Good grief....if I had the crops that you’ve had this year I’d be bragging up a storm! It’s a lot of work, and then all the preserving you’ve done too, so you deserve to toot your horn. Remember what my old Pappy used to say: “He who doth not tooteth his own horn oft doth not getteth his horn tootethed!!” And yes, he really did say that, often. Boy, was it fun to watch my little spell checker dude pass out while I typed it!!
I have a lot of pre-cooked or pre-prepped meals in my freezer. I always make extra whenever I can, and get it into my Food Saver bags for those hectic or lazy nights. I love to cook, so it’s no big deal to do that. The nice thing about using my Food Savers (I have 2) is that I bring a pot of water to a simmer, drop the bags of stew, chili, spaghetti sauce or whatever right in the water, and let them heat through. I’ve done that for years. Kenny buys a lot of fresh veggies at the Farmer’s Market in Cody when he gets off on Fridays, and I love how he preps his sweet corn. He just husks it, puts a few ears in his Food Saver bags with four tablespoons of butter (depending on how many ears he has in the bag) and pops them in the freezer. When he uses a bag or two he just drops the bags in water like I do. His corn is so stinkin’ fresh tasting because the corn never contacts water! The butter melts all over it and man, it’s good! He’s bringing me a couple of dozen ears tomorrow on his way home and I’m going to do that too.
He does the same basic thing with shrimp - he shells and cleans them, dries them off, and puts them in freezer bags with cracked pepper, lime juice, a little garlic power, and I can’t remember what else is in his marinade. Then he freezes them right in the marinade. When they want some, he just thaws them in the bag, takes them out and lets them drain for a few minutes, and then puts them on the grill. That way he can buy shrimp a few nice big ones at a time, and accumulate them until he has enough for a meal or two. Otherwise they simply couldn’t afford meals like that.
The Fishhawk Fire near Cody is up to over 10,000 acres and the weather shows no signs of giving anyone a break. Evacuations have started at several campgrounds and the Boy Scout Camp up there. There’s another one that just started on the west side of Yellowstone Lake in the Park. A quick prayer for the folks fighting these monsters would be greatly appreciated by them, I’m sure. Hard to breathe here today. Smoke is pretty thick.
, at least some of them, will have to take a picture and show y'all. i planted my hot peppers at the beginning of the garden and my sweets at the end(except for the corn and water melon plants) some of the peppers are much bigger than my hands and i have to wait til they ripen , not just green bell peppers but yellows, purples, reds.
Planted the seed and shut up. He decided last night that the box was just too dark inside and the wire dog crate would work better. “”Oh, Sugah...You’re so CLEVAH!” Score: Blooie; a million, Ken; three. 
