Vacation is over, or did it really begin?

It’s not been the best vacation the Witch has ever experienced but it’s certainly not been the worst.

It’s just, well, I made a list, much like a bucket list, and didn’t even come close to fulfilling it. It’s so sad because really I don’t feel I have had a vacation.

Instead I harvested continually, I chopped, sliced, peeled and diced, nonstop. What a stupid idiot really. Are we going to be bunkered down in the basement or some cave? I don’t know what I was thinking and yet I continued to work throughout my holiday. The weather didn’t help either, it’s been raining everyday now for almost two weeks and we did have that whole Hurricane Earl thing to deal with but still. I guess this may be the problem with stay-cations. You tend to stay!! At home there’s always something that needs doing. The garden was ripe and full and what was I to do? Walk away? Not likely as I raised most of it from seed and it felt like 6 months of hard labour. So every day I picked and selected the finest veggies and turned the fruits of my labour into Salsa, Hot Dog Relish, Mustard Pickles and lots of stewed tomatoes and I haven’t even figured out yet what to do with the rest.

Well, it’s just that now I’m tired and need some time to beach-comb and have a nice bottle of dry red wine waiting for me. HUBBY, do you hear me calling? Oh wait, you’ve been up a ladder the last 2 weeks shingling the gazebo roof in rain and hurricane conditions. I’m not complaining (well, maybe a little). It’s just that I’m looking at the end of my holiday coming up really fast and I don’t feel rested up enough to go back (sigh)! And what am I going to do with all the leftover produce from the garden? We’ll probably just end up taking it in to work next week for our co-workers, lucky bastards!

Anyway, here are some pictures of the progress on the gazebo and a few of my first attempt at salsa (it’s yummy!). Oh, and it was pizza night this week and almost all my toppings were from the garden (yummy, too!). I’ll try to be in a better frame of mind for the next post!

The lower roof is just getting started. The drip edge is installed and the first of the rubber membrane is attached.

What! Hubby’s laying down on the job? No, that’s just the angle of the ladder."

It wasn’t easy trying to nail down the tarpaper in the driving wind and rain!

The salsa ingredients have all been chopped.

The salsa has been cooked down and now it’s ready to be packed away in containers for the freezer.

These are the peppers I brought in from the garden to top my pizza. There are a selection of Jalapeno and Hungarian Banana peppers, some mild and some hot!

These are all the toppings for my pizza. Along with the peppers are some of our tomatoes and onions. The pineapple was store-bought.

The finished pizzas were worth the effort!