I did tell ya, it is the messy garden! But messy or not it produced enough tomatoes to make a good batch of salsa and have a few hamburger tomatoes so far.
I love having helpers at the farm! After the last few weeks of quiet – it was time to crank the noise up a bit! The grandkids came – I missed my chance to get a pic of all of them together darn it! The teenagers returned. The noise level increased, but I enjoyed the chaos! Not everybody can contain the three ring circus. Not everybody cans salsa and bathes babies in the same kitchen in the same afternoon. But hey, we just do what we do around here! We didn’t bathe the baby in salsa and we didn’t clean tomatoes in baby bath water – and we did clean in between. Go us!
Noah and Elijah made great tomato peeling helpers. They are great in the kitchen!
All together we made 12 pint jars of home-made salsa. I said I wasn’t going to bother using the pint jars because we always want more, but if I decide to gift some, pint jars give us more options to give some away. We had 1 pint left over without a sterile jar – it didn’t last long enough for it to matter. Thank you again Naomi Renck for a great salsa recipe. 
That was the fun stuff. The hard work came when it was time to clean out the barn. I was extra, extra thankful for my very helpful family. We took the opportunity to spread a little “cattle pasture” seed since it looked like it may rain, and covered it with “barn material”. 
I never cease to entertain the local farm guys on accident. Who knew there was an actual mix of seed called “cattle pasture”? Not this brand new farmer. They just smile at me sweetly and keep the eye rolls hidden pretty well. I’m pretty sure they have bets on how long we will last at this little project. But, we outlasted all the bets against how long our marriage would last by about 29 and a half years so far. They better hang on to their money!
This is just what happens when you think you have the goats put somewhere out of the way while you clean the stalls! They bust into the hay room and ransack! At least the feed room has a gate and a chain! Fun times, Fun times.
brandnewfarmers 