Susan Picking Green Beans.

By Susan Shanklin

Do people ever ask you what you did today? Like you wonder if they are really interested or just checking out how useful you are to mankind?

Oh, I can be a doubter of some people intentions, but I kind of get defensive, and I quickly try to think of all the important things I did.

Well, I feel like saying, “I added a wing on to the house and slaughtered 100 chickens. I wrote a chapter in my newest book and counseled thousands over the internet” 🙂

When in fact I got up and made myself a cup, really 2 cups of coffee, checked the weather, did a short devotional, checked Instagram for my children’s exciting lives … especially the grandkids … prayed with Tom, ate a hard boiled egg, and took a shower. Ha.

I moved along to vacuuming, dusting, and cleaning … guests are coming. I vacuumed behind Tom’s desk just in case they lean way over and look. I’m kind of hoping they aren’t tall enough to see the top of the fridge because I didn’t clean there. I’ll save that for another guest!

Tom’s working away in his office, or he calls it his study. Well, it’s both so it’s an “offudy”. My computer says that’s a misspelled word.

I take Ella, the lab, outside and brush her, for she is shedding so bad. I just know by the time my guests come I will have a tan shag-looking rug out on the porch. 

Ok, I think the house looks livable or less lived in. Ha. I go outside to the garden to see what’s available for eating or freezing. I canned some tomato sauce yesterday, so that’s doesn’t have to be done today.

I go to the cucumber patch and pick, oh, 10 five-inch cucumbers and heave cucumber “boats” over the fence. I call it feeding the rabbits. Maybe in a couple of days, I will make some dill pickles, seeing that the volunteer dill on the other side of the garden is maturing nicely.

I step over the late planting of potatoes, around the corn, and over to broccoli. What a pitiful row of broccoli this year. Too much rain?? I pick a nice bowl of it and rinse it off in my outdoor sink with the garden hose. 

That $24 freestanding laundry sink was that best garden tool investment I ever made, next to my weed dragon!

I use it to rinse off my vegetables before bringing them in the house. What a blessing! I set it up on bricks, so it’s a little higher, and I don’t have to bend over too much. I have a table next to it. Boy, is it slick!

I pick some beet greens and kale for just eating. I’ll freeze some tomorrow. 

Next, I harvest some pitiful looking cauliflower and pick three heads. Off to the sink to rinse. 

I have several sieves full now, sitting inside the back door and in front of the door. 

I’m off for a treasure hunt in the 13 tomato plants for ANYTHING that has a hint of red. Not much there, but I’m hoping they will come. Too much rain??

I go to the zucchini and yellow squash bushes and score one of each. I fetch another bowl to pick Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Yep, a nice haul today. Maybe I can start to freeze them soon.  They are new to me, but so are many things in my garden this year. That’s another story for another newsletter. Ha.

Oh, before I come in, I spray my garden with Neem Oil (for pests) and Copper, which is a natural fungicide. 

I recruit Tom to carry in some of my garden haul and set it on the counter. I bag up the greens, cucumbers, and squashes. I rinse the green beans and put aside to dry a little. I get my scale to weigh the cauliflower for steaming and start my pot on the stove.

I chop up my heads and weigh out one pound for each 5-minute steam. I put ice water in the sink, and away I go. Four pounds of cauliflower bagged and in the freezer, ready for the first and second snow. Yum.

Lunch is sometime in there, or in between.

I drink some more coffee, just one little cup, and we are off to the races. I do a little load of laundry and head out to do a little weeding in the flower garden and snip some saplings springing up in the daylilies.

I go back out to the garden again to dig up five or so volunteer garlics. I take them to the garage where I have my garlic that I had already harvested and laid out to dry. I carefully grind off the hard dirt from the roots. As I’m standing there, I decide to start braiding groups of six garlic and set four nice large heads aside for sowing this fall.

Back inside, I do another quick load of wash, start some farro for dinner (a grain) and go check something out on the internet and me thinks, “Hey, I should start my article for the newsletter.”

I sit down and here it is 4:04 p.m. already.  I better cruise downstairs and whip up some culinary delight for dinner before my guests come and ask, “What did you do today?”

I will say, “I added a wing on to the house and slaughtered 100 chickens. I wrote a chapter in my newest book and counseled thousands over the internet.” 🙂

That’s what I did today…