What to Do in an Outdoor Sauna

 Today we did some of our first canning, bread and butter pickles & tomatillos!

Last night was severe weather and 3 inches of rain where we are, and we were lucky, since areas just north had upwards of 7 inches.  So the atmosphere is saturated and out comes the sun.  It's 90 degrees and 67 percent humidity with more storms on their way!  Wow, this season has been crazy.  It's been much warmer than usual and very wet.  The garden has flourished and produced much earlier than in the past, which has led to a jump start on stocking our freezer.  We have also had time to plant a second crop of many things for a fall harvest.  This will double up on some of our food storage items. 

Today began with taking the kids out for breakfast as a treat and trying to find berries along the railroad tracks.  We were too late to take advantage of the wild berries for jam, they were all gone.  In the last couple of weeks I have seen the tell tale shortening of light in our days, and yesterday I saw half a dozen trees that are tinged with the beginnings of fall color!  Typically we can see some color by the middle/end of August, but July!?  To top it off, I did a little bit of mowing late this afternoon and our apple trees are dropping ripe apples....hello Mother Nature...it's July!

So what does one do when you walk outside and it's a sauna?  You could put on your spa gear and simply sit outside for a steam, but we tend to work in spurts, collapse on the couch in between, put up produce, and marvel in the fact that this summer seems to almost be a double season for us.  Maybe that's because of this crazy weather, or maybe we're just getting better and better at what we're doing. I'm relishing every bit of summer and looking forward to my favorite of seasons approaching by what seems to be leaps and bounds.