Gardent Trek Log--day 10

Out came the sun and dried up all the rain...and everything burst into bloom, along with the itsy bitsy spiders. Now that we have sunshine once more, Mother Nature is abusy with her landscape. Hubby is hoeing in his garden, trying to thin weeds from flower seedlings. Me, I have house chores today, but we both had time to capture the blooms during our morning coffee.

Garden Trek Log--Day 9

One of the nice side effects from all this rain we've been having, is that our flowerbeds around the house are looking great! My ferns look like they just picked up and moved from the Northwest woods, and the red dianthus in the water garden is looking so colorful, next to the bright yellow water lily which just decided to pop open and pretend it was sunshine today! Our local critters like it too--I spied a small rat snake rustling through the base of the ferns the other day. Bought a battery operated hooty owl to keep the raccoons from raiding hummer feeders. So far it hasn't scared the kitties one little bit, while it sits on the screened porch biding its time to patrol.

Garden Trek Log--Day 8

When rain comes down,, some people call it a "gully whopper", or "it's raining cats and dogs", or "gentle pitter-patters" or "toad stranglers". It started raining here at 7:30 am, a nice gentle rain, perfect for the garden and flowerbeds and woods. And definitely NOT a toad strangler, because as you can see, our toads are doing well in this rain. Waffles, this rain's for you!

Elderberry Ramblings

Spring time means travel to Elderberries, so that is what we have been doing! A few weeks ago, we did the Branson tour, making it to four shows (The Duttons, Jim Stafford and Island Fire we heartily recommend), and enjoying them tremendously, shopping, sightseeing in the beautiful Ozark hills, oops, I mean mountains, dining at restaurants, and enjoying everyone's company on the road trip.

Then this past week we traveled south once more, this time stopping at Osceola. Now all us Missourians know of Osceola as THE BIG CHEESE STORE of the state, but this trip, we got to explore the town of Osceola, and its history. Of course we had to include a stop coming and going at that BIG CHEESE STORE, but the rest of the time we saw the sights of the town, the Historical Museum, which was hosting a Harmony history of American music, courtesy of the Smithsonian Museum, and which also had some wonderful and interesting local artifacts of the area. This is where we learned about the Burning of Osceola, which was a thriving town at the beginning of the Civil War, and which basically was burned to the ground by the Yankees, led by General Lane, in September of 1861. In fact, our tour leader was a local historian, Richard Sunderwirth, who compiled and wrote a history of that occasion and of the area. We Elderberries are famous for finding great food, so once more found a real gem, when we dined at the Baer House, a restaurant which only takes catered reservations for groups--it is an old school house renovated to accommodate crowds of diners. Then back on the bus to the confluence of two rivers, the Sac and Osage, which empty into Truman Lake. And on to an old plantation house, still standing, despite age and neglect, a monument to better days in history. We visited a cemetery, where we viewed the Confederate Memorial to the fallen 9 men, who were killed in the town square during the Burning. There our tour leader, Richard, fired off a small scale Napoleon cannon to honor the dead. Then we stopped at an old church in the town, and which has half of the walnut staircase from the courthouse destroyed in 1861, and which some farmers were able to pull off with their farm wagons and rescue for posterity. There was a rose window in that church that reminded me of an old quilt. This was truly an interesting historical trip--at the end, we each got a copy of Mr. Sunderwirth's book, "The Burning", autographed by him. So now we know way more about Osceola than just THE BIG CHEESE STORE!

Garden Trek Log--Day 7

Our gardens are looking great--tomatoes are up about 18 inches, the squash, canteloupe and zucchini hills are really starting to look like real veggie hills, and maybe some baby flowers have taken hold. Been picking iris and peonies for our house enjoyment, and the new/old chicken pitcher. Had to water garden and flowerbeds once already, but rain is predicted this weekend. And storm clouds are gathering.

