A Wonderful Sunday

My Dad used to say that you could give one hour a week to God, surely, if we complained about getting up early and going to church on Sunday morning.  Now I get up earlier on Sunday, and go to church at 8 AM.  Yes, there is a later service, and one at 5 on Saturday, but I like getting up and going to see God regularly, and then coming home, reading the morning paper, and then going about my Sunday as I will.  We decided several years ago that Sunday was a day of rest.... but what that really means is we try not to cram it full of visiting, errands, etc. etc. and do things around the house. 

All this weekend I planned to work on the new garden. but it was so hot on Friday and Saturday that I put it off.  Today, it was processing the last of the pickles (FINALLY) and 4 lbs of tomatos bought at the market yesterday.  I noticed that the last of the market garden tomatos all looked equally as bad... it was a bad tomato year.  I did buy some small heirloom yellow and pink tomatoes to give some color to the tomato preserves I made today.  (More about them tomorrow!)

Since son Jim and wife Amy and the kids were camping all weekend, we kept Jester the Boston terrier.  He is our granddog, and we love him.  He has worn the pugs out, though, and Abby and Gertie are in la la land, though it's only 8 PM.  The kids came by to get him at 2 or so, and off they went with some fresh cookies grandma had made for them, and a pile of coupons from the last 3 Sunday papers.  And Jester, who was glad to see them!

Here is a treat that the chickens got this afternoon:

These guys were a little hesitant to touch them... but by the time I came back in to do evening chores, they were all almost gone.

I cut some grass after dinner for a while:

I love the sun on the grass.  I left this part of the pasture long this year on purpose.  It does not have very good ground cover, and has several bare spots.  As soon as I am no longer working full time, I am going to have the extension service look at our pasture and advise us on repairing/fixing it.  I cut this grass tonight. I also cut part of the pond area, but the man left it in hummocks, with rock exposed, so it's dangerous to the John Deere.

There is a beautiful view as I cut of the Spehar's ponds:

And these guys:

Tony is very suspicious of the mower!

It was so beautiful out this evening, that even though it was getting dark, the flock from the little henhouse was hanging out outside.  It is dark now at 8:29, and Keith has just gone out to lock the door.  We noticed tonight that the two Ameracauna pullets have started sleeping inside the big henhouse, so we are hoping that the littler birds follow suit SOON!

Tomorrow is Santa Cali Gon day with my sister and cousin, so I'll take lots of pictures of our trip.