Good morning. It's 73 degrees and going to 87 with possible thunderstorms. I will just be taking it easy today and having hubby put the drops in my eyes that are needed following my cataract surgery.

Good morning. I slept in this morning which is unusual for me. Hubby is down south so it was nice and quiet. All the grandkids are in school now so I am free to get some things done around here. Today I am going to get the sweeper ran and a load or two of laundry finished up and then I am going out to do some weeding. My flowersbeds are a mess. With having rain the past few days it will be easy to do. I have been canning tomato juice and freezing corn. It seems there is always something to do.

This evening I will take my 85 year old neighbor lady to bingo. She is a barrel of fun.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Good Morning. Some of the smoke has cleared out of the valley, it is nice to see blue up there in the sky. Missed the news last night, but think we had some rain around the fires. My kitchen is a mess with plums ripening too fast and more on another tree. We have run out of boxes to take them to the mission; just too too many this year. Like Linda, had cataract surgery and the drops go on and on... this is day three and WOW can I see white.

Very pleasant 90 degree day predicted.

Good Morning, Sue, and everyone! It's a slightly cool 59 degrees here this morning (at 10 a.m.) and I hope it warms up a little. The sky is bright blue though, with just a few fluffy clouds, And the predicted high today is 67 so it should be a little warmer later on. Lots of sun and highs from the upper sixties through the low 70s for the entire next week. This is really more like September weather then August weather here.. things are so mixed up weatherwise this year!

Gary and I are both working today and get off at 2 p.m. We are going out to our camp and then to a small town festival tonight, lots of music, food, and a silent auction to raise money for maintenance and repair for an old footbridge. It's an annual affair and we enjoy it a lot!

Then tomorrow, we'll just work (and play) around the camp. There is a city wide garage sale tomorrow at the same town (about a mile from camp) where we are going to the festival tonight, so we'll definitely run over there. Also, the berries are finally getting ripe! We hope to pick some nice thimbleberries and raspberries. I don't think the black berries are ready yet, but should be in another couple of weeks. I'd just love some nice wild berry pie and other desserts! Maybe a little home made jam!

And Sunday, we'll have friends out to the camp for breakfast then are all going to an art fair in the park in a nearby town. I often start my Christmas shopping there!

So, it's a busy weekend coming up and we're looking forward to it.

Hope you all have a good one too :-)

"Thimbleberry" is a new one to me -- how would you describe it, Jel?

Pammy, thimbleberries grow locally here in the U.P. but I've never lived anywhere else where they grow. They grow on bushes, kind of like a raspberry but the bushes have large (hand size) leaves and huge white blossoms, about an inch and a quarter in diameter. The berries are red and a little similar to a raspberry but not really. The seeds are much smaller.. very tiny. The flavor is a little raspberry like but again not really. They are sweet and much milder than a raspberry. The berries are also larger than raspberries. And they are very soft and delicate. They fall off the bush easily and they mush up easily if you fill the bucket too full. They are a highly sought after local delicacy. There are not any domestic ones, and jam makers here will pay $10 or more a pound for the wild ones (and some people here do supplement their incomes by picking wild berries).

Here's a link to Wikipedia for thimbleberries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubus_parviflorus

And I'm going to put a link at the bottom to a local jam maker, lives in Eagle River, MI, just a mile from our camp. As a matter of fact, the little girl on the web page linked below, is all grown up and dating a guy my husband used to work with, and they visited our camp on the 4th of July this year :-)

If you look at her products, you'll notice that some jams start as low as 6 or 7 dollars, but thimbleberry jam is 10.50 (and wild strawberry is even higher). That's because thimbleberries are so much more delicate and harder to pick and deliver in good conditions. Wild strawberry jam is expensive because wild strawberries are TINY!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Jam Lady website

QUACK, QUACK, QUACK from Kansas! I have no idea how much rain we have had in the last week...but a lot!...but it is still better than last year when everything was burning up or drying up with temps over a 100 every day. I guess we are never satisfied~~

It has been cooler than normal in coastal Southern California, and I hope it doesn't mean we will broil by the end of August. Our hot spells usually show up in late August and September. The grandsons came for a visit this week and left yesterday. It was never warm enough to make the development pool sound interesting.

I bought the Halloween costume for the 6 1/2 year old at Costco this week. They have nice costumes. The 3 5/6 year old will get his costume for a birthday present. It won't be in stock till September.

And Grandma slept in this morning to catch up with the sleep I missed while they were here. To bad their mother can't do the same. School starts on Tuesday for the first grader.

Finished water aerobics. Unusually large crowd for a Friday.

Gonna be hot and humid.

Need to go gift shopping for friend's upcoming birthday.

Of course, where to eat lunch!

We are having beautiful weather in the low 80s and low humidity. Very unusual for August here. No need for A/C, I have the doors and windows open and enjoy the fresh air. The Iowa State Fair started yesterday and the weather is always hot and humid for the fair, but not this year.
Yesterday I made curtains for my sewing room.
Finn's mom is dropping him off here at 4:30 for a couple of hours. He is in the "terrible twos" full blast now. I will probably walk him to a park and let him blow off steam at the playground. He still sweet when he wants to be.

Thimbleberries grow wild here..I love them and when I come across a plant, I pop a few in my mouth..they aren't as plentiful as the Himilayan Blackberry..unfortunately..

I did this and that as usual..my husband calls it flitting..

2 loads of wash, dishes, sweeping, sun soaking, reading..ipad playing..