HOW MANY PECKS OF PEPPERS DID WE PICK?

I don't know because I don't know how much a peck is. BUT we picked a BUNCH of peppers! Dad planted quite a few plants of peppers this year. A few weeks ago I helped him pick the first picking and we picked a big garbage can full. I thought that was a lot. We roasted them and they were pretty good. So we were waiting for the next picking, hoping they would grow big before the frost hit. So this weekend Dad decided to go hunting with Saul and the kids. Only problem, it was supposed to frost this weekend also. So, he left me in charge. Not really sure why me! I really didn't vie for the position, but got it anyway. So I called Dennis and recruited help. He, Audrey, and their boys came over to help pick. We decided that despite the wind, we would do it on Friday since Dennis had a full day on Saturday. We met at mom's and picked, and picked, and picked, and picked. We ended up with 6 garbage cans full! It was dark by the time we finished, so we decided to roast them the next morning. Can I just say that Dennis has it down to a perfection- he roasted them perfect! Anyway, we had a ton. I sent him home with a bunch, took a bunch to Cher, and I took the rest home to put up for myself and others. When some of my sisters heard that I was gonna pick the peppers, they all put in their orders. I know that they would do it for me, so how could I tell them no. I started skinning, seeding, bottling, and freezing at 1:00 pm. I went non-stop until 2:00 am. I ended up bottling 10 1/2 half-pints, 8 gallon bags individually frozen, and 12 quart bags of just thrown in and frozen (yeah for Karlie, she made it easy). I still had some left over, so I gave Ivy some to bottle for herself (I froze some for her), more to Audrey and more to Cher. I was so exhausted. But my house still smells great- I love the smell of roasted peppers! It froze and we are done with the gardening- alleluia!

DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

Saul and I went to scout for my white tail deer hunt this last weekend. We went down the old Coronado Trail, down past Hannigan Meadow. We had a hard time finding anything, we never did see any deer. We took an old ranch road and stopped to do some 'glassing' (Saul's term for looking through binoculars).

After driving around we realized that we were low on gas. We saw a sign saying it was 16 miles to Morenci, as opposed to 90 to Hannigan Meadow. I haven't been down there for years. Everything was covered in copper dust, it was pretty cool. As we were driving through the mine we saw a sign to watch out for big horn sheep. I laughed, where would they live around there. But sure enough, we went around a corner and there was a herd, just off the road.

We got gas and headed back up. We finally found a couple of places that had deer sign, but we never did see any deer. Hopefully we will have some success. We just got back down the trail and in the car when it started to rain. It poured on us the whole way home. It was such a beautiful drive!