Busy Bees

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My mother and I have been very busy these past few weeks.  She came the day we were moving in, so has been helping me unpack boxes.  But right in the middle of the move, the fruit on my peach tree came ripe, so we stopped and started canning fruit.  We did 12 quarts of peaches, and 6 quarts of peach jam.  Then I saw strawberries on sale and decided to make strawberry jam.  We did 6 quarts of that.  About that same time, the green beans in my garden were producing like crazy, so we put up 4 quarts of "dilly beans".  Then I thought, "Make hay while the sun shines", so I bought a lug of tomatoes and made 6 quarts of salsa.  I want to make 6 more, and I also want to bottle some plain tomatoes.
 
My mother also had a reunion of her mother's family, so we drove to her home town for that.  I have to be honest, I didn't know very many of the people there.  This particular reunion is held every year on Labor Day weekend.  For 18 years I lived in California and only came to visit my parents in July.  I couldn't make a second trip in September.  The last time I went to this reunion was probably 20 years ago.  At that time, a certain family member gained a lot of notoriety for his crimes, and his family was in attendance at that reunion.  My husband was quite shocked to see his family there in the flesh.  Anyway, because I haven't attended it regularly, I didn't know many people there.  But my mother was in the height of her glory and went from person to person, hugging and talking the entire time.  Her Aunt, who is only 4 years older than her, (my mother is almost 89) was also there and when her son started playing his guitar, she did a little jig.  :)
Another task for us has been to acquire furniture.  For years, my husband and I have been talking about "when" we would go back to China to live.  We knew it would happen, it was just a matter of when.  So we purposefully lived with used furniture.  When it came time to move to China, we just gave it all away instead of paying to store used furniture.  But now that we are back, we are having to start all over.  We do have our beds, and a kitchen table, but not much else.  Luckily, my son, who is now living again with us, brought his college couch with him, so we are using that until we get something better.  It's a lot of work, but the hunt is kind of fun.

The one bit of work we are having a hard time getting used to is the mowing.  Our house has 1/4 acre of land, and much of it is hilly.  It is quite a job to mow this, and I'm not sure how well a riding mower would work.  We have a nice mower, but it's a little more exercise than we have been doing the past two years in China.  But it turns out we have a Mrs. Kravitz in our neighborhood who drops hints if our grass is getting too long, so we have to break down and mow it regularly.  :)

The garden is still producing and needs regular picking.  I'm not complaining.  I love that I get to reap where I didn't sow.  But that's one more thing that keeps us busy these. days.  I haven't even had time to read blogs regularly.  I'm sure things will settle down soon.  I hope I keep busy though.  In China I was bored, so I'm happy to have more work to do now!