When Dave announced that he bought some salsa from the store because we were out I was desperate. There's no way my man is going to eat that when I make my own. I had stored tomatoes in the freezer from last years crop. I wasn't too sure how well the salsa would turn out with mostly frozen tomatoes, but I figured I'd give it a try. I had about 6 pounds of blanched, chopped and frozen Roma tomatoes and I bought 3 pounds from the store. I picked up 10 jalapenos, a couple red and green bell peppers, onion and cilantro from the fruit market. After doing some research about the heat factor of hot peppers I decided that I really needed to try habanera peppers, which I found at a Kroger outside the city. About half of these ingredients (plus a few other spices) would make up my "Garden Salsa" as I like to call it and with the other half I'd make up that Meijer purchased packet of "Mango Salsa" for which I bought some fresh mangos. I decided the Garden salsa should be hotter than the mango so I only used 1 habanera for the mango and 5 for the Garden style. I took 2 jars of each to a picnic recently and all four jars were slurped up in record time.
I can say that the habanera was the perfect heat! They both turned out fantastic! According to the heat index for hot peppers that I was reading about I would have had to put like 50 jalapenos in the salsa to get the same effect as 5 habanera. I hope Kroger carries habanera year round! Each batch made a total of 88 oz or 11 cups, which was canned in a variety of size jars in the waterbath canner.
I also had just about 1.5 pounds of frozen Tomatillos, so I made some Tomatillo salsa too. I only got 2 half-pint jars from that though. I haven't tried it yet. I did put a smidge of the habanera in there too.
And what the heck since I'm canning I might as well make the mess worth it so I made up some Bing Cherry preserves for topping ice cream with. Yum!
[49st x 58 rows; 45sts would have been better]
For the log cabin, I stained the log and the chimney is drawn on with a Sharpie. For the feeder, I made 6 inserts to cover the window before painting so I didn't have to be too careful with all that trim then painted them. Lastly I sprayed both with an matte acrylic sealer. 
The birdhouse looks a bit funny on its big pole. The pole is a PVC pipe that I painted with a floor pole plate thing attached to the bottom of the birdhouse then the connector piece on top of the pole fits into the floor thingy. I secured the pole in the ground by cementing a slightly larger piece of PVC inside of a 4x4 cement block. When dry, I fit the tall pole inside the mounting pole and inserted two bolts through predrilled holes. It seems to be working fine and it's not too wobbly in the wind. 
I was disappointed when I discovered that the wood of the bird feeder had split from the weather. I took it inside and pretty much disassembled the entire top and the tray and re-glued them with Gorilla Glue for wood. They probably used some cheap glue or not enough and the slightest bit of moisture spread the wood apart. Yeah, I sealed it, but not super well, I figured a few light coats would due. I'm now re-thinking that thinking. I haven't taken the log cabin back down for inspection, but I'll bet it's splitting too.
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