Otherwise, we have moved onto the screened porch for the summer, and are really enjoying it. Kitties love playing in the plant jungle out there, and yesterday we found Mrs. Mouse deciding to nest in the elephant pot. After the kitties told us of their discovery, hubby took Mrs. Mouse and the pot outside to scoot her out of a dangerous circumstance. Then I screened the pot holes so she wouldn't come back in. And we wouldn't have a baby mouse party. Then when I was feeding the roses, I noticed this BIG nest area, right in between the rose bushes, woods violets all smashed down to make a nice cozy leaf bed. I suspect a young deer has found its night home, alongside the convenient water source, our waterfall ponds, and safe from the neighbor dogs--and ours, Miss Molly, staying inside on her pad at night.

So we are making the leap into summer. Had to finally turn on the air conditioning, MO humidity movin' on in!

Birthday Pie

Hubby's 70th birthday was today, so while he was out and about town running errands, I cleaned house, and whipped up a birthday pie. Tried out a new recipe, from a Keebler's pie crust ad, and I am here to tell you that they got it right. Of course, I changed a few things here and there, but anyway, it turned out yummy. Reminded us of those chocolate covered blueberries we used to get at Harry & David's Outlet Store a few years ago, mixed in with a cheesecake.

Chocolate Blueberry Cheesecake Pie

1 Shortbread Keebler Ready-crust pie crust--6 oz. The kind you find in aluminum pie pans, with the plastic lids
6 oz cream cheese, softened (low fat) You can soften cream cheese in the microwave for 15-20 seconds on high, as the Keebler elves suggest here!
1 can--14 oz--sweetened condensed milk (I use low fat here too)
1 egg
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 and 1/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cream cheese with mixer, until fluffy. Beat in sweetened condensed milk until smooth, then add the egg, lime juice and vanilla, and mix well. Spread the blueberries out on the bottom of the pie crust, totally covering the crust. Slowly pour the cream cheese mixture over the fruit, and bake 30-35 minutes, or until set in center. Cool on a wire rack.

Meantime in a pyrex measuring cup, pour 1/3 cup whipping cream and add 3 oz semisweet chocolate (you can use either the squares or chocolate chips). Heat it in the microwave for a minute at a time on high, until the chocolate starts to melt. Stir every minute to check it because you don't want it to burn. Take it out, stir it until it is well blended, and set this aside to cool. When the pie and ganache are both mostly cool, stir the chocolate once more, and pour it carefully all over the top of the pie. Spread it to the edges to completely cover it. Chill in the fridge, and get it out several hours later to enjoy. Or just dive in right away, who cares!

Garden Trek Log--Day 6

It's a rainy day here. Luckily we got the last of our plantings (we think) in yesterday. Hubby had to replant a cantelope hill--this time he put in yellow squash plants. Got the veggie garden top dressed with some fertilizer, and preen on spots around the peppers and tomatoes. The rest isn't preened, because hopefully all kinds of flowers should spring up from seed. Found the absolute LAST columbine plant at the Super Walmart, and stuck it in the new flowerbed by the garage. I have a little columbine, which is pining something fierce. It is in shade, and every columbine I have seen thriving in friends' gardens are, guess what!!--in full sun. So there, I put the new gal in a sunny spot. Time will tell. Most everything is doing extremely well. Spring has been kind so far here. She gets a little fickle, but that's life. Irises are coming along beautifully out in my lily bed. Most everyone is planning to bloom. I think they just approve of the angel. Our south shade garden is looking great this spring too--the clematis is happy, as are plants I really didn't think would ever look this good. "Three years" is the magic number, according to my green thumb friend, for perennials to really take off. She must be right!

It's a sewing weekend

Grand Niece's second birthday is this coming week, so thought I would whip up a little creative present with the aid of my handy dandy magic sewing machine and serger. Had checked out a book from the library this past winter, which had sewing directions for all kinds of neat things for kids--animal pillowcases, animal beach totes, etc, and got loads of ideas from it. So after looking through my fabric stash, found some reptilian green print, and solid green to accent, and cut out a pillowcase with lizardy details. Thank heavens for a serger--made a pillowcase without any shreddy seams, and it will stay tidy after lots of washings and dryings too. The hardest part of this project was turning the little feet right side out. Hope she likes Lizzy the Lizard!

