Around This Place

Some praying going on, mostly done by this fellow...

Talk about blonde highlights!

Coleus and succulents

Fresca enjoying fresh air and the flowers in the front yard.

Peek-a-boo!

St. Francis

Francis... the male version of Francesca's name... and my dad's middle name.

HomeGoods StyleScope - I'm a Bohemian Classic

HomeGoods StyleScope - I'm a Bohemian Classic

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Buon Giorno

Francesca and I were up at the crack of dawn... here's some pics of our morning in the garden...

There's my best sunflower!

See the moon?

Thai basil

HOT Thai pepper

A ripening Connecticut pumpkin

Vincent joined us in the the pumpkin patch.

Fresca eating a fig from our funky fig tree.

Have a nice day lovelies!

something funny...

Cute Stuff

There's been some cute stuff going on around here this week...

Here's the kitty Vincent got for his birthday. We think its a girl. He named her Socks.

She's pretty frisky and fun!

Vincent Through the Years

Today is Vincent's 7th birthday!

Here are photos taken of him from newborn till now, every 6 months. My how he's grown!

Walter the Rooster

Well here's our adopted rooster... not exactly what you have in mind when you think of a rooster, is he? We're getting used to each other lately... he doesn't peck me near as much as he used to. A friend of mine that saw him for the first time last week kept asking me,

"what's wrong with him?". Gramps calls him the rooster from the movie Pet Cemetery. He adds a little comical humor to the chicken yard. He's as sweet as can be to our 2 year old hen, Vinny. We'll see how he is with the 3 month olds that I recently introduced to the yard. He did peck at one this morning. Just keeping the teenagers in line I suppose.

Check out Walter's crow... he gets a bit of laryngitis at the end:

Me vs. Spaghetti Sauce Canning

I won!

It all began Sunday around 3:30pm...

Actually it all began a few days ago when I received an abundance of tomatoes from our neighbor's garden.

To peel the tomatoes, dip them briefly in boiling water...

Then an icy cold bath... the peel slips right off.

Francesca enjoyed some tomato while waiting for her mommy to hold her...

Here's a portion of the 20+ pounds of peeled home grown tomato goodness...

Here's some of them seeded and squeezed of most of their juice.

I ended up with 40 oz of tomato juice.

Soon Jason will enjoy some home-made bloody mary's.

Mommy holding her precious tomato stained princess...

More ingredients to be added:

onion, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic, red pepper...

More yummy natural vitamin c and lycopene...

There's my new monster of a pressure cooker! After I cooked the sauce and ladled it into the 9 jars, it was about 8:30. Once I got the pressure up to 11 pounds, they processed for 25 minutes.

All processed and ready to be put up!