Summer At The Little Homestead & Ready For The 4th, Sweet Hot Onion Relish, Egg & Oats Protein Recipe

Summer At The Little Homestead& Ready For The 4th-

We've had a crazy early part of the summer- hot, cool, wet, dry. I think we're settling into more of a normal pattern of heat. It was in the low 80's yesterday after a cool down (time to water!) and 92 today with 100 tomorrow. It's 62 right now at 9:30 a.m,  nice :) I hit some yard work early, including thinning some apples off our tree. We had a big branch laying on the front of the roof from the weight of the fruit. Not good! I'm just doing some other normal stuff, a little weeding, etc. Our veggies are great, growing fast. The chickens ate the foliage off on of my squashes so I'll replace that little fence, and stake up the tomatoes. They loved the rain! Inside I have my summer decor up and some goodies for the 4th-

I love my thrifted chicken!!!

my "sea table"

My fave prim chunky flag I made

I have been doing some thrifting for my 2nd expecting daughter (due in Dec.), and found a really expensive diaper bag for $4.00.  I washed it and it came out looking like new. I found some infant baby clothes for her , and 2 jackets for my new grandson River, who's really growing. I found a little salsa bowl out shopping yesterday a Target for a couple of bucks, cute!

My daughter did give me permission to post photos of Grandbaby River, just no naked ones! She and I are on the same page as far as respecting each other's privacy. Some have no boundaries when posting online and don't know how to think about long term ramifications of posting everything on social media. My 3 adult girls and I have had excellent conversations about that. Once something is on the internet it's there for good. Deleting an account, etc. will NOT get that it completely off the net. Better to be proactive and protect your privacy. Anyway, here's River from a few days ago-

a little squirmy and blurry, but healthy

We may do a one day road trip to get out of town over the 4th. I will host a dinner here on the 3rd for all the kids. We used a lot of vacation painting the house, but it was a one time project, so it's OK. No real vacation this year, just a few long weekends. I am SO looking forward to RETIRING some day! Ah, the luxury of just being able to stay home if you want to, volunteer, work part time, do big projects at home as needed, etc. I'll probably throw away my alarm clock!!! Soon...

Sweet Hot Onion Relish-
I have made this before and it's great in the summer! Spicy, crunchy, sweet/sour. Recipe is here- Splendidtable.org   I hand sliced these as my cheap food processor over did it. Chill your onions before slicing to reduce the fumes, and add the pepper seeds if you want it hotter. I let it sit 2 days, and added a little seasoned rice wine vinegar to beef up the liquid. I'm making some today for the weekend, a double batch! It will keep for a few weeks. Yum. With the long weekend coming up (we're taking Friday off too, hooray!) I'll make a giant batch of corn relish as well. Keeps great and here's my version if you want to give it a try LittlehomesteadinBoise Corn Relish

 Egg & Oats Protein Recipe-

I kept vacillating yesterday between eggs for breakfast or oats. I remembered making baked oats with eggs, but that is a big batch. I looked online for an idea about putting an egg into cooked rolled oats. I made this eggy oatmeal. I did my normal thick rolled oats with raisins, added one of my hens eggs and cooked for 5 minutes. A little sugar and milk and delish! Here's an official recipe- Protein Oatmeal