canning luscious pears

took my luscious pears out of the fridge to warm up for canning


even though they werent that big, there were a lot of them


hauled them to moms for canning


slicing and dicing and filling jars


one of the jars cracked in the canner. some of our jars are quite old and do this occasionally.


after we filled all the jars we had left, we cut up the remaining pears and cooked them down for pearsauce


yummy yummy pears


got my state fair blue ribbons in the mail


and the check, i won $30 for winning two first place ribbons

dogs and pearsauce

molly and puppy


my garden


puppy lounging


molly lounging


the tree that we cut down. you can see how close to the porch it is. this is me sitting in the chair on the patio pointing the camera straight up.


puppy hunting for more treats. i was *trying* to brush his coat out and he wouldnt cooperate. so i closed up the treats and set them aside.


what? i wasnt trying to get into the treat jar!


see i'm a good puppy!


towards the end molly took to laying on the porch steps like this


i made spaghetti sauce from my tomatoes


somehow i managed to get tomato juice on the soffet above the upper cabinets, damn near to the ceiling. i got skills.


big bowl of luscious pears


its my biggest bowl


and a cake pan full of more luscious pears


big pan


you can see the brown discoloration on the pears, from the pear psylid.


i think these are summercrisp and patten pears


more blemishes on the luscious pears


homemade pearsauce


this years onion harvest, sweet onions and red onions

state fair pictures #1 agriculture/horticulture building

apple varieties developed by the university of Minnesota: beacon, zestar, sweetango, honeycrisp, haralson, fireside


my award winning patten pears


my award winning summercrisp pears


there werent that many pear entries this year. i think a lot of people had trouble with mold and mildew related diseases after such a wet summer.


lots of apple entries


and other fruit entries


like grapes


and blueberries


this is the FOURTH place watermelon winner. i dont know where the others were. none of my watermelon ever get anywhere close to that. i'd like to know how they did that.


gigantic kohlrabi, and sunflower heads


zucchinis


i swear mine were bigger. i gotta think about entering mine next year.


giant cabbage!


the biggest pumpkin, 1143 pounds


homemade wines, some with grapes or fruit from elsewhere, some with minnesota grown grapes and fruit. it seemed like they had every kind of fruit wine imaginable.


sugar beets - they're big and ugly but we grow a lot of them up here






they also had displays this year of dresses made from plants. it was kinda neat. some were better than others.


i liked the shirt made out of leaves


long moss skirt and butterfly wings. i didnt get a picture of the front of this one


this one was a little wild


this one too


i like the leaves and ferns on this sone


mermaid, not sure this one followed the rules




real live moss grown on a chair shaped wire frame


alive kaleidoscopes


real live flowers and plants in a bowl that could spin


picture taken with my camera looking thru the kaleidoscope lens


this was a pretty neat feature, lots of people checking it out. they had 4 different arrangements.



scarecrows! i like the tree made with soda cans, i think that would scare off birds.


pet walker scarecrow


watermelon dude


the green man - i like the detailed pottery face, but the rest of it just feels lazy, like they didnt even try.


minion scarecrow



in the honey section, they had gift baskets and one had this bottle of honey wine in it. i was wondering if there is a difference between mead and honey wine.


cute beeswax candles


tardis made from beeswax



pickled stuff