Pretty much a total loss!!!

Friday night we got hit by a storm that threw down golf ball sized hail...

as you can imagine.... our garden was destroyed!!!

I am trying to look at the bright side, like...

we only have a few hail holes in our siding...

our home is still standing....

the car that got nailed with hail is our beater car....

(sad thing is, my brother in-laws car was here too... UGH!)

No one got hurt...

After 6" of rain fall, we still had a yard left....

( The flooding after the rain!)

(our shrubs were hit hard, and all of my flower pots were broken!)

But it is so hard to not think of the loss in the garden!

Our garden is our food supply for the next year! Most of the veggies we eat all year come from the garden! It is also the place my husband and I get to spend much needed time together in... each summer it brings us closer to each other and closer to our children....

I will leave you with some photos of the sad plants!!

(not pictured is our corn... stripped of most of its leaves... so sad!)

SAD SAD TOMATOES!

PEAS STRIPPED RIGHT OFF THE FENCE!

ONIONS FLATTENED AND BURIED

RIPPED APART BROCCOLI

FLATTENED GREEN BEAN PLANTS

Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.....

Of picking these babies! ONLY 5 months until that dream can come true....

and Picking these yummy Peas......

and 7 months until we can enjoy all of this......

BUT for now I will enjoy all the garden food that we PUT UP for the winter months! Peas, Corn, Green Beans, Strawberries, canned Tomatoes, dried onions, broccoli, carrots, the list goes on and on!!! YUM!

THAT'S THE SIZE OF MY UPPER ARM....

For real... this carrot was as round as my bicep!!!!

CORN CORN CORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday was the BIG DAY!!!

The day to START picking that corn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In and out of the rows my husband and I went, picking ear after ear after ear.....

220 ears of corn to be exact!!!!!!!!

(Also a few zucchinis, cucumbers, peppers, and a couple dozen tomatoes!)

We at 15 for dinner and then I PUT UP the other 205 of them! Making a whopping 28 meals worth of corn for this coming year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (3 C. per bag!)

How do my onions GROW!!!!!!!!!

Apparently really WELL!!!!! Cause the little one is a NORMAL onion, and the large one is WELL, LARGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Putting Up Beans!

So, I picked yellow and green beans for 3 hours yesterday.... We have 450 ft of bean plants~

I got 2 FULL grocery bags!

After all the cutting and steaming and freezing, we stopped at 20 quarts and hubby brought 8 quarts worth to work today to share with his c0-workers!

After just 9 days of picking and freezing, we are up to 58 quarts in the freezer! MORE than 1/2 way to my YEAR goal to get us though to next year!

Anyone wanna come over and pick??????

Pea Shucking anyone????

What have we gotten our selves into?????

10 rows of green arrow, 2 rows of OTHER garden peas, 10 rows of Snap Peas........

Here is what a picking looks like..... Worth it... hopefully..... Takes 1 1/2- 2 hours to pick one kind, and about an hour to SHUCK the garden peas to get about 14 C. Then there is the De-stringing of the snap peas and the blanching/steaming of both.... and then freezing them!!!!!!!

Snap Peas (11.5 lbs!)

Garden Peas (14 C. worth after shucking!)

What it looks like when we make our kids shuck them! They usually eat more than they shuck though!!!!!

There is NOTHING more beautiful than this......

(apparently I need to pull clover again!!! LOL!)

AHHH... can you smell them from here?????

AHHH... this is why I love SPRING TIME!!!!