Book Pages

Got the perfect spring read, and it brings back memories of our daughter's pre-college preparations, those whirlwind college visits, filing applications, writing essays and poems, all the nail biting on which way to go for the next four years of her life. It is Admission, written by Jean Hanff Korelitz. This book tells the story of Portia, a Princeton admissions officer. She begins a tour of New England private schools, after moving her post from the West coast, and stumbles into a new and small crunchy granola sort of school in the outback of New Hampshire. There she finds a teacher she falls in love with, and her adopted out son she had 17 years earlier, and never shared news of with her mother or her partner at Princeton. When she returns from her journey, her partner leaves her, to be with a lover who is now pregnant with his child. Portia continues on with her job, but spirals into depression, barely functioning. The teacher from Quest, the New Hampshire private school, comes into town with her son and other students in tow, to tour Princeton. She is reunited with him, he "rescues" her from her depression, enough to realize that she has to come to grips (her personal admission) with her son's future. She performs a dishonestly moral act of changing transcripts to get her son accepted into Princeton, loses her job, and moves back to Vermont to reconcile with her mother, but is on the road to admitting her needs for love and reconnections. I learned so much about the processes of student applications, interviews, essays, and tests, and how they are judged by readers and admissions personnel, not just at Princeton, but all over the U.S. And of course this all brought a BIG sigh of relief, that we don't have to face THAT all over again.

Garden Trek Log--Day 5

Got our seraphim statue in place, in the lily bed. She may look small, but she stands (kneels) almost four feet tall. Got the madonna and asian lilies planted in the same bed too. Mulch really works on keeping down the weeds out there. I have been fighting that weed problem ever since I started it 25 years ago. Just took FOREVER in the spring to pull out the weeds, then FOREVER in the summer to re-pull. Finally decided a few years ago, that's it. I am sticking all kinds of lilies in out there, and mulching between after they come up. It is working! Yes we still have giant fescue coming up in batches, which I work on keeping down, and yes we still have giant dandelions coming up, which I also dig out. But basically it looks a whole lot better than it used to. Hubby is planting flower seeds out in the garden, in the empty spaces. Got some 12 foot high giant sunflower seeds last night. We shall see. Otherwise, zinnias and cosmos and smaller sunflowers are going to be the flowers of choice this year. Rain is predicted for this afternoon and the next few days, so perfect timing on planting the seeds I hope. Gardening now consists mainly in weeding and trimming, oh and don't forget the mowing. Keeping up with what we have done so far.

Book Pages

Remember that famous movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"? Remember singing along and later humming "Raindrops keep falling on my head"? Well, a book I just finished brought me back to that movie, and song, which kept playing as background music to the book as I read. It is Etta, by Gerald Kolpan. Mr. Kolpan weaves the story behind the woman behind the romantic history of Harry Longbaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid. I always wondered about her, what caused her to take up with a criminal, even if he did resemble Robert Redford. As did Mr. Kolpan, fleshing out a marvelous story of a young woman, daughter of a financier in Philadelphia, a debutante who becomes a girl on the run from the Black Hand, killer of her father. Etta is transfigured into a Harvey Girl, moving to Colorado to work in one of their restaurants. There she kills a man who tries to savagely beat and rape her, and finds herself at the Hole in the Wall for refuge. She falls in love with Sundance, and they begin a series of sophisticated robberies, alongside Butch Cassidy. At one point Etta has to travel back East, where she meets a young Eleanor Roosevelt, and they become fast friends. This is a great "what-if" tale, bringing history alive, and the author has done a great job of convincing the reader that anything in the days of Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show is more than entertainment--it's the real deal!

Garden Trek Log--Day 4

Returned from the Lake, after a "mom check", and a little outlet mall shopping during a dreary rainy day. Found a verdigris garden angel for our front flower bed, which I am so proud to say, is amazingly short of weeds this spring (mulch works!). I highly recommend a trip to Tuesday Morning at the Red Roof Outlet, for all you bargain hunters out there. Anyway, when we returned, our tulips were finished with their blooms, losing petals here and there. But the cutest little baby tree frog had bloomed on one of our tulips by the fireplace flower bed, so hubby captured its picture!