SUNDAY AFTERNOON

A lazy Sunday morning, well, not so lazy, made bread, canned tomatoes, and froze beans, when a call from the Jonel and Andy came, wondering if we wanted to join them for a bike ride on the trail starting at Union Center.  Sounded good to both of us.

Freddie's bike shorts have lost their ties (I said when they were clean I'd repair them) in the mean time, he uses his dress belt to hold them in place....

which actually goes well with the black dress socks in which he rides.  

Just before embarking on the ride...

Elsa getting ready to pedal on the Tag-along behind her papa, and Iris preparing  to ride her bike which, she will soon outgrow.  These two girls are growing so fast, before we know it, they will be beyond bikes and wanting cars.  

On our return to the cars, this Monarch hitched a ride on Jonel's  back much to everyone's delight.

Oh, if only time (especially as we grow older) went a bit slower.  Still I will not complain, time has been good to all of us. It is important to truly live in the moment, knowing the utter fullness and beauty that surrounds.

Building fairy gardens on the front lawn on the Nonnie Day

great concentration and effort went into these beautiful creations.

My Italian Heirloom tomatoes are coming in daily, the one above came in at 2#'s, it sits next to a Peace Vine cherry tomato.

I have started preserving 

some of the whole tomatoes and enchilada sauce I have canned thus far

and the green beans are still abundant

ready for the freezer.

 I vividly recall the basement of the home in which I grew up.  It was pretty crude, nothing fancy, and I swore that the 'boogy man' lived in the coal cellar.  Still I spent much time there with my grandmother Josephine and my mother and my aunts.  There was a stove and table, and lots of shelves which were filled each summer and fall.  The small town I grew up in (Fredonia, NY) had a canning factory, which I think was called Red Wing, and in the summer and the fall the entire town smelled of stewing tomatoes.  This is what our basement smelled like, and it was wonderful.  The shelves were soon filled with beautiful jars of red, red tomatoes, kind of like summer jewels sparkling throughout the year.

I think about those days while I am canning, knowing that the 'old ones' surround me still.