, and even as I love it I long for order and the plans of a scheduled life style.

But this is summer and the warm days are few, the rainy days in abundance at present and the evenings ever so long.

I will enjoy it, every minute of it and use this time to eat the freshest bounty of my garden and earth.

This is summer.

Treasure the moments.

Every moment with my children, every burst of sun through the clouds.

Summertime.

"And there is pansies, that's for thoughts"-Shakespeare

In our continual quest to make our yard more beautiful we have expanded our gardens. We have a flower bed spot we are working on developing. It is a long term goal. I am trying to learn more about perennials so that I know what I want.

One of the other things I wanted included in my garden was an herb garden. We made one in a wheel shape, with 8 spokes. I am so happy to have so many herbs now growing in my garden. I love cooking with them, using them in teas, etc. I also want to learn about all their health benefits so we can use them as alternative medicine.

My quest for the perfect perennials is painfully slow and so my garden is rather empty. I was at a nursery the other day and they had pansies on sale for 20 cents each. So I picked out 35 in shades of dark purple and white tinted with purple. Lovely. It took me 3 times to get them planted in a layout I was happy with. Then I realized I needed more to make my design even more luscious.

So the next day my three young ones and I headed out on a walk to the nursery- which is about a 10 minute walk from our house. My two bigger kids (ages 4 and 2) walked and baby K was in the pram. We filled up the basket under the pram with pansies. It was a bower of blooms and looked so picturesque as we moseyed home.

Now I have 55 pansies nodding their pretty faces in my garden. I love their gentle movements as the cool summer breeze swirls gently around them and sends them nodding on in pleasant agreement. The bees too have decided to come and dwell with us and summer is even a bit more delightful than before.