Fresh from the Garden!
This was my dinner last night. I walked out to the garden, pulled two large beets and steamed the beets while I sautéed the greens in butter. Gotta' have butter with beets! It was soooo good! I remember as a kid, mom would have a crockpot full of beets going for our dinner quite often over the summer months. She also cooked the greens and we gobbled it down! We also had a cat, Missy, that loved them. Looking back it might have been the butter.
Last Saturday was the annual Mint Festival and Frog Jumping contest here in Jefferson. There are a lot of mint fields around us and a lot of frogs...hence the festivities. It is quite a little program they put on. The day starts with a big pancake breakfast feed at the fire station. Then the parade...every area horse and old tractor is brought out for it! I had planned on taking pictures. But true to form I left the camera in the van and neither of us wanted to walk back to it. So picture a small town main street with flag carrying cub scouts and VFW members, straw bale filled wagons pulled by tractors full of area merchants tossing out candy, a parade of old tractors, horsemen and women (and with our large Mexican population we also had some of them dressed in costume with their fancy prancing horses), all the towns emergency vehicles shined to the nines and one thing not every small town has I bet.....a mechanic who turned an old VW bug into a creature whose mouth (hood) opened and showed teeth and whose eyes (headlights) moved back and forth as he drove! Liam's favorite part of the parade was of course the candy that was freely flowing. And another big thing the festival is known for is the garage sales! They are everywhere! We went to the big one that one of the churches has, then a couple on the main street. But most of our time was spent just driving up the road we live right off of. There were about 10 in just a few block stretch! I found a few shirts for Liam for a quarter each. And two pairs of shoes he will soon fit into for 50 cents each! Stacks of free magazines! I did come to the conclusion the next day that free magazines may not always be a good thing! But one thing I do is cut out pictures from them...food, cars, animals etc. Then when Liam is a tiny bit older (or on the next rainy day when he complains about being bored) I will pull out the box I have been putting them in, hand him a piece of paper and a glue stick and have him pick out....animals that live in the water (for instance). He can then go to town finding those pictures and gluing them on the paper to make a collage. The Taste of Home and Light and Tasty will be passed on to my sister when I finish going through them. The Family Fun I will tear out the craft ideas and recycle. The Above Rubies I will enjoy. The Birds and Blooms give me a wealth of animal pictures for Liam's entertainment. I love reading Country and Country Woman. And there were a couple other odds and ends just as wonderful! Craig got a gas can for the boat which came with a hose and bulb thingy that was brand new and itself is $40 at Walmart! Not a bad find.
So you may notice that August is not along the top bar...it is in the drop down section. That is because David is no longer at the end of the hallway and Craig forgot what David showed him to do! And right before I started posting this we did check to see if David was on FB to beg for help. He was not. So Craig will have to sit down and spend some time learning how to do my blog. You may wonder why I don't sit down and spend some time learning my blog. Just trust me...it is better this way. Really!
On the garden front, I am harvesting patty pans, yellow crook neck, zucchini, beets, chard and the last of the blueberries. Quite a few cantaloupe are coming on which is exciting! The dry beans are doing wonderful and there are tons of pods forming. Tomorrow I will check because I think there are enough green beans for dinner. The red cabbage is forming heads but the green is not yet. A few of my tomato plants are turning yellow and I have no idea why! Though this afternoon Craig let me go to St Vinnie's by myself and I found one of those garden secret books that tells you all the hints to make your veggies and other plants happy. So I will see if that book gives me any ideas.
Well...it is late and I am ready to relax in front of the news.
Have a wonderful Saturday friends!
Last Saturday was the annual Mint Festival and Frog Jumping contest here in Jefferson. There are a lot of mint fields around us and a lot of frogs...hence the festivities. It is quite a little program they put on. The day starts with a big pancake breakfast feed at the fire station. Then the parade...every area horse and old tractor is brought out for it! I had planned on taking pictures. But true to form I left the camera in the van and neither of us wanted to walk back to it. So picture a small town main street with flag carrying cub scouts and VFW members, straw bale filled wagons pulled by tractors full of area merchants tossing out candy, a parade of old tractors, horsemen and women (and with our large Mexican population we also had some of them dressed in costume with their fancy prancing horses), all the towns emergency vehicles shined to the nines and one thing not every small town has I bet.....a mechanic who turned an old VW bug into a creature whose mouth (hood) opened and showed teeth and whose eyes (headlights) moved back and forth as he drove! Liam's favorite part of the parade was of course the candy that was freely flowing. And another big thing the festival is known for is the garage sales! They are everywhere! We went to the big one that one of the churches has, then a couple on the main street. But most of our time was spent just driving up the road we live right off of. There were about 10 in just a few block stretch! I found a few shirts for Liam for a quarter each. And two pairs of shoes he will soon fit into for 50 cents each! Stacks of free magazines! I did come to the conclusion the next day that free magazines may not always be a good thing! But one thing I do is cut out pictures from them...food, cars, animals etc. Then when Liam is a tiny bit older (or on the next rainy day when he complains about being bored) I will pull out the box I have been putting them in, hand him a piece of paper and a glue stick and have him pick out....animals that live in the water (for instance). He can then go to town finding those pictures and gluing them on the paper to make a collage. The Taste of Home and Light and Tasty will be passed on to my sister when I finish going through them. The Family Fun I will tear out the craft ideas and recycle. The Above Rubies I will enjoy. The Birds and Blooms give me a wealth of animal pictures for Liam's entertainment. I love reading Country and Country Woman. And there were a couple other odds and ends just as wonderful! Craig got a gas can for the boat which came with a hose and bulb thingy that was brand new and itself is $40 at Walmart! Not a bad find.
So you may notice that August is not along the top bar...it is in the drop down section. That is because David is no longer at the end of the hallway and Craig forgot what David showed him to do! And right before I started posting this we did check to see if David was on FB to beg for help. He was not. So Craig will have to sit down and spend some time learning how to do my blog. You may wonder why I don't sit down and spend some time learning my blog. Just trust me...it is better this way. Really!
On the garden front, I am harvesting patty pans, yellow crook neck, zucchini, beets, chard and the last of the blueberries. Quite a few cantaloupe are coming on which is exciting! The dry beans are doing wonderful and there are tons of pods forming. Tomorrow I will check because I think there are enough green beans for dinner. The red cabbage is forming heads but the green is not yet. A few of my tomato plants are turning yellow and I have no idea why! Though this afternoon Craig let me go to St Vinnie's by myself and I found one of those garden secret books that tells you all the hints to make your veggies and other plants happy. So I will see if that book gives me any ideas.
Well...it is late and I am ready to relax in front of the news.
Have a wonderful Saturday friends!