Thankful Sunday--June 7, 2014

I am thankful for sunshine and my cats.

After a rain, there is nothing like the warm feel of sunshine. I am thankful that my cats remind me of this sometimes when I get caught up in the busyness of the day.

A Second Look--June 4, 2014

Here are some things I saw this week during a

 Second Look.

The bearded iris are almost done blooming, but the Siberian iris are still showing their beautiful purple color.

The tulip poplar tree is blooming.

Ward and I had an interesting show one morning as we watched a neighborhood cat stalk a groundhog.

The very fragrant wild roses are blooming. 

The golden garlic is blooming. Every year, I never remember we have these plants until they bloom. So they're always a nice surprise.

The chickadee is starting to lay eggs in the new nest that was built on top of another chickadee nest.

The bluebird box was starting to get crowded with the growing babies. Three days after this, the box was empty. Now we're not the only ones with an empty nest. :)

After having a big serving of suet, the squirrel cleaned up seeds under the bird feeder.

Thankful Sunday--June 1, 2014

I am thankful for Theo, 

and Theo is thankful for a good bargain.

Yesterday, Ward and I visited Theodore to celebrate his recent birthday. He was excited to show us the latest acquisition for his future clock shop--an almost new shop vac that he got for a very good price. We are thankful that Theo is our son, and he is thankful that he got a very good price on this shop vac. :)

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--May 30, 2014

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. (Thanks to Jo from Simply Being Mum for sponsoring FWF this week.)

This Week's Food Waste

I knew that we had some potatoes that had to be used soon, but I didn't quite make it to them soon enough. We had one potato that was unsalvageable. If it had only been shriveled, I would have soaked it and used it. But alas, it was rotting too. Oh, well. The other two made some good fried potatoes.

This Week's True Food Confessions

I grew up in a time and place when bacon was king. Every morning, my hard-working, lineman father would have bacon and three eggs, over-easy, for breakfast. This meant an accumulation of bacon grease in our grease can. Some people kept their grease can on the stove, but my food-safety-conscious mother kept ours in the refrigerator. But nevertheless, we always had a delicious supply of bacon grease to cook with. And, boy, did our food taste good. However, we eventually became enlightened nutritionally, and my father started having a bowl of Total cereal every morning instead of bacon and eggs.  That made it hard to fill the grease can and at some point it was gone all together. We adapted, but we still occasionally drooled over the thought of over-easy eggs and potatoes fried with bacon grease.

So last night, I was having a bit of nostalgia and we had bacon for supper. This was for two reasons--one was to try out some naturally cured bacon (it was good), and two was to have some fried potatoes and wilted spinach-- both of which can't really be done properly without bacon. At least, not from my perspective. And to round it out, we had roasted asparagus. We were lucky because the spinach and asparagus were fresh from Uncle Billy's garden.

I got a bit distracted with my malfunctioning camera, and burned some of the fried potatoes, but the rest were good.  Almost as good as I remember Mrs. Shepherd's were. Mrs. Shepherd was a neighbor who kept her grease can on the stove and had fried potatoes every night for supper. I loved visiting her around that time. I also wilted the spinach in the bacon grease. Yum. So last night, we had a delicious supper where I managed to slip some vegetables in with our bacon. :)

A Second Look--May 28, 2014

Are you one of those people who everything reminds them of a song? Or is that just me? A thunderstorm was kicking up as I sat down to write this and here is what I started to sing. (Luckily, I'm at home where I can sing as much and as loudly as I want.) 

The winds are blowing and the rain is falling, 
But joy is filling the air
Troubles and sorrows are gone forever,
But song abounds everywhere.

I was reminded of this song by the gusting winds, but I also see now that it has the perfect words to go with how I often feel when doing a Second Look. When I am stressed, I can forget about my troubles for a little while as I explore the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees and the moon up above (Oh no, another song crept in). I think it's time to stop singing and get to the business at hand.

Here are some things I saw this week during

a Second Look.

The Siberian iris around our wellhead are in bloom.

Different bearded iris are also blooming.

The peach tree didn't have many blooms this year, but there are a few peaches starting to form.

The purple sage are in full bloom.

Little blossoms that fell from the holly tree above.

Cranesbill

You can see the blue feathers are starting to form on the baby bluebirds. It won't be long now before they leave the nest.

You can see how much the birds have changed in less than two weeks.