This weekend brought an end to the preserving of my spring/summer garden (except for the okra which will produce thru September). It was a good year:

137 pounds of Zucchini (15 plants)

104 pounds of Yellow Squash (15 plants)

30 ½ pounds of Patty Pan Squash (5 plants)

43 ½ pounds of cucumbers (5 plants)

73 pounds of Tomatoes (10 plants)

4 bushels of pears (2 trees)

I spent the summer preserving all this every way I could: pickles, relishes, preserves, marmalades, minced meat, pie fillings, canned tomatoes, canned pears, frozen roasted tomatoes, frozen squash, casseroles, zucchini bread, zucchini cake, zucchini hummus, zucchini cobbler (tastes like apple!)… You name it! It’s been nonstop!!

What does this have to do with the band? You wonder…… EVERYTHING!

Pre band I could not have done a fourth of what I did this summer. I couldn’t cook dinner in the summer without sweating like a pig. I would have a towel around my neck wiping the sweat off my face before it dripped into the pan (for reals!). I would have to sit down every five minutes because my back was hurting. I hated working in the kitchen and doing anything outside forget it.

My husband use to do all the work on the land, I couldn’t physically help him…..

I don’t exercise, I hate the gym and any formal exercise routine. It’s never worked for me….. but I move. I move all the time. I walk and take the stairs as much as I can at work. Every day when I get home I have to feed the chickens, pick produce from the garden, pull weeds, etc. And the weekends are full of chores too, cleaning chicken coops, mowing lawns, pulling more weeds, building goat shelters….

I have so much energy now that all this work is nothing, just life on my farm. Just last night my husband asked me…

“So what is my zucchini mama gonna do next?”…….hummmmm