Food Talk--Chicken Parmesan and Togetherness

Inspired by Ward's sister, Ward and I are tying to be more conscious about ETHOOLing. One way we want to do this is to spend more time together. We've come up with several different things we want to do and one of them is cooking. To begin with, we decided that we will cook together at least one meal every week and hopefully turn cooking from a chore into a fun time.

To start the process, I brought an interesting cookbook home from the library, Sheet Pan Suppers by Molly Gilbert. The book basically puts together meals that are baked on a sheet pan. Ward picked out the first dish from there that we were going to make--Chicken Parmesan. As luck would have it, Theo was visiting for the afternoon and joined us.

After reading through the ingredients and instructions, we all went to the kitchen to start the fun. Ward set to work preparing the chicken and Theo began preparing the dipping and dregging mixtures for it. I pitched in here and there where needed. When we were about done coating the chicken, Theo had an idea. He said that we should put the left over coatings on some of the zucchini in the fridge and it would be like Eggplant Parmesan. Great idea, especially coming from one of the carnivores. And before you knew it, we were sitting down to a hearty meal of chicken and zucchini parmesan served with steamed broccoli and a salad.

So how did it all turn out? The food was very good--especially the Zucchini Parmesan. Something to remember as we are about to enter the overflowing zucchini season. We worked well together and enjoyed eating together when it was all done.

Were we able to turn a chore into something fun? Well, we're not quite there yet, but we were able to make a chore more pleasant. Also, Ward and I and Theo got to spend time together. That part was great. And when it really gets down to it, we can't ask for anything more.

Thankful Sunday--June 28, 2015

I am thankful for rain.

In some places, there has been no rain. In other places, when it rained, it poured. But here yesterday, I found the rain just right. 

In the morning we had a steady, warm rain and I decided it was perfect time to wash the lawn chairs. So with my water shoes, a raincoat, and a hose, I washed away. And when it was all over, I was wet and smiling. It was like being a kid again and playing in the rain. And this time, I got to make some of my own puddles. :)

Food talk--strawberries

One of the great things about this time of year is getting fresh produce from local gardens (or out of the backyard). And we had another one of those treats a few days ago. Aunt Martha and Uncle Billy invited me over to pick the last of the berries from their strawberry patch. So early one morning before the thermometer climbed into the 90's, I went. Aunt Martha and I picked a quart or so of the remaining strawberries not counting the ones we ate or fed to the dog while picking. They were delicious--sweet, juicy, and gently warmed by the sun. I usually think of eating strawberries cold, but the ones off the vine that morning were perfect. We have now finished the strawberries and I'm a little sad. But the blueberries will be here soon enough.

Aunt Martha was already picking when I got there. Dog was eagerly awaiting anything that might be tossed outside the fence for him. BTW, after a few years, the fence is still keeping the deer out even though they could jump over it if they wanted.

The end-of-the-season strawberries were small, but sweeter than ever.

Even though there weren't that many, my fingers are still stained from cleaning these.

Besides eating them by the handful, we enjoyed the strawberries on our cereal every morning.

A Second Look--June 24, 2015

The weather has been very hot and humid recently with a thunderstorm every afternoon/evening. I feel like I'm living back in New Orleans where we had months of this kind of weather. Actually since I started to write this post, it has began to storm and the electricity has bumped off twice. Let's hope it remains on.

When I took a walk around the yard this morning, I found that the deer had been enjoying themselves. In one bed, every single coneflower bud had been eaten and in another every hosta bud was gone. Add eaten day lilies and black-eyed-susan and I started to wonder if I would have anything to take pictures of except stems. However, they did leave a few things here and there. I think I appreciate the blooms I do find even more because of this.

It is definitely mating season in the bird world as I usually see pairs of birds together visiting the feeder. The bluebird nest has two eggs in it with probably more to come. The new wren's nest looks complete, but there are no eggs in it yet. Those wren's are tricky with their decoy nests, so we'll see what happens.

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Coreopsis. This is one of the few things the deer have left alone in our yard. I don't know if they don't like it or they like the day lilies and coneflowers next to it better. Okay. I just looked up coreopsis to see if it is supposed to be deer resistant and it is. However, coneflowers were listed right along with it as being deer resistant. That has been far from my experience. They seem to love them at my house.

Day lily

Geranium, "Rozanne" 

Day lily

Lamb's ear

Assassin bug--nymph (l), adult (r)
I had no idea that the spider looking bug I saw yesterday on the astilbe was really the nymph form of the insect I saw last fall. Apparently, their bite (both forms) can be quite painful. I'm glad I didn't try to handle it, but I did watch it for awhile as it used it's feelers to navigate almost like it was blind.

Balloon flower

Cardinal and house finch

Pollen covered bee in day lily

Bluebird eggs

Goldfinch

A Trip to the Recycling Center

We are fortunate to have a good recycling center in our county along with curbside pickup. We have once a week pickup for glass, metal, plastic, paper, and yard waste. However, sometimes we have too much for pickup and we make a trip to the center itself. This is usually for yard waste and that's what we did past Saturday. Every time I go, I am amazed by the scale of the operation and this time was no exception. Below are a few pictures.

