Thankful Sunday--August 11, 2013

I am thankful for my new running shoes.

I am not a runner, but I appreciate the lightweight support these shoes give me. I am not a runner, but these may turn me into a walker.

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Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Aug. 9, 2013

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. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions.

This Week's Food Waste

A little cucumber and tomato salad. 

  
The fridge has been fuller than normal recently with fresh produce and somehow the last bit of this salad got hidden in the back. However, we really do like it, so I made another one today.  I don't think this one is going to get lost because I not only made another one today, we ate it all today.

 

This Week's True Food Confessions

Our treat for the week--yellow watermelon

My true food confession for this week-- I'm getting tired of cooking regularly. That should come as no surprise if you have read many of these posts before. There are many other things I would rather do than cook, but it is important part of every day life so I guess I'll stick with it. I'm going to have to think of a way to shake things up though because the thought of eating out seems more and more attractive every day. I mean every day I want to eat out. Oh well, let's move on.

We were lucky this weekend to go to a couple of cookouts.We took the food for one of them, but it still felt like a treat. Also, we used fresh tomatoes to make a mushroom and tomato sauce for tortellini one night. Another night was chicken and potstickers and yet another we had pizza (still can't say enough about Aldi's take and bake pizza.) Despite all of my longing to not cook, we actually only had takeout one night with Subway Sandwiches. 

I didn't try a new recipe this week, but I did try a new food--yellow watermelon. The outside of the watermelon looked the same, but the flesh inside was yellow instead of pink. The novelty of the melon got "I-don't-like-watermelon" Wally to try it. And guess what? He liked it as much as everyone else. 

Until next time... 

A Second Look--August 7, 2013

We've had a lot of rain off and on so I didn't get to do a good look at the lower part of the yard like I hoped. However, there was still plenty to see close to the house. The tiger lilies are gone and many of the butterflies have left with them, but not all. I haven't seen the monarch caterpillars for a couple of weeks, so I hope they have gone off to build a chrysalis. I've looked in the area a little, but there are enough shrubs, trees, and weeds around they could be anywhere. It seems as if the tussock caterpillar numbers are on the rise and they have been joined by milkweed bugs that are starting to hatch. I will say that the milkweed plants host a lot of interesting activity.

On the bird front, the other three sparrow eggs have not hatched and after a couple weeks, probably aren't going to. The lone baby is continuing to develop and has gotten some real feathers while the bluebird mother is still sitting on her eggs.  It seems like there is more activity at the feeder with both kinds and numbers of birds. However, I'm never quite sure if the numbers are increasing or I'm just watching at the right time.

Unfortunately, I have seen one house finch with conjunctivitis. This is a well known problem in the finch population and affects approximately 5-10% of them. What this means to me is that I need to clean my bird feeder with bleach to cut down on chance of spread. This is something that is recommended to be done every two weeks, but it doesn't happen that often here.

Here are some of the things I saw this week during a Second Look.

The surprise lilies came up this week. They are called surprise lilies because their leaves come up and die months before the flowers emerge.

This is the last variety of hosta to bloom this summer.

It's hard to make everything out in this messy sparrows nest, but notice the unhatched eggs and the feathers forming on the one baby.

These will turn into orange and black milkweed bugs.

Skipper Butterfly on Black-Eyed Susan

The downy woodpecker is one of the birds I'm seeing in greater numbers at the feeder. The red patch on the back of the head is the tell-tale sign that this one is a male.

Part of our shade garden with Japanese painted fern, hydrangea, lambs ear, and nettle. You can't see the  large hosta framing the sides (pictured above) or the teaberry growing underneath.

Freezer Jam

I love the taste of freezer jam because of how fresh the fruit tastes. I made some recently and it lasted exactly two days before I pulled it out of the freezer to eat. So much for fresh fruit taste in the middle of the upcoming winter. :)
 

If you haven't made freezer jam, give it a try because it is very easy. There is usually a recipe on the pectin box or try allrecipes for a recipe and technique.

Today...

Today I am going to be full of energy.

Sometimes the amount of energy I feel is a mindset. Today I am going to imagine I have all of the energy of these waves and have a very productive day.

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