A Great Celebration!!

 There was a great celebration across the land ... the beginning of our year long 250th birthday as a nation.   It's truly amazing when you think about where we were way back then compared to where we are now.  The innovation is just mind boggling, especially when you grew up with an outhouse and a hand crank well.  My how things have changed.

It was a very sad day however for those in Texas who had the river rise over 20 feet and wash away a Christian camp.  My heart and prayers go out to those families.

That made me appreciate the sunshine and my garden all the more.  It's growing so huge that the chocolate tomatoes required a chair to rest upon.  Two of four huge branches were laying on the hot concrete, which made for dead tomatoes.  

Seriously, I don't now if it's the epsom salts or the horse manure soil, but these guys are just producing like nothing I've ever seen!!  Those little containers you see in the store?  Every day I gather up enough to fill one to the top.  The neighbors now love me, as long as I don't include any zucchini!

Speaking of my neighbors ... here they are!  They provided me with a little mini parade at 6:00 in the morning.  Diehard Americans they are ... decorating up their trucks for the morning small town parade.

Two of them ... twins as it were ... along with their matching car with flashing colored lights.  One Hundred Percent PATRIOTISM here!!  They drove slow, flashed their lights and provided me with a parade of my own.  

Even HALO gets in on the act!!  He gets to participate in the parade too!!  This is Cooper's best friend, the kid next door that has just as many allergies as Cooper does!!  He's such a sweetheart!!

Back inside, my morning brought a little sad news.  My sourdough starter which should be ready for the next round, just did not smell good.  The nose knows ... and my nose smelled a rat.  I've no idea why ... maybe because it's been too hot in the house ... but into the trash it went.  I'm not taking any chances on poisoning myself.

I have plenty of bread to eat.  Besides that, as I wandered through my bread machine cookbook, I found it has almost the exact same recipes as the sourdough book.  Maybe they won't taste quite as GOOD, but they sure are a whole lot easier to make!!

I set up another round of starter and will wait the seven days for it to become yeasty before trying it again.

That left me with nothing to do but sew.  So ... I sewed ... but that was boring.  How about setting up my mini hot tub slash swimming pool!  I filled it to the brim and did the TOE TEST.  CRIKEY!!!  My well water is COLD!!  There will certainly be no morning swim taking place around here!!

I watched a little Calgary Rodeo ... one of the BEST (thank you Canada) ... before heading out for a little sun.  Wow did things ever heat up quickly outside.  In no time I was lounging in the POOL trying to cool off.  Note to self ... set up a little cocktail table.  

Thirty minutes later it had turned into a HOT tub, resembling a bathtub instead of a pool.  Okay, I was done with that!!  

Back inside, I worked on this new quilt.  It's hard to see all the designs in this fabric due to the dark colors.  This is another stash buster since it's been in the cupboard for about ten years.  The good news is fabric does not go bad like sourdough starter.

And then it began ... the BANG BANG BOOM of bombs and missiles being set off at the back of my house.  I have to admit it wasn't as bad as years past.  There was nothing all day long, and this noise didn't begin until 8:30.  It went on until 11:00.  

Where do they get these commercial fireworks?  All illegal of course and they shake the windows of my house.  They cancelled the BIG ONE fireworks show at the old Air Base because of the wind, so these folks had their OWN party close enough to my house to start fires.  I just don't get it.  Who raised these people?

I watched as bits and pieces fell into my corrals, but luckily nothing caught fire.  I heard fire trucks all around the area, so everyone wasn't as lucky.  

Happily, Mr. Cooper doesn't mind the loud booms.  Jonathan fell off his perch twice, but survived.  I'm hopeful that they fired off everything they had last night and it won't continue tonight.  I'll put a big pillow at the bottom of Jon's cage, just in case.  

As much as I would like to lounge in my "pool" today, I'm off to the fabric store.  Use some .. buy more!  I've got two Veterans quilts to quilt, but not enough backing material.  I'm putting on my blinders before I even go through the door.  

Oh LOOK ..... FABRIC!!!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

 Well GOOD MORNING she said through scratchy tired eyes, the likes of which just make you want to close them permanently!  HAPPY JULY FOURTH!!  It's Independence Day, for which I am eternally thankful.  We live on the greatest continent with our neighbors from Canada, in one of the greatest countries, if not THEE greatest, in the world.  We are truly BLESSED.

I thought the nighttime celebrations on July 3rd would look like this in my back yard.  Amazingly, that was not the case.  I'm shocked!!  I only heard one big bang all night long.

HOWEVER ... life with the ghosties in this house did NOT let me sleep.  At around 2:30 in the morning, I heard this horrible noise.  What the heck?  WHAT IS THAT?  I walked out the bedroom door to find this screeching at me, sometimes LOUD and sometimes not quite so loud.  

This is my doorbell that has not worked in five years.  Why oh why are you screeching at me now?  I went outside, thankfully remembering to turn the alarms off first, and hit the doorbell several times.  I knew it didn't work, so why is it buzzing?  Nothing ... that did nothing.  It continued to wail.

Really you guys?  It's 2:30 in the morning.  I grabbed my ladder and my trusty screwdriver, not having any idea what I was going to do with it.  I loosened the red wire and pulled it off.  Ahhhhhhh ... quiet.  I've no idea what went wrong, or how to fix it, nor do I really want to learn how to install doorbells.  UGH ... back to bed I went, only to lay eyes wide open!!  Well that was fun!!

Back to yesterday and my bread making career ... but first, let's gather more vegetables.  Had I known this was going to turn me into a vegetarian, I might not have planted ANYTHING.  What am I going to do with all this stuff??

