A week later and we're all basically healthy again. Veggie-Dog got healthy just as Snark got his worse. Then when Snark was feeling on the up-mend, I was sleeping off my sore throat and achy head.

In the last week, we bought a new camera--and can take pictures again! It's a newer version of the one E got me for retirement a few summers back.

Snark's been grinding and polishing rocks the last few days, and showing me some real beauties! I'll try to post some photos of them soon.

Just about the only thing our garden is producing in an abundance any more are hot peppers and tomatoes! We've been drying the tomatoes. But you can only dry so many peppers before you have too many...and that happens pretty quickly. Because of our current inability to preserve them long term by canning (it seems silly to buy all that equipment a month before we're about to move), I developed a short term "hot pickled pepper" recipe, which is delicious!

Here it is:

Hot Pickled Peppers

2 1/2 cups white vinegar (apple cider would work too)
2 cups water
1 tbsp. celery seed
1 tbsp. mustard seed
1 tbsp. dried parsley
2 tbsp. sugar (or agave nectar--you can use more than 2 tbsp. if you like it really sweet)
2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. garlic powder (or just use fresh garlic cloves)
1 tsp. dried dill
fresh ground pepper

Bring to a boil on stove and let boil a couple of minutes.  (I don't know if the whole boiling part is really necessary; you could probably do it with no cooking, but I haven't tried it, so I don't know for sure.)

Fill jar(s) with sliced hot peppers (in my version, I used Hungarian hot wax peppers). Slice up some onions and add those to the peppers.

Pour vinegar mixture onto peppers/onions and let sit in fridge 24 hours before consuming. (They should last in the fridge for up to a month, I'm thinking, but I just made them a few days ago, so I can't say for sure.)