Tomato and avocado salad plus some odds and ends

I have been eating a lot of tomatoes the last couple of weeks.  Every way you can imagine.  This is one of my favorites.  Tomatoes, green peppers, thin sliced onion, and avocado with drizzled apple cider vinegar or juice from olives and topped with Hawaiian Sea Salt.  The other way to make this good would be to add some fresh herbed feta.

We have been pulling vegetables out of the garden because they are ready to be picked but also because it has been so hot and some things are cooking out there.  A couple of the pumpkins we picked had to be composted because they had cooked a little.  The chickens have enjoyed picking at them so I don't feel so bad.  The one vine that is doing really well is the watermelon but more about that in another post.  We pulled the dry beans and brought them in to finish drying before we shuck them out.  The boys helped me get the bed ready and I re-planted some squash and  green beans, hoping that we will get more before fall.  We planted , watered, and mulched on top of the rows to try and keep some of the sun out.  We had a good crop of onions that I have been using in my canning and we will use through the fall and winter.  I planted white, yellow, and red onions.  They look nice packed in the box together.  I put the Cinderella Pumpkins on top of the refridgerator since that is where I kept our pumpkin all winter and it stored very well.

I also harvested regular pumpkins and spaghetti squash as you can see by the book case.  This old bookcase is in my kitchen downstairs, it is a nice place for my cookbooks, herb books, and nutritional  books as well as a few odds and ends like art supplies and tea sets.

We cleaned out the middle barn before it got too hot, I made more cheese this morning and we canned a few quarts of tomatoes today but I will post on that later.  I started cooking beans in the crock pot to take to an English Country dance Pot-Luck Party tomorrow night.  We can't wait to get together with our friends and have some fun.