Family Reunion, July 2011

Four generations...

Coming home,  

Eating good food,  

Wishing for name tags,  

Taking pictures,  

Playing in the creek, 

Remembering years past. 

 
 

A Second Look 7-6-11

This week, we finally had a little rain with a couple of thunder storms. It must be good weather for bugs because the bees were buzzing, the flies were flying, the katydid's were jumping, and gnats were annoying.

Also, our friend, Mr. Squirrel, has figured out our "squirrel-proof" bird feeder. If he keeps most of his weight on the pole, he will not trip the lever that closes the door to the seed. It might be my imagination, but he looks fatter to me.


Below are pictures of some of the things I found this week during my Second Look around the yard.

If you look carefully, you'll see several bees among the coneflowers.

Triple orange day lily (Kwanso) with katydid.

Theodore's picture of a housefly.

Bee (good bug) on balloon flower.

Japanese Beetle (bad bug) on balloon flower leaf

Fallen limbs

Katydid on New Guinea Impatiens.

Red day lilies.

Deer jaw bone

Fat, but clever squirrel.

Harvest with Miss Landers

Miss Landers has a vegetable garden in the local community garden, and we went harvesting with her.  See some pictures of our outing below.

Food Waste Friday 7-1-11

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. 


Here it goes for this week.


Hooray! I have no waste to show for this week. This is because we did some creative cooking to use up leftovers and other food we had with a short shelf life. We made Creamy Pesto Spaghetti. The whole family agreed that it was very good.

The dish was made mostly by emptying containers of what we had in the fridge. However, the proportions of the ingredients worked out well, so we will make this again keeping the pasta, sour cream, and pesto amounts about the same and add whatever else is handy.


Our Recipe (or a good guess at it.) 

Creamy Pesto Spaghetti

•  Cook and drain.

              6 oz. of garden spaghetti

• While the spaghetti is cooking, mix together:

             1 cup low-fat sour cream

            1/4 cup basil pesto

            1 fresh tomato- chopped

            8 stalks grilled asparagus-cut into 1/2" pieces

           1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

           2 oz. baked pork loin-chopped

• Microwave the above mixture for about a minute to take the chill off, then stir into the hot pasta.
• Garnish with tomato and basil. 
• Serves 4 or more depending on how hungry you are.

A Second Look 6-29-11

A Second Look around the yard this week found these things.

Yellow day lily. Can you find the green bug (katydid nymph)?

Deer have eaten day lily buds causing the brown stalks.

Yellow trumpet lily

Volunteer marigold in zinnia bed.

The baby bunny is venturing out more.

Hydrangea, Endless Summer

Double day lilies

Trumpet Lily (Lilium regal) with bumble bee.