My wife and I are making a batch of hot bread-and-butter pickles today, with cukes, bell peppers, and jalapenos from our garden. This will be our 5th batch of pickles this season - typically 8-12 quarts each batch. We grow cilantro, too, so as the tomatoes ripen, we have been canning batches of salsa. Fresh salsa is the best, though, and it's hard to keep that around because I not only eat it with chips, but slather it on lots of other foods, like cheeseburgers, salads, beans and rice, omelets etc. Last night, "supper" was a bowl of wild blackberry cobbler with an oatmeal crust. I've been picking about 7 gallons a week and freezing them, in addition to the garden vegetables. We ran a gallon of them throught the juicer yesterday along with a few blueberries and a few apples - YUM! Even better over ice with a splash of Smirnoff and a twist of lime.

I think that drink needs to be named Purple Mustache!
That new chest freezer had better be delivered tomorrow, or I'm going to have a logistical nightmare on my hands. With the price of gas, I can't afford to keep making the 40 mile round trip to my dad's to take advantage of his freezer, although it is nice to come back home with a bag of slightly-green Macs from his apple tree. Between the gardening, the woodpile, and the berry-picking, I have lost over 5 lbs this summer and still eat all I want. When we get tucked in for the long winter, I'm going to have to come up with an exercise program, though, because that's when we start having lots of baked beans, biscuits, pies, boiled dinners...