The farmer loaded us up with tomatoes this week (way more than even I can eat) so I made tomato sauce.
It’s easy and difficult at the same time.
First you have to peel the tomatoes (boil a few minutes, cool, peel)
Then you are supposed to put them in a food mill. But I don’t have one, so there comes the difficult part.
First I tried shoving it through the strainer, which I had done before, but these tomatoes were not very cooperative. So the last batch just went through the food processor, seeds and all.
A girl’s only got so much patience with unruly vegetables (or fruit if you are being scientific).
Sweat out an onion or two and some garlic in a little olive oil. Add the tomatoes, some salt and a little sugar (trust me on the sugar).
Bring to a boil then lower the heat to simmer until it is a thick as you like. This takes a long time.
We are talking hours. So that meant it was very humid all afternoon. On account of all the boiling and simmering and what not.
Click on over to flickr to see the finished product (because I am too tired to upload pictures).

Friday night we went to the fair with some friends and their little girl. We petted some barn animals, they rode some rides, cotton candy was eaten and then it was time to go.
I have some more pics over at flickr including the worlds ugliest bunny and a baby llama, so be sure to check that out!
G had a grand time on all the rides and didn’t want to get off the elephants she was having such a good time. We had just as good of a time watching her!
As we walked back to the car we looked back and commented that we thought the lights invoked something perfectly American.

People waiting in a giant traffic jam for days…

Miners who are waiting to be rescued, won’t be for months…

Kind of makes me feel bad for boycotting the local Taco Bell because I felt like they made me wait to long for my soft tacos.

After my class I went directly to work where we were having a fundraiser for Children’s Miracle Network. Hubs and I were on bean bag toss & ring toss duty.

After that, we came home and worked more on the kitchen. I am finally sitting down and taking a break.

In my class we learned about invasive species. We learned the top 10 most NOT wanted plants, why they are bad, and how to get rid of them. Then we went out in the field and worked on eradicating some Autumn Olive at the nature preserve. Which was good info to have considering our back yard is full of Autumn Olive.

Autumn Olive is bad because it makes the ground inhospitable to other plants. It also has berries on it that the birds love. The problem is there is no nutritional value to them. So they don’t have the energy they need to migrate.

Imagine running a marathon after having nothing but Twix & Cheetos for the week before. Probably not going to end well.

The other bad guys are :

Oriental Bittersweet-Also has candy bar berries. You know those wreaths you buy at Christmas that look like sticks with berries on it? Yep, Oriental Bittersweet.

Purple Loosestrife-They have actually found a beetle that will eat this and are making great strides in getting rid of it.

Japanese Barberry-Sold in garden centers. Sadly we planted some of this at the old house before I knew better.

Multiflora Rose-Very pretty, which makes it more dangerous. People are less like to get rid of it.

Bush Honeysuckle -Similar issues as the Autumn Olive

Spotted Napweed-That’s the purple stuff you see along side the highway

Common Buckthorn-Generally grows in wetland areas and can actually lower the water table.

Common Reed/Phragmities-Found in wetlands and I find the word Phragmities endlessly funny. It reminds me of Fraggle Rock.

And the #1 trouble maker of all? Garlic Mustard. Which is growing all over our woods and our neighbors woods. And takes years of hand pulling to get rid of it. It also changes to soil climate to keep native plants including trees from growing.  It takes out entire forest floors.

We learned about other ones too but these are the worst offenders.

Now I just have to take the test and do my volunteer hours and I will have my certificate.

It’s been really interesting learning about all the different habitats and plants. It was also interesting to learn about all the different organizations around that are working to conserve the natural areas we have. One of the things I love about living in Michigan is all the different natural areas we have and the beauty that our state has to offer. Now I will be taking a more active role in keeping it that way.

After getting to go to the Tigers game on Tuesday, I couldn’t believe my luck when my office gave me race tickets and pit passes! Hubs dressed up in his best redneck gear so as to best fit in. However, as it turns out Miller Lite was actually a little high brow. There was something called Genny Lite they were selling for a buck. We did not try any, but imagined it was probably really awesome (eek).

I took a ton of pictures, so I posted a few up over at flickr.

Being back in the pits was kind of weird. Everybody was running around and working to get ready for the race and we kind of felt in the way. But we had our gold VIP bracelets so we were allowed to go where ever we wanted.

Then they had a meet and greet time where you could talk to the drivers and get autographs.

We watched one race from the infield, which was cool, but you can’t see the whole track. So for the main event we went back out with the common folk.

Oh and don’t forget the snacks! They were super cheap and really good. We loaded up on hot dogs, pop, a big pretzel and a lemon chill.

I told my boss what a good time we had and she said she would keep us in mind if they got passes again. Yeah!

Flickr is giving me fits, so here’s another pic from the Tigers game.

Tuesday one of our vendors took everybody from my office to the Tigers Game. I finally got a couple of pictures up over at flickr.

Since we didn’t get home until 1:15 in the morning after the game, I ‘ve been out of sorts ever since!

Hmm…what is that poking out from under the curtains?

Let’s take a closer look….

Looks like someone found a little sunshine…

Let’s peek behind the curtain and see who we find…

It’s Maisy!

Apparently our efforts to keep block the sun from making the room too warm are not appreciated.  She slept in there for quite a while with her legs poking out the side.

Which I found endlessly funny.

Here is our camp site at Tubbs Lake. We camped on the island, which we later figured out is where people go to not only camp, but party. We heard loud music and loud talking until all hours of the night. The spot we picked was a walk up site. Which meant we had to walk up and down this hill with all of our gear.

That is our car with the Kayaks strapped on top at the bottom of said hill. There were 2 walk up spots on top of the hill. The other was empty, so we had the whole hill to ourselves. I took to calling it the duplex. We stole the other sides picnic table to put under our tarp, so we had one under and one out.

The reason we took the walk up site vs. a more accessable site was the view.

It was the only site that had a clear view of the lake. It was really awesome at night when the almost full moon was reflecting off the water. As a matter of fact, the moon was so bright you hardly needed a flashlight to find the bathroom.

Tubbs Lake is part of the Martiny Chain of Lakes. It is several lakes all connected by channels. We had a boat launch just down from our duplex and could get right in the water. We went across the mighty Tubbs in the morning, down a series of channels and back again.This area was all no-wake, which was nice.

In the afternoon we went the other way around the island through the channels and a couple of smaller lakes. There are channels going every direction and you could spend days out there are still not see it all. And get lost if you are not paying attention.

We saw quite a few different kinds of birds and plants while we were out. It was really nice kayaking and like I said, you could take different routes and see different things. The other nice thing is you can paddle back and don’t have to worry about having a vehicle at the other end.

Once we got back to camp we had dinner and Hubs kicked my butt in a game of war. Then we crashed. It didn’t take long to fall asleep after all the paddling.

Even with Sweet Child Of Mine blaring from the other campsite.