Squashed!

Aauggg! About five days out of seven I hit the return button on the keyboard when I should hit the tab button to leave the title box of this blog template and go to the box where these literary gems are typed. When I do this, a message pops on my screen and says "Your blog has been successfully published" and the title is sent to the 10 email recipients that I thought might be interested in what was happening here. When they open their emails there is no content. It occurs to me there isn't much content after I actually get the blog written. I am surprised and heartened that the tracking statistics indicate, since I have started writing the blog, 579 page views have occurred. Most of these have occurred in the last month.

There is another group of intrepid individuals that have become blog followers voluntarily. It does make you wonder what the rest of their day is like if they read my blog to see what excitement is going on here at Missed Skeet Farm. Well, for whatever reason you take the time to read my blogs-- Thank you. It fulfills one of my life long ambitions. I always wanted to write something that someone would want to read.

Comments about the blog are greatly appreciated. If someone takes the time to comment, it says something about the content that stirred them to action. Blogs that get more than one comment are usually pretty good. Most blogs get no comments and are probably leaving you all speechless. More likely it is the kindness contained in the policy of "not saying anything, if you can't say something nice." Email recipients aren't able to comment on the blog easily. If you are a blog follower then a dialogue box is provided at the bottom of the blog for your comments.

"Em's First Concert" has by far the most page views and has remained at the top of the charts for three weeks. It appears Em and I will be collaborating on future blogs.

There is one other thing I would like to tell you about this particular blog. I never know exactly where it is headed when I start writing. There's a couple of reasons for this: I am not going to write an outline and stick to it despite Mrs. Baurcampers insistence that "good writing starts with a good outline," and once I hit that return key at the title line, it is too late to change the subject and go with a better idea. Instead, I just let the blog wander where it wants and weave things together with shaky punctuation and dangling participles.

Okay, I started to write about the squash we canned yesterday. Yes we are still canning. I am not sure if we are still in the 2010 canning season because the squash came out of the 2010 garden or if this is the beginning of the 2011 canning season. Either way canning squash is a lot of work. Peeling hubbard squash requires a big knife and a wooden mallet to beat through the damn things. Even after you get them into one inch cubes the easiest way to cut the rind off is to set the knife where you want to cut and whack it. Watch your fingers. Stubby isn't a great nickname.

We had no inkling we would be canning squash yesterday, but Kris discovered rot and swift, decisive action was necessary. (I often wish Kris wasn't so swift and decisive.) So, about three yesterday afternoon we started peeling. We peeled for two hours and finally got one done. Then we canned it in the pressure cooker last night. This morning I am glad we have ten pints of squash in our larder. Lurking under the bed, however, are at least a dozen more hubbard squash and a larger number of buttercup and butternut squash. (What--doesn't everyone store squash under their bed?) At our present rate of squash peeling and canning, next January, I will be trying to decide if it is a continuation of last years canning season or this years or 2013 canning season.