Thursday night, we had a bad thunderstorm complete with hail.

Friday when I was out weeding another bed, I noticed a very large tree limb in the neighbors yard that had come from one of our trees during the storm. We borrowed Uncle Billy's truck, and then Ward and I cut up the limb and loaded it into the truck to take to the recycling center.

The center is quite large, but there were good signs to help us find the section we needed.

In the yard waste area, they have different piles depending on what kind of waste you have. One of the employees directed us to the branch pile where we unloaded the truck.

After we unloaded, Ward decided that he wanted to watch some of the big machinery at work.

A bulldozer was loading an extra large chipper. Notice the large pile of chipped material behind the bulldozer and in the picture above.

The mulch is then available for anyone to take and use.

Thankful Sunday--June 21, 2015

Happy Father's Day

I am thankful for all of you out there who have been a father and/or a mentor to some lucky person. The value of your work is immeasurable. I have been fortunate to be associated with several wonderful fathers including Ward, his father, and my very own father. 

Below is one of the first stories I remember about my father. I have it shared with you before, but I will tell it again because it is one I often think about around Father's Day. 

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The Baby

When we were growing up, my father looked like the stereotypical father from the 1960's. He worked hard as a lineman to provide for us while our mother did more of the childcare and housework. In addition, he was a man's man, who was strong and excelled at all of the things that men did in our rural area—hunting, fishing, boating, and marksmanship.

However if you looked a little deeper, you found that he was more than he appeared to be. For example, when I was a baby, he did all of the cooking for my sisters while my mother tried night and day to get me to stop crying. He let us hang out with him after work while he played cards with his buddies and held our hand as we walked home. However, there was one time in particular that he showed a sensitive and wise side that I will never forget.

The new baby and her sisters

I was four years old, the baby of the family, and the world revolved around me as far as I was concerned. That is why I was so shocked when my father woke us one morning and said, “Your mother had a baby last night.” 

How could that be? I hadn't heard anything about a new baby coming. Of course, my mother later said that we had talked about it and I had even gotten a new bed in anticipation of the coming baby. But none of that had registered with me. I guess that's how things worked in my self-absorbed four-year-old mind. At any rate, I wasn't too sure how I felt about this new situation. 

That changed, however, the day they brought my sister home from the hospital. We were all gathered around the door and I was sitting on the steps out of the way. My father was the first to enter carrying the new bundle and he immediately put her in my arms. He didn't wait until my mother was inside. He didn't hand her to my older sisters, he gave her to me. I felt so special that in that moment I decided that having this new baby around might not be so bad.

Over the years, there have been many more examples of this tenderness shining through my father's stern and no-nonsense exterior. Maybe that's why I never stopped calling him Daddy.

Happy West Virginia Day

Today we celebrate the day West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863. As most of you know, I grew up in West Virginia--a fact that I'm very proud of. West Virginia is not large in either size or population, so not many people know much about it. Or they only "know" what they've seen on TV or in the movies. Let me see if I can give a brief summary of what West Virginia is like.

Like most other places, West Virginia has a many different kinds of people and ways of life-- especially since our two panhandles reach far into other areas. Go to the northern part of the state,and it is like the Northeast. Go to the far eastern part of the state and you'll identify with Washington, D. C. Take a trip to the southern reaches, and you are definitely in the South. And when you're in the far west, you are in the Midwest. If you grew up in the middle part of the state, like I did, you can chose whatever you want to identify with because there are bits of everything.

Also, like most other places, there are rich people and there are poor people. There are well educated people and there are poorly educated people. There are people who like grits and ramps, and others who don't like them at all (that would be me). But I'd say that almost everyone likes biscuits.

Besides biscuits, there are other things that bind the state together. People here have a connection to the land. This is where they hunt and fish and where they grow their vegetables and graze their cows or goats. They also appreciate the beauty around them. Everywhere you turn there is a feast for your eyes. Whether it is hilly terrain of hills and hollows (hollers), or long mountain ridges with long stream valleys, it's all very scenic. They are also a very resilient group of people. Life has not always been easy for many people here, but they find a way to keep going.

But the thing that strikes me the most about West Virginia is the friendliness of the people. I have found friendly people everywhere I lived, but not always the comfortable friendliness that I have experienced with the people of West Virginia. I hadn't realized this until a young Theo asked me a question one day as we were traveling back to visit his grandparents. He said, "What makes everyone so friendly where Grandad and Grandma live? It's different from where we live." I started to notice, that he was correct.

So there you have it. I have just summarized 24,230 square miles of land, 1.85 million people, and over 150 years of history of West Virginia. Maybe another time, I'll tell you more.

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But wait there's more:

Want to learn some interesting facts and trivia? Visit here.

http://www.wvcommerce.org/travel/requestinformation/funfactsandtrivia/default.aspx

More about Bees

I have explained before that I don't have much knowledge about bees or wasps, but I'm very slowly learning. This week, I was finally able to document one of the differences between carpenter bees and bumble bees. Before this year big, yellow and black striped bees were all bumble bees to me. As it turns out, I learned that carpenter bees look similar to bumble bees, however carpenter bees are larger and have smoother abdomens while bumble bees have furry abdomens. And from my experience, bumbles bees move a lot faster and more often from bloom to bloom. So for a few weeks now, I thought I have been seeing bumble bees instead of carpenter bees, but they wouldn't hold still long enough to know for sure. Yesterday, I finally got a picture that confirmed my suspicions.

