Surprises!

We came home from meeting with all our friends Monday night to find a box on our doorstep.
It was mailed from California but someone had written "From the Putnam's" on the top.
We were trying to figure out why they would bring this box to our house. Carl asked if I had done something nice and I said "No, I haven't done anything nice today". Sad. When we opened the box there was a gorgeous pot with a live gardenia in bloom. I called to express my joy in receiving this and they told me the story behind the gift. My friend had ordered (1) plant and they had delivered 45. When she called to ask how to return them they told her to keep and enjoy. How is that? I am so happy I was one of the recipients. I'm waiting for some of my orders to be duplicated like that. Wouldn't it be wonderful to receive 10,000 pounds of chocolate instead of 1,000 and be informed that if we mailed it back it would just melt, so we would just have to keep it. Whoa, I would "melt" with delight.

Canning and Grandsons

I have tried to change things on this blog but having no knowledge of how to do it, I just messed it up. Oh well, I will have to wait for daughters to return and instruct me. Meanwhile.......Yesterday 6 of my darling grandsons, their mother and my cute niece come up to help pick the apricots and make jam. They arrived at noon and we picked many, many buckets of fruit and then proceeded to make jam, only 20 jars, but that wasn't too bad considering we had to make lunch (Weston was in charge of that project) make wooden bird houses (McKay, Taylor and Hunter helped Grant and Charlie put together two of them - The little guys thought the birdhouses made great snail houses - yuck) pick a few pears...( they are small but delicious) do a little skate boarding, play a few games of rummikub, practice on the guitar and key board, hit a few golf balls over the house, and eat multitudes of apricot cupcakes.. yummy! The kids were great, they washed the fruit and cut it up and we did the rest. We finished at 5:00 p.m. and I washed off the last pieces of fruit from my body, dressed and met my hubby for a delightful dinner to celebrate our anniversary. Picked up a movie and came home to collapse on the sofa and watch it. I even stayed awake all through the show. Long Day. Today I am off the do the work for those that can't do it for themselves.

It's Canning Time! The apricots are waiting for me.

Our trees are loaded with these gorgeous golden fruits. Oh how I wish my darling daughters

were here to help me do the canning. It's ever so much more fun to do things with them. But

I have a strong suspicion that my true love will help me with this project. He is always willing

to pitch in, it's just getting him started. He's like the pull start on a rototiller, you have to pull

on the ropes several times to get it to go but once you get the motor going it does the job like no other machine. Let's see......I think apricot jam will be the first thing I do (how can a kitchen survive without apricot jam?) Maybe a few dried apricots for my scones and maybe some luscious apricot nectar. I think perhaps the grandchildren would love some fruit leathers.

Now all I need is the energy to get ME going.