Homesteader's Gifts

Today I harvested about 3 lbs of okra. Did you know okra is a hibiscus! L@@k at this beautiful, yellow okra blossom. Nature is amazing, isn't it! In addition to the great food, we get this gift of flowers!

The thing with okra is you can harvest it every day. Every single day you think you've reaped all there is. But the next day you find a big, honking okra. And you ask yourself, "Self, was this here yesterday and I just missed it?"

But you don't answer yourself because you don't know the answer. Maybe it grew overnight. Maybe it was there and you didn't see it. Maybe it was there and you meant to come back to it and forgot. Such is life.

Farming/gardening makes you realize things. Such as...if you see something you want or need, get it right then. It might not be there when you come back. Or you might not get to come back. Or it might be changed when you get back to it. Sometimes we just don't recognize the gifts until after we've passed them up.

This is the first year we planed okra. We love it. Some people hate it because of the slime. If you cook it right it's not slimy. We love gumbo. You can't have gumbo without okra! Hence the okra.

I have a wonderful 30-minute chicken gumbo recipe!! You use the store-bought rotisseried chicken. Email me at: chicksinfla@gmail.com and I'll give you the recipe.

Look at this monster okra pod. The one pictured with it is an average-sized one!

Here is today's haul. I got about 3 lbs of okra, a few bell peppers. I think they are called Marconi. They look like a Cubano but they are just different-shaped sweet peppers. Speaking of different...look at those deformed cucumbers!!! The heat made

them ripen too fast so they are deformed.

Someone asked me if the garden is all I have to talk about. I think they were actually asking if the garden is all I have in life. No. It's not. But who wants to hear about bugs and grass and laundry and such. Who wants to hear how blessed I am in my marriage and my faith. Who wants to hear that I waxed the floor or made made a batch of homemade English muffins?

Who wants to hear hours of how wonderful and beautiful my grandprincesses are? And how successful my son and daughter-in-law are? Or how many rejections slips I've received this year? Who? No one. So I write about the garden. Oh...we did buy a new chair. How boring is that!

We go along each day doing the best we can with what we have. And as always, all of our work takes place under the careful and watchful eye of Miss Trudy who was a gift from a passerby who pitched her out the window of their truck as they drove down our road.