Too much month and not enough Money

Good Afternoon Everyone,

I have been down for about a week and a half.  I just did not have enough money to pay my utility bill and my Internet, so I had to choose the utility bill, which is a no brainer, seeing that we are having 100* temps daily and no rain.  It is just getting too much and it is showing in everyone face, and I am sure that all of you are see and dealing with the same heat.

I will do a better post here in a few days, I have just been dealing with the heat and the garden and a few other things and just trying to survive.

D and I pulled up a lot of the garden, the heat did in my large heirloom tomatoes, they were vining but absolutely no tomatoes and I should of had large tomatoes by now.The heat causedevery one's tomatoes to not pollinate, we have had temps in the high 70's and some 80's at night and it was too much for our tomatoes around our area.  My Roma tomatoes are doing well and my smaller patio tomatoes, and my cukes have gone insane, but the rest of the garden was a bust.  I will not get a lot of tomato sauces and salsas but I will do what I can.  This year is pretty much a waste of time for gardens, and for those who depend on these gardens.  No matter how much water you can put on some garden plants, it just will not help when you factor in heat and day and night temperatures which some plants need cooler air to pollinate than others.  I am very disappointed with this years gardening, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I will appreciate and be blessed with what I can get and be happy, that is all I can do.

When I do my next post, I will fill in why our utility bills have been so high.  This is from the new EPA taxes being assessed upon the coal burning electrical plants and it is now being filtered down to the consumer.  Everyone in town and around the state are complaining and waging word wars upon our state government, and I am sure they are tired of hearing from angry voters.  Maybe enough words of anger are reaped upon them, maybe we will get a response, I doubt it but maybe...we can only hope.  If all of these taxes are reaped upon everyone in the country, there is no way anyone can afford their utility bills, I can't afford mine, and I made choices as to what I could afford.  It did not matter how careful I was with my budget, I still could not swing everything.  I am now only hoping I can get through August and September and then my bill will be much lower because I will not be using the air conditioner.  That is the only hope I have to hang on to.

Well, I thought I would jump in to tell all of you I did not drop off the planet.  It has just been very, very tight and I just had to let some things go.
As I mentioned, I will do a better, more happy post.  Maybe the heat will subside a little this weekend and we can get a little relief.  I can only hope.

Hugs to All

Garden pics and Hades

Good Morning Everyone,

Just a quick pics of the garden.  Please forgive the photos as my camera is not the best. It is a cheap, poor quality one, but it gets the job done until I can afford a better one.

The garden where I have the cukes and Roma tomatoes and the Super Sweet 100's cherry has gone insane.  I do not know why as the heat here is relentless but when we put this side in, D dug a trench and mulched both sides and we water about twice a week and it is doing great.  I have not seen bugs either, but we do powder down some things and just hope for the best.  The cukes we are getting are very sweet, crunchy and no bitterness.  The cukes I planted were Tasty Green's and a greenhouse cuke called an "Isnik" from the garden catalog.  These are smaller, but very crunchy and this is the second year I had these and they have performed well, even in this intense heat we are having with the drought.  But again, we have trenched and mulched.

This year, my heart just is not into gardening.  I think its the combination of heat, and of too much going on and me doing to much for too many.  So, for canning, I am just going to process tomatoes and cukes as is, and when I need sauce, or salsa, I can just add my ingredients as I need them.  When peppers start coming, I will do the same, just pickle and put up.  There will be no way that I can do more with the amount of time and be more selective in making salsa, or tomato sauce or ketchup.  I am just in the mood to  cheat or make it more simple to put everything up and then when I have more time, and hopefully more cooler, I will be able to make my salsa, and sauces at a later date.  I would like to freeze, but I have no room for anything in the freezer at the moment either, so I will have to just cut corners and make things easier.
To make things quicker, and I put this question out to my readers who have canned forever, can I cheat and just put tomatoes in a roaster pan or crock pot and heat through and then just peel the skins?  There will be no way I can boil water, then dunk tomatoes then peel  time wise, I just can't, but I see if I heat  them up and then peel and then process, I see no difference?  Any suggestions?   I was planning on putting the tomatoes in my large Hamilton Beach roaster pan and putting this outside on my table on the porch and do it this way to keep the heat out of the kitchen. 

Other than the relentless heat, which it is running at or over 100* daily, not too much going on.  The kittens are growing and are now exploring their room I have them in.  They are now using the box, even little tiny grey girl, and she is now eating solid food and getting things figured out.  I did not think that I would see her or Dexter doing this, not after the way they came to me in the shape they were in. I am still amazed and also thankful beyond prayers.

Well, not much is going on.  I still want to do my post that I mentioned several weeks ago about discussion as of what is going on in the country, and the Supreme court's decisions.  I have some things on my mind but then I had the kitten emergency and I got side tracked.  I will work on something and get this out.

Until then, I wish all a wonderful week, stay cool, and try to get through life in general.

Hugs to All.