My favorite cucumber pickles!

If you are lucky, you have a garden full of fresh produce; however, I have only tomatoes, green peppers, & cucumbers, then the remainder of the garden is perennials to enjoy.

I wanted to share with you the best cucumbers recipe I've ever tasted & easiest to make.  They have the skins on & are sweet, just like I like them.  I got this recipe from my husband's ex-mother-in-law; she's a doll & we've enjoyed her visits to our farm in the past.  She loves to come to see her grandchildren & great-grandchildren who visit us, too.  We live in the northwest corner of Iowa & she lives in the northeast corner, but it's quite a trip for her to drive by herself since she's in her 80's.  I hope she is able to come for many more years.  Thanks for the recipe, Marian!

We just call them Cucumber Pickles!

16 cups of thin cucumber slices with skins  (about 8 medium size cucumbers)
1 cup sliced thin onions
3 T. salt
   Combine these 3 ingredients, then set aside for 3 hours.  Rinse & drain.

Meanwhile, mix together:  2 cups vinegar
                                     4 cups sugar
                                     1 t. celery seed
                                     1 t. turmeric
                                     1 t. whole mustard seed
                                     1/2 t. powdered alum

   Set aside for 3 hours, stirring often to dissolve sugar.

After 3 hours, pour over rinsed & drained cucumbers & onions.  Refrigerate for several days, then put into containers & freeze; can also just be left in jars in refrigerator.  These pickles are crisp & very good.

I found my camera!

I am so excited; I found my camera!  I just knew that I couldn't have lost it, but then you know how past things like that tend to haunt you until you believe you've done it again.  Well, now I can move on!

General Grant's home in Galena, IL

General & Mrs. Grant

Parlor

Yes, we enjoyed a tour of General Grant's home in Galena!  Such a beautiful old home, so stately with bedrooms for each of the 4 children, a front & a back staircase - I always think that's so neat in an old home.  However, they didn't live very long in this house before he became President & moved to Washington.

Dining Room

The parlor is where they
 received guests after his
nomination for the presidency.

And the dining room
with all the beautiful painted
family portraits!

Jill Shaulis @ Yellow Creek Quilt Designs

And visited Jill Shaulis's shop, Yellow Creek Quilt Designs, in Pearl City, IL!  Her new design Grant's March is hanging behind her!  Don't you just love it!

True Lovers Knot

I was thrilled to see my True Lovers Knot design hanging from a bolt rack!

Kay & I

And ate at Fried Green Tomatoes!  This restaurant used to be the Olde Poor House Restaurant; I guess the Poor family owned it ??  Funny; was also thought to be an insane asylum & is haunted - yow!!  The food was awesome anyway!

Have a great weekend!

What a wonderful family weekend!

Every summer, the first weekend in August is Sweet Corn Days in Estherville.  This weekend is a great time for family & friends to reconnect & this year was no exception.  With many of the kids here, we had to take some pictures.  Since Grandpa had just driven a new tractor onto the farm, the grandkids decided it would make a wonderful backdrop for a picture.  You can tell how much fun everyone had just finding their perfect spot - what fun!

And here I am with just the grandkids in front of the house!  Aren't grandchildren just the best! 

The last time I posted I was heading to Galena, IL for their quilt show & I was so excited to see my Battle Series & Generals Series displayed in the quilt shop there, Phat 1/4's Quilt Shop.  Well, to my dismay, they had about 12" of rain in 12 hours a couple days before we arrived & what a mess.  The very old DeSoto House Hotel in downtown Galena where they were planning to host the quilt show was flooded, as was the quilt shop.  What a disappointment!  I felt so sorry for everyone & the messes they had to clean up, let alone the damage they incurred.  Then to top it off, I haven't found my camera since returning, so not even any pictures to show you of what we did do.

We did have a wonderful getaway though & really enjoyed the tour of General Grant's home there.  They do a wonderful job of keeping the house open to the public which continues the Civil War history there in Galena.

Then we made the drive to visit Jill Shaulis at her www.yellowcreekquiltdesigns.com in Pearl City, IL.  Jill had designed a new quilt for the show, Grant's March, & I snapped a quick photo of her in front of the new quilt, but ... of course, it's also on my lost camera.

Well, so it goes - Have a great week, everyone!