Notice the fuzzy abdomen of the bumble bee on the left and the smooth abdomen of the carpenter bee on the right.

So my knowledge is slowly increasing. Who knows? Maybe soon I will be able to reliably tell a bee from a wasp on first sight. Or maybe not. :)

A Second Look--June 17, 2015

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Day lily

Mushroom

Hydrangea

Lady's Mantle

Blanket flower

Yellow, white, and red clover

Redbud tree seed pods. I never realized until I saw them yesterday, that the little, tiny redbud flowers produced such big seed pods.

Hosta or the deer's breakfast yesterday.

The bluebirds are building another nest in this box for a second brood. The bluebirds sit on top of the box a lot to guard it. There has already been a wren that has tried to use this box.

Passages

The last two weekends, I have been traveling to mark two family passages--a wedding and a funeral.

One was a celebration with anticipation of a life to come.

The other was a celebration with sadness for a life that will be missed.

Both brought together families with flowers and tears.

A Second Look--June 10, 2015

More summer like weather this week. Hot humid days with evening thunderstorms. Fortunately the mornings have still been cool. This weather has brought out the summer bloomers--the flowers that bloom most of the summer, and the spring perennials are pretty much done except for a lingering flower here or there.

As predicted, the baby bluebirds had already fledged by the next time I looked in the nest. So, I decided it was time to clean out the nest boxes to prepare for more broods this summer. But an interesting thing happened on my way to clean out one of the boxes. I found more baby birds. We have three boxes. One had the bluebirds, one had a full wren's nest with no eggs and one had half a wren's nest with no eggs (or so I thought). Wrens are known for having decoy nests or extra nests to fill up nesting sites to keep other birds away so I didn't think that much about the extra wren nests without eggs. As it turns out, the nest that I thought was only half done had babies in it. It was built up high enough that I couldn't quite see into the bottom of it. I had it half way pulled out before I spotted the birds. I quickly put it back in place, so I didn't get a chance to see how many birds were in it. After I left the area, I saw the mother come and check on her brood. I think they're all okay.

Here are a few things this week I saw

 during a Second Look.

Day lily (Stella Dora)

Hottuynia

Spirea

Lamium (purple dead nettle)

Astilbe

Blanket flower (gaillardia)

The deer have been eating the coneflowers before they have a chance to bloom.

Coreopsis

Marigold

The baby wrens are in this box. I had a hard time closing it back up because the twigs that the nest was built from fell into the sides.

A Hike in New Hampshire

Over the weekend we went to my nephew's wedding in New Hampshire. The wedding was not until 5 PM on Saturday, so we decided to take advantage of a little free time that morning and go for a hike. We heard about a Blue Job Mountain that was only a half hour away that supposedly had wonderful views with a hike of only a mile or two. That was a perfect fit for our open morning.

The morning was cool, but the sun was shining and there was a nice breeze. We started from the parking lot on the trail to the fire tower which we could climb and maybe see a couple of states away if it were clear.

The trail was wide and gentle with trees and little underbrush to the sides. Everyone had a spring in their step as we started our hike.

We saw wildflowers. 

and a woodpecker tree.

and cairns that marked the trail.

As the trail got steeper, we hiked over flowing tree roots and rocks.

Eventually we made it to the fire tower. Ward took these pictures from the top. I only made it to the first level because the tower seemed too rickety for me to go any higher.

While Ward, Wally, and Theo were climbing the tower, I talked to a person who lived in the area. She told me about another ridge close by that had a great view and was well worth the hike if we had another hour to spare. She gave simple directions to find the ridge as well as directions from there back to the parking lot. 

So we were off.

Our first landmark was a pond which we found with no problem. But then our troubles began.

It turns out that there were many trails near the pond  Almost as many as the ubiquitous blueberries we saw. After some discussion, we chose what we thought was the right one.

But we couldn't seem to find the ridge we were looking for. However, we did find this turtle which we declared was the trip mascot. Talking about the turtle distracted us from all the bugs around--mosquitoes, black flies, and little brown ones. They were all biting.

Eventually, we saw another cairn which meant we were back in "trail civilization". And it was a good thing too because I was getting pretty cranky from the wandering among the rocks and bugs. All the while my pace was getting slower and slower.

Our goal was just to make it down off the mountain when we stumbled on our panoramic destination that we had been told about at the fire tower. It really did have a great view. However, it was too late for Wally. He got too hungry, which for Wally means he got sick. I'm not sure how much he appreciated the view from behind the bush where he was throwing up.

But, "All's well that end's well". We eventually made it back to the car hot, sweaty, tired, and bug bitten. However, we seemed to forget about most of that after we got a good lunch at Little Miss Sophie's. Luckily, we found this place much faster than we found our way off the mountain.