plan trips with your grown kids.

This past weekend Mother Rabbit met her bunnies in Minneapolis where we had adventures that blessed our bunny socks off. Our festivities centered around the Minnesota State Fair because Mother Rabbit likes her bunnies to appreciate the goodness of vegetable displays, butter sculptures, malts provided by Minnesota dairy farmers and a Prairie Home Companion performance at the fair. We also took a bike ride around Lake Harriett, had pizza closest to what the girls had in Italy this summer, and enjoyed Minnehaha Falls.

A sweet treat was having Katie Bunny with us. She hopped across the street to our house every day when we lived in Dallas and I have long considered her an adopted daughter. These new memories made us remember sweet times when these bunnies were little and played together.

It is always a good investment of time and money to plan adventures with your children - or bunnies.

the help.

It has not been my practice to recommend movies on my blog, but I can't help myself. Last year I read Kathryn Stockett's The Help. This summer I have been re-reading the book on CD in my car. It is a delightful book-on-tape with four different & colorful readers. And I have seen the movie twice. My recommendation: See this one in the theater. And even after you see the movie, read the book (if you haven't already).

It is amazing to know that this is Ms. Stockett's first novel. I smiled when I heard she had 60 rejections before a publisher picked it up. It is a beautiful story. Don't miss out.

tomato season.

Sister-in-law Rabbit wrote and said she noticed that Mother Rabbit had been too busy to post so she offered to help out with this great tip on putting up tomatoes. Thanks for the inspiration and the nudge, Melinda...

End of August and first of September can mean that you have more garden tomatoes offered to you than you can safely eat... or it could mean that you don't have enough to have an all-out canning session. May I recommend "freezer canning" for both? Follow these easy steps

1. Select ripe red tomatoes that have no bad spots. (My mother doesn't waste a thing. But she learned from her mother that you don't use tomatoes with bad spots for canning.) Rinse off to remove any dirt. Remove stems.

2. Fill a big pot with rapidly boiling water. Submerge your tomatoes into the boiling water and remove with a slotted spoon when the skins begin to pop or loosen. (It usually takes about 30 seconds.)

3. Then plunge the tomatoes into an ice water bath (which will stop the cooking and make the skins even looser.)

4. Remove the skins from the tomatoes. Use a paring knife for any tough spots and to remove the core. Compost the skins.

5. Tomatoes can be frozen whole, or in halves or quarters. Place the tomatoes in good quality freezer bags. Squeeze the air out and zip close. Lay the bags of tomatoes flat on your freezer shelves. They will keep for up to a year. Add to your favorite recipes through the long, cold winter.

I have a personal goal to never again buy a "styrofoam tomato" from the supermarket and thus support an industry that has ruined one of our most glorious fruits. (Can you tell that I have been reading "TomatoLand: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit" " by Barry Estabrook?)

Anyway, eat all the fresh tomatoes you can, while you still can - and can or freeze as many as possible for winter.

i love my eye bobs.

I love my readers. And if you are in need of glasses to even read your iPhone like I am, I encourage you to check out eyebobs.com. Not only do they have the coolest frames, but the names of the frames are clever enough to make you giggle. They even have prescription reader sunglasses. (I have to confess that I recently bought Rayban sunglasses and had a taste of buyers remorse when I saw how darling the eyebob sunglasses are.)

Check out eyebobs.com for a refreshing bit of trendy.