Maybe some morning French bread with jam and butter will bring on some ideas.  You know, carb loading like I was going to run a marathon!  Oh Nancy, this is SO SO bad for your diet.  I have to admit though, ANY homemade bread is good, even if it's bad.

Now for the REAL CHALLENGE.  I turned my oven on to 500 degrees like the sourdough recipe said.  Trouble is, my oven won't heat up that high any more.  It's been sick for maybe 8 years and the doctor is too expensive.  I just use my little Breville oven instead.  Anyhoo, I set the oven at 550 and hoped for the best.  In went my little cast iron oven to preheat.

Once close to temperature, or at least as hot as the oven was going to get, I took the bread out of the fridge, dumped it unceremoniously on a piece of parchment paper, then dropped it into the screaming hot pan.  Score the top ... but the problem was with WHAT.  I didn't have a sharp knife in the drawer, so I got out my box cutter.  Not exactly sanitary, but it worked.  Cover ... bake 20 minutes.  Take the screaming hot lid OFF and bake another 20 minutes.  The wait was excruciating!

BUT WOOHOO ... LOOKY HERE!!!!  WE HAVE SOURDOUGH!!  And it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

Of course the taste will tell ... but you have to wait FOUR HOURS for it to cool completely before slicing.  What happened to instant gratification?  I waited not so patiently.  Slicing it up to eat brought about another problem.  You know sourdough has a hard crust and is very difficult to slice.  Hmmm I need a bread slicer.  

I nibbled the corner.  Well what do you know.  In spite of mixing the recipe completely backwards, it actually tasted just like sourdough bread!  And the texture is PERFECT!

SUCCESS!!!  But the REAL taste test was a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.  I threw all caution and my diet out the window.  It was beyond delicious!

I spent the afternoon basking in the aura of my new title ..... Sourdough Bread Maker .... while cutting up a new quilt.  I'm at a standstill on the Veterans quilts until I find backing for two, which means a trip to the quilt store.  

In the meantime, I kept wracking my brain about what to do with all those veggies that I was being forced to eat.  GIVE ME MEAT!  White or red, it doesn't matter.  Finally, while watching the rodeo channel, I had a brilliant idea.  COWBOY CAVIAR!  

Yessiree ... the perfect answer to a tiny garden that's producing like crazy.  Can-o-corn, CHERRY TOMATOES, red onions, chopped CUCUMBER, chopped ZUCCHINI and a can of olives.  Mix it all up with Italian dressing, which in this case magically turned into sweet onion dressing.  Top it off with a piece of toasted homemade French bread because I didn't want to throw it away.  YUM!!!

And so my friends ... today I suppose I'll have to hit up Amazon for a doorbell ... or maybe actually drive to Home Depot.  I'm really not hot on replacing this thing.  I mean what if I hook another one up and it STILL doesn't work?  I really don't want to replace the actual push button thingy either.  

I would call my Elks Handyman friend, but he's already on the hook to weld a locking mechanism on my back gate, so I hate to ask for more.  Besides, he's off on a two month motorcycle ride to Alaska.

Instead, I'll just eat slice after slice of sourdough while mixing up another batch to bake tomorrow.  That one will go in the freezer before stashing the starter in the fridge to sleep for a few weeks.  

NO, I'm NOT getting on the scales ... I killed the diet for two days, there's no use killing my enthusiasm along with it!!  I'll be in the garden!!

I'm Squashed Out And Floured Head To Toe!

 Early morning gardening really wasn't on my list of exciting things to do, but there it was.  Out we go first thing to water the tomatoes ... not that I need any more tomatoes.  Every single day, this is the harvest.  But LOOK HERE!  Is that a cucumber?  

I kept looking at that plant absolutely COVERED in blossoms, but I never did see a cucumber.  However ... and this is the interesting part ... on this day I found this cucumber completely hidden at the base of the plant, and it looks absolutely NOTHING like the picture on the tag when I bought it.  It's not even close.  I'm guessing these are "pickle" cucumbers.  

But wait ... there's MORE!  I picked four on this day, along with THREE more zucchini.  I'm definitely getting squashed out.

Back inside, Mr. Cooper was already snoring away.  He sleeps most the entire morning long nowadays.  It makes me sad ... not much ball playing any more.

Here's another CHILD that has to be watched constantly.  Someone mentioned sourdough bread and I remember saying "I used to make that".  SQUIRREL .. let's make some bread.  After six days of babysitting this thing, it's time to flour up the kitchen.  

Step one ... stir well and remove half.  Or rather get out your scale because every single recipe I could find called for GRAMS instead of cups.  

Step two ... add the required amount of flour to make autolyse, whatever THAT is.  I checked several other recipes trying to find something in English, but to no avail.  Leave that in a warm place (the counter worked for that since it was HOT yesterday) for two hours.  

That's where things kind of fell apart.  Nancy made a big BOO-BOO.  I should have added the water to the flour and let it sit for 30 minutes before adding THAT to the autolyse.  It turned into something akin to sticky plaster.  By now flour is covering the countertops.  

No worries ... worst thing that can happen is it ends up in the trash.  Now it gets covered up and "proofed" for .... count them .... FIVE HOURS.  But wait ... you have to thrash it around every 30 minutes for the first 90 minutes.  By now flour is all over the floor.  Who came up with this crazy idea?????

To pass the time, I tried to get rid of that squash by cooking another bag of those terrible meatballs, along with some creamy spaghetti sauce that has been in the cupboard for almost a year.  I had to buy TWO at Costco.  I hated the first one, and I hated the SECOND one.  Unfortunately, I'll have to eat it for the next three days.

I was relatively sure the sourdough bread was going to be a disaster, so I decided to back my bