Letters From Home – July 31, 2017

Good Morning Everyone,

We are having another beautiful, quiet, slightly cool, summer morning. This is now the third morning like this and I think we all are enjoying every one of them.

Our gardents are doing well in this area. We have had abundant rains and the vegetables are growing fast. We had a large squash plant that came up voluntarily and looked beautiful but a worm or something must have been working at the roots because it just suddently wilted and died. That also happens with the zucchini plants at times. Sweet corn is also ready.

The peaches in OH are a good crop this year and we will be having local ones at the store to sell. They smell and taste so good!

On Friday evening and Saturday, August 4 & 5 the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale and Auction will be held at Kidron. There will be food available and quilts, etc sold over auction on Saturday.

As you drive along the country roads you can see fields of yellow oat shocks scattered among fields of green corn and grass/hay. It creates a pretty scene.

It is interesting to find out where some of our customers are from. Especially during the summer months when lots of traveling gets done. We had folks from Romania, Brazil, Slovakia, Hungary, India, and a couple that have Lebanon for their nationality. They remarked about the Ishtar squash we sold here. It is a Lebanese summer squash. He related of remembering how they used to raise them and owuld harvest them while they were still small then cut the top off and stuff them to fix them similarly like we would do stuffed green peppers. They would let a few squash grow big so that the seeds could mature and then use them to plant again the next year, We also had folks from the mountains of northern GA, Louisiana, and a youth group from Mississipp. Plus, I’m sure there were others that I did not hear about.

The new- skin potatoes are ready to dig already and I am enclosing a recipe for potato salad that works well to fix the day before to take along to a potluck dinner or picnic, etc. This recipes yields 1 gal.

Potato Salad

• 12 cups cooked, shredded potatoes

• 1 dozen eggs, hard boiled & chopped

• 1 medium onion, chopped

•1 ½ cup celer, chopped fine

Dressing

• 3 cups salad dressing

• 2 ½ cups white sugar

• ¼ cup vinegar

• ½ cup milk

• 3 teaspoons salt

• 4 tablespoons mustard

Put the first 4 ingredients in a large bowl. Make sure they are cold. Mix the dressing ingredients together and pour over the potato mixture and mix gently. Refrigerate. The flavors blend better if put together the day before.