The Magic of Summer Mornings

Summers are a special time for me.  I teach, so I get to spend my summers at my own pace, enjoying the days and doing whatever I please.  The one thing I absolutely love about summers are the mornings.  During the rest of the year I have to move in the mornings to get where I need to be at the time I need to be there, but in the summer I can linger and enjoy the mornings.

What are some ways I savor my summer mornings?

• I can take a leisure walk with my dog.
• I can make a delicious breakfast with homegrown veggies.
• I can linger over tea on while swinging on the back porch.
• I can get lost in a book.
• I can make lists of projects I want to do and work on them.
• I can pour words into a journal.
• I can take photographs in the perfect morning light.
• I can peruse the garden, picking vegetables and pulling weeds.  

These are the magically mornings when anything is possible as the day unfolds.  It is filled with bees buzzing and birds chirping and unlimited possibilities.

Sadly, my summer mornings are coming to end for now.  I have lofty goals of getting up early to enjoy some of that magic of mornings even when work begins.  If that doesn't happen, I will always have next summer.

Canning Banana Peppers

July in the garden is filled with blooms, produce, and lots of sunshine along with humidity.  These are the days when the garden must be enjoyed in the morning and the evening to avoid melting in the sun.  I'm always amazed that the garden plants can thrive with so much sunshine.

The peppers love the heat.  My banana pepper plants are not very big, but they are loaded with fruit.  Usually the tomatoes are ahead of the peppers for harvesting, but this year the roles are reversed.  It was time to harvest and do something with my abundance of banana peppers.

I harvested a little over 2 lbs of banana peppers.  Domino poses with the bounty while keeping an eye out for rabbits and squirrels.  It seems the rabbits are getting closer and closer to the garden this year.  I haven't noticed any damage inside the garden, yet.  Domino isn't the only one looking out for rabbits.  The other day J saw a large coyote just beyond the garden!  I guess the good thing is that the rabbits have a natural predator; the bad thing is that I worry about Domino having a run-in with a coyote.

As the sun gets higher in the sky and Domino pants more and more, we take our harvest into the kitchen.   Here peppers are washed and chopped.  I was smart this year and used rubber gloves for handling the peppers.  Even though banana peppers are not that spicy, I always manage to touch my eye.  The worst was when I put my contacts in after handling banana peppers.  The oils transferred to my contact and the burning and tears wouldn't stop, so I had to put the pepper contaminated finger back into my eye to take out the contact.  Lesson learned!

Then I cleaned the jars and filled them with a boiling vinegar mixture.  The recipe I used came from the So Easy to Preserve book from the University of Georgia. The ingredients, other than peppers, include cider vinegar, canning salt, mustard seed and celery seed.  I have now added, "grow mustard for seed" to my list of things to do.  I've never grown mustard because I'm not fond of the greens, but I never thought about growing them for seeds.  Finally, the filled jars are placed into a steaming water bath.

Out comes preserved banana peppers.  Summer heat and sunshine are captured in each jar and can be enjoyed long after the season has passed.

Shared on the Homestead Hop.