Bees and Sauce!

Hi everyone! Life is always throwing a curve ball. Ever since we moved into this house we have noticed a TON of bees. Probably part of living in a more rural area. All the fruit orchards don't help either, I'm sure. We have sprayed and fogged and they just keep coming. We think one of the nests under the siding has caused bees to get into the house, somewhere in the basement. So, now we are waiting for a visit from the pest control people. They said this area, this time of year and this year in particular have been bad for bees. They said the treatment will take care of all critters so I look forward to that.
In the meantime, I have no friends and not much going on so I am spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Zucchini bread, banana bread, cookies, and more. We were given a large pile of tomatoes last week, way more than we could eat so I set out to find a recipe for homemade tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes. It was harder than I thought as most recipes use canned products. I found this one in case you want to try it yourself. I figured I might as well make home made meatballs while I was at it. First time for that as well. I cooked the meatballs and some hot Italian sausage right in the sauce. WOW!! That made for fork tender meat and seasoned the sauce beautifully! I honestly wasn't holding out hope that it would be that good so imagine my delight when it turned out fantastic! Well, that was that. Now I needed to make more, lots more. I headed out to a road side market and found large baskets of tomato seconds for 1.00. I have frozen 20 qts total now and may have to make more still. My mother would be so proud! Even though I think I can hold my own in the kitchen, there are many things I have yet to try. Canning is one of those areas. I stick to freezer jam. But I may have to try something new. Peaches are in season and I am on a search for a good jam recipe. Send me one if you have one, okay? Otherwise I will search the net and give it a shot. It keeps me busy and out of trouble.

Tomorrow morning we leave to go camping with all the Harp family! Thom and family, mom and dad as well as Jon and Gail are meeting at Camp Chatauqua for the long weekend. We haven't seen the brothers since Christmas! Greg will have to drive home for church on Sunday but it should be a nice relaxing time. It is the last breath of vacation before the boys start school on Wednesday.
We hope you have an enjoyable weekend! I hope to post some pictures next week.