This is a good day to remember how blessed we are to live in this great country. I know we get disillusioned with politics and all that goes with it but when you consider the alternatives, we have it pretty darned good here in the USA!
Catch up time again.
We have been getting some nice little rains along. We did manage to get 20 acres of hay baled (dry) before the almost daily showers started again. The hay crew is just waiting for another dry spell and it looks like Tuesday - Thursday this week may be it. Finger crossing time again.
The rains have also kept me from doing much outside work. I have set a goal of at least one hour outside daily and haven't even been able to manage that.
The groundhog once again got all the peaches from the tree in the garden area....has missed the tree outside the kitchen so far. We are having zero luck trapping him.
I am afraid to even look closely at the garden.....I know I have a few tomato plants that should have been staked. When the leaves dry I am going to try to enclose them in some cages I have left from a few years ago.
The Japanese beetles have been as bad as I can recall. I am spraying with Sevin (and then it rains) and that seems to drop them. I tried using the orchard spray and now I see why the peaches are faulty. The next morning after spraying they were still eating away merrily. I am going back to my old method of mixing my own sprays. I suspect the government has intervened with the large companies and forced them to reduce the strength of current sprays on the market. They have still done considerable damage. Not much escapes their taste.
Cooking
I have not been doing much inspired cooking these days....or anything else
My 6-year old very large oven went kaput about a week ago. They had to order a part. Max suggested we could just eat 'store' bread for a while. After depleting all the frozen rolls and breads out of the freezer we bought a loaf. He decided he could live with it; I could not.
I have been using a very small countertop oven for biscuits and small things for a long time. Of course, it is too small for loaves of bread. Finally I decided to risk a small batch of dough for dinner rolls. I made 5 very large buns and 4 caramel rolls. I had to bake in three shifts but it worked great. We can use half a roll for a slice of bread (and the caramel rolls are gone!) have also ordered a larger oven to replace my small one. I will use it for most baking chores. I think it is more economical and also keeps the kitchen much cooler than using the large gas oven on my range. There is no telling when the part will come in and it will get fixed.
The serviceman did tell us that we can take the oven door apart and clean the glass. Very early on it leaked and has several streaks between the glass panels that look horrible. I am going to give it a whirl soon. If I can find the screw head that fits the weird holes on the screws.
This is my 16x12x9 current oven that is still working.
And these are the breads that I baked in it.
I haven't taken any recent pictures outside. The rains have knocked some things over. Scratch that comment. I just went outside with my boots on a took a few.
The first thing I saw was this:
I found this pink sport on my giant blue Shoal Creek Vitex this morning
I will save other pictures for a later post.
Again, Happy Fourth!
Catch up time again.
We have been getting some nice little rains along. We did manage to get 20 acres of hay baled (dry) before the almost daily showers started again. The hay crew is just waiting for another dry spell and it looks like Tuesday - Thursday this week may be it. Finger crossing time again.
The rains have also kept me from doing much outside work. I have set a goal of at least one hour outside daily and haven't even been able to manage that.
The groundhog once again got all the peaches from the tree in the garden area....has missed the tree outside the kitchen so far. We are having zero luck trapping him.
I am afraid to even look closely at the garden.....I know I have a few tomato plants that should have been staked. When the leaves dry I am going to try to enclose them in some cages I have left from a few years ago.
The Japanese beetles have been as bad as I can recall. I am spraying with Sevin (and then it rains) and that seems to drop them. I tried using the orchard spray and now I see why the peaches are faulty. The next morning after spraying they were still eating away merrily. I am going back to my old method of mixing my own sprays. I suspect the government has intervened with the large companies and forced them to reduce the strength of current sprays on the market. They have still done considerable damage. Not much escapes their taste.
Cooking
I have not been doing much inspired cooking these days....or anything else
My 6-year old very large oven went kaput about a week ago. They had to order a part. Max suggested we could just eat 'store' bread for a while. After depleting all the frozen rolls and breads out of the freezer we bought a loaf. He decided he could live with it; I could not.
I have been using a very small countertop oven for biscuits and small things for a long time. Of course, it is too small for loaves of bread. Finally I decided to risk a small batch of dough for dinner rolls. I made 5 very large buns and 4 caramel rolls. I had to bake in three shifts but it worked great. We can use half a roll for a slice of bread (and the caramel rolls are gone!) have also ordered a larger oven to replace my small one. I will use it for most baking chores. I think it is more economical and also keeps the kitchen much cooler than using the large gas oven on my range. There is no telling when the part will come in and it will get fixed.
The serviceman did tell us that we can take the oven door apart and clean the glass. Very early on it leaked and has several streaks between the glass panels that look horrible. I am going to give it a whirl soon. If I can find the screw head that fits the weird holes on the screws.
This is my 16x12x9 current oven that is still working.
I haven't taken any recent pictures outside. The rains have knocked some things over. Scratch that comment. I just went outside with my boots on a took a few.
The first thing I saw was this:
I found this pink sport on my giant blue Shoal Creek Vitex this morning
I will save other pictures for a later post.
Again, Happy Fourth!
