By: Lovina Eicher

Another chilly morning with the temperature dipping below 40.  So far my garden hasn’t been hit with a killing frost. I am surprised because it has been quite cold on some mornings.  Some places look like they did, though.  Both my gardens are beside buildings so I wonder if they are protected from the cold a little more? The boys did pick a lot of my green tomatoes and my green and hot peppers just in case it frosted.

By: Lovina Eicher

Last night Benjamin and Joseph picked over a five gallon bucket of tomatoes. I now have enough to make a batch of homemade pizza sauce today. The tomato plants are still loaded with green tomatoes.  Hot and green peppers are still doing great. I am surprised we didn’t get a killing frost yet but imagine it is not too far off. I can’t believe how many leaves have fallen from the trees this past week. Such beautiful colors of leaves.  Autumn is a pretty season when the leaves start changing to yellow, red, and orange.  These are scenes only our Master Artist could create. The sunsets are also a beauty to see in the evening.

By: Lovina Eicher

Another week has flown by making this the last column for September already.  Autumn is here now and it is obvious. Mornings are chillier and leaves are starting to fall. Some of our trees are getting that colorful look. We haven’t had a killing frost yet, but have had temperatures in the upper 30's. Sister Emma’s son Stephen came off the bus around noon.

By: Lovina Eicher

I have 10 loaves of bread rising and daughter Susan is mixing two batches of ranger cookies. The cookies are being made to take along to church services on Sunday. She’ll probably end up mixing another batch so we will have some to keep for ourselves. The boys picked the tomatoes last night and didn’t even get a five gallon bucket full. Looks like they are slowing down fast. If I do get more I would like to make a batch of pizza sauce to put in jars. I still have plenty of green peppers so I could still use those. I went with husband Joe to see a doctor after he came home from work. He has been feeling very sick the last few weeks with wheezing, coughing, sinus congestion.

By: Lovina Eicher

I decided to write this column while my red beets are cooking.  I cook them long enough so that the skin peels off easily.  I want to make pickled red beets to put in cans.  We will serve those for lunch when we have church services next spring. I also have several more buckets of tomatoes ready to put into juice.  With these tomatoes I’ll have well over 100 quarts of juice canned already along with 80 pints of salsa so far.  I’ll keep putting tomatoes into jars until it frosts which I am expecting early this year.

By: Lovina Eicher

Laundry is hanging on the lines drying really quickly with the sun and breeze blowing.  It took longer than usual to do the washing as the motor on the washing machine kept shutting down. I will have to have my husband Joe look at it when he comes home from work.  We usually wash clothes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but had to wait until today because we were out of gas.  It is not fun filling up the gas jugs in town when the gas is over four dollars a gallon.  It would be lots cheaper to do laundry the way we did when we were growing up.  It was a lot harder work, though, and I remember how tiresome it was to push the handle on the washing machine back and forth.

By: Lovina Eicher

It is a nice, sunny Thursday forenoon. So far nights have been cool which make for some nice sleeping weather. It has been getting chilly enough at night that most of our windows were closed and it was still comfortable in the house. Our thermometer showed 49 degrees Sunday morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had an early frost. With the drought we’ve had I can’t imagine that our canning jars will be filled like other years. I canned some more dill pickles and made three more gallons of freezer pickles. Since we hold church services at our house twice next spring I want to make sure we have plenty. We made some fresh pickles for sister Emma’s church services. I think my cucumbers have produced the most out of my garden. I have tomatoes but not like other years.  I have canned 32 quarts of tomato juice so far and one batch of salsa.  Today I have enough tomatoes to make more salsa. I canned 15-pints of Serrano peppers. Emma gave me the peppers because I was unable to get the Serrano plants this year. We do have banana and jalapeno peppers but I prefer Serrano for canning.

By: Lovina Eicher

It is 5:15 a.m. and our 18-year-old daughter, Elizabeth just left for her job at the factory.  My husband Joe left over an hour ago for his job.  Elizabeth started at the factory a couple of weeks ago. She works five days a week. Her cleaning job didn’t have enough days of work each week for her. At the factory they make camping trailers. I miss Elizabeth’s good help here at home, but Susan and Verena are done detasseling corn now so they can help.

School doors will open in a few weeks. The six youngest will all be in school then. This will be Verena’s last year, Kevin will be in the first grade, Lovina in second, Joseph in fourth, Loretta in sixth and Benjamin in seventh. Time is going by too fast!

By: Lovina Eicher

I decided to write for Mom this week. It has been awhile since I wrote the column.  I just came home from de-tasseling corn not too long ago.  The corn was extra wet this morning since we got all that rain.  I don’t really mind de-tasseling corn unless it is really tall.  August 11 will be our de-tasseling picnic because we will be done.

Tonight I will help sister Susan take our miniature pony that she is training for a ride.  She takes it down the road past tractors and big trucks so it gets used to traffic and all noises.  Tiny Tim is her newest pony that she is training. He is doing pretty good but he still likes taking us in the ditch once in awhile.  I think it is neat to see how different all the pony behaviors are.  Tiny Tim has to be trained  so it takes a lot of working with him.

By: Lovina Eicher

The laundry looks dry on the wash line and is ready to come in and be folded.  Daughters Susan and Verena just came home from detasseling. They are always ready for a shower and getting cleaned up when they come home. I told them to go take a nap after they get cleaned up since they are home earlier today. The rest of the children are all taking a break and doing whatever they want because they worked hard this morning.  Before noon they dug up all of our red potatoes in the garden.  The boys picked my tomatoes and cucumbers.  They brought in 17.5 gallons using five gallon buckets full of cucumbers.  I will probably have enough pickles to last quite awhile after working all of those up.  And  I now think I have enough tomatoes to make a batch of homemade thick and chunky salsa.  It takes 14 pounds to make a batch of it.  It will be good to have our own again.