Blue Jeans and Cotton Tees

I love fresh cucumbers in the summer time! Diced on salads, marinaded in vinegar, or just sliced cold!

I never plant any though, since I know that I will never leave church on Sunday without a bag full from someone!

One of my favorite ways to serve fresh cucumbers is cut up with onions in a dressing.

Cucumbers in Dressing

Peel and slice 4 medium cucumbers and 1 medium onion.

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 2 Tablespoons vinegar, 1 1/2 cup Miracle Whip. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour over the cucumber and onion and toss together. Refrigerate overnight and serve cold.

Watching our neighbor bale the pasture brought back some memories of hay baling.

I loved being at Grandma’s house during “haying”.

In those days, baling hay meant small square bales that required lots of man power to load and unload. It meant hot sticky afternoons riding around on a hay rack stacking bales while bits of chaff stuck to your sweaty skin.

My favorite part of haying was helping Grandma bring “lunch” to the hay crew. Now for you city folks, here in the country “lunch” is the meal that is served between breakfast and dinner, about 10:00, and then again between dinner and supper, about 3:00. (Yes, that makes 5 meals a day, but when a farmer is up and eats breakfast at 5 am, does hard, physical labor all morning, he’s ready to eat again by 10:00!)

We would help Grandma pack up cold meat sandwiches, cookies, and ice cold root beer, and then load up into the old brown rambler and bounce down the dirt road to whatever hay field they were working.

We started waving and hollering as soon as we saw the crew so they would know it was time to take a break.The food disappeared fast as the men sat in the shade of the car or hay rack. But they never rested long because they knew they were racing the weather.

When the tractor started up it was our signal to pack up and head back to Grandma’s to start on the next meal and watch for the loaded hay racks to pull into the farm yard and head to the barn to be emptied into the loft.

I’m sure the adults don’t look back on haying with the same nostalgia I do, for them it was a lot of work. But for the grandkids haying at Grandpa’s was a much anticipated event!

Are you weary in serving today?

Has the week been hard and the obstacles steep?

Don’t be discouraged.  Just focus on your relationship with the Lord, and He has promised to take care of the rest.

Oswald Chambers put it well:

“You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ.

Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is of His mercy that He does not let you know it…

It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him.”

~Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest

John 15:5 “…He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit, for without me you can do nothing…”

Things got a little loud around here last night!

Pedro and dad finished making his potato cannon and then had a blast (literally) testing it!

The plans came from the book Backyard Ballistics, which Pedro received for his birthday and I highly recommend!

The parts were all easy to find at a hardware store or Wal-Mart, and putting it together went really fast.

But the best part was hearing the explosion and seeing that potato fly!

They had a few misfires and a few duds, but even more “blow it out of the ballpark” explosions which sent the younger two kiddos into the hay field to find the potato! (Yes, mom was cheap enough to make them find the same potato and shoot it until it was obliterated!)

What a great way to learn a little science!

I think Dad had as much fun as the boys!

Hungry for a baked potato but not ready to heat the oven to make it?

A cost effect way to bake a potato in the heat of the summer is to use your crock pot.

Start by carefully washing each potato and pricking them with a knife. Then wrap each potato in aluminum foil. (This is important to direct the heat right to each spud.)

Then put the potatoes in your crock pot and cook it on high for 4-6 hours.

The potatoes will come out tender and delicious!

I love to do this on Sunday mornings. I’ll prepare the potatoes before church and let them cook all morning in one crock pot with a chicken or roast in another. When we get home from church, hungry and tired, lunch is ready without using the stove!