Food Waste Friday, September 16, 2011

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.  

Calamity 

Sometime in the last week, our chest freezer failed unbeknownst to us-- that is until the smell finally got strong enough to send us searching to find the very stinky, gross mess. Ward and Theodore, heroically, did most of the clean up of the many pounds of rotten meat and various other decaying things. They were on the front line because I had to go to work and Wally couldn't stomach the whole thing. He promptly volunteered to mow the grass.

Needless to say, much food went to waste. I don't have an inventory or really even want to know how much food went bad. It's sort of the "bury your head in the sand" ostrich response.

Until next time, when I hope for a boring post of maybe a tomato that got lost in the veggie drawer.

A Second Look--September 14, 2011

September is National Mushroom Month, so I'm focusing on mushrooms and other fungi this week in the Second Look around the yard. It's curious that in one area, where there were several white mushrooms, all of them were knocked over. I'm not sure how that happened, but in earlier days, I would have suspected Wally and Theodore. Also, I know essentially nothing about fungi, so I welcome any help in identifying things.

Here's what I found.

One of the white mushrooms that was knocked over. I've heard that squirrels and deer like mushrooms.

I don't know if these are little mushrooms are somehow related to the moss they're in.

Little fungi growing on mulch.

Orange, wavy fungus on stump.

White-edged fungus on rotting stump

Tan, flat-topped mushrooms

White fungus on rotting stump

Cluster of orange mushrooms

Hat Tip: A Place to Reside

We went to the Fair!

The Fair

Neighbors and friends

Ribbons and prizes

Chickens and goats 

Rain and mud

Hay rides and tractor pulls

Hot dogs and fried chicken

Pumpkins and tomatoes

Fun and excitement for all!

Food Waste Friday, September 9, 2011

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.
Playing with my food (waste) again.

We're barely managing to keep ahead of our everyday food waste, but we are--almost. This week's waste consisted of another peanut butter sandwich that got lost in my desk at work. Gotta pay more attention to this.

Also, I decided it was time to get rid of some old jelly beans and gum drops that we've had for months. As you will notice, there are only black jelly beans and yellow and purple gum drops. Guess which flavors we don't like? Once again, I'm guilty of hanging onto food that is good, but no one has any intention of eating.  Gotta get over this.

Peanut butter and black jelly beans. I wonder how this combination would taste if they were fresh (and if you liked black jelly beans.)

A Second Look--Sept. 7, 2011

It has been raining the last couple of days from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, so I had to go out between showers this week for a Second Look around the yard. I found a few surprises. First I found berries from a Jack-in-the-Pulpit wild flower. I had no idea that we had one of these and am looking forward to  Spring when I can see it in bloom. Next, I actually saw a cherry on one of our wild cherry trees. These trees produce very small, inconspicuous fruit that are a favorite of birds. Therefore, I don't remember ever seeing a ripe wild cherry.

In  addition, we are starting to get some colorful gold finches on our bird feeder. Mostly they are in our front yard where they are eating seeds from our dried coneflower blooms. However occasionally, they venture to the back to the feeder.

Here's a few sights from this week.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit berries

Seed pods on Japanese maple tree.

Geranium,"Rozanne"

Lone cherry on wild cherry tree.

Goldfinch

Juniper berries. These immature berries are actually modified cones.

Dogwood tree berries. Notice one of them has a drop of rain on it.