Crazy Carrots

OK, so who knew carrots could get this big!!??? It fits across the full width of my counter with a little bit hanging off each end. A total of 3 ft. 3 inches from the tip of the green to the bottom of the root. Crazy!!! I pulled the last row of carrots out of the garden this morning and that was the biggest root I've ever seen. That last row completes the harvest out of the garden for this year.

Costumes and Loot

Here's Garrett as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Tiffani as a black cat. Unfortunately she lost her ears sometime during the night so we need to look for those today. We had fun trunk-or-treating with Katie and her kids and then going around our neighborhoods.

The Final Carving Product

Here's what those pumpkins finished looks are!!!

Carving Pumpkins

Carving pumpkins is always an adventure. The kids didn't really want any of the carving pictures from those books you can buy, so we printed out our own!! Tiff did Ariel and Garrett did Star Wars. I printed off Mickey Mouse but as of today, Halloween, my pumpkin is whole and uncut. We'll see if it gets carved.

We had a great time carving pumpkins -- especially glad that Grandma Maddy came and helped or else we'd still be carving!!

Halloween Parties 2009

We had our 3rd annual Halloween party and it was a SMASH as usual. A few days before we tie-dyed halloween shirts and decorated them. So fun.

More cakes!!

Some more cakes

I've had some suggestions that I put my cake photos online, so here they are. I hope everyone enjoys looking!!

Canning 2009 So Far......

It has been a busy canning season already. Through labor day weekend I have canned from my garden (except the fruits):

4 qts pickled beets
10 pts pickled beets
4 qts boiled, sliced beets
15 pts boiled, diced beets
7 pts bread & butter pickles
7 pts hamburger dill pickles
5 qts dill spears
10 qts green beans
35 qts peaches
5 pts raspberry freezer jam
4 pts citrus marmalade

Whew!!! I need to catch my breath before the tomatoes finish ripening, the next batch of beans needs to be picked and the corn comes on. I have also dried several zucchini and still have 10-12 on my counter. So, as with the cucumbers, if you need zucchini, please come over.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Well, for today's post I'm going to "brag" on my garden. It must have been all that compost we placed this spring because HOLY CUCUMBERS!!!!! Today, I went out and picked .......drum roll........13 POUNDS of pickling cucumbers and 31 POUNDS of regular cucumbers. I'm not sure what to do with them all. I can the pickling cucumbers but the others?????

So, if anyone reading this blog needs cucumbers PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come over and get some.

My Other Competitors

Here are a few photos of some of the other entries. The wedding cake with the corset shape on top was the overall grand champion. The chinese new year cake was the special occasion champion. Both of those cakes were created by the same person. Very talented. The eagle cake won the "fan favorite".

Fair Week 2009

The Eastern Idaho State Fair has begun anew!!! It sure did come around quickly. I entered two cakes into the Sugar Art contest. The Special Occasion cake theme was "Holidays Around the World" and the Wedding Cake theme was "The Wedding Dress".

I chose to do Halloween since it's so fun and I figured that there would be tons of Christmas-themed cakes. I did a snow globe (without the snow) and I thought it was really cute. Cute was the operative word because I was placed right next to the championship cake for the special occasion cakes -- Chinese New Year -- complete with dragon and chinese temple. It was very impressive. My little Halloween cake looked kinda dorky right next to that one. However, I was very happy with the way my cake turned out and it was the only Halloween cake there. I didn't win anything for that cake but I'm not disappointed.

The wedding cake division was broken down into three sections: beginner, intermediate and advanced. I entered my cake into the intermediate division and won first place. I was very very happy. I originally signed up for advanced based on the criteria that was sent when I registered for the competition, but moved down a level on advice of the organizers of the show. The advanced cakes all had sugar flowers and really advanced work. My cake was far more detailed but needed that extra boost of sugar flowers or something else to take it to the next level.

It was absolutely exhausting, but satisfying. Dad helped me again by painting the majority of the yes 9,000 individually placed beads. At least it wasn't the task of creating an enchanted tree like last year!!! Hope you enjoy these photos of my cakes and some of the others that were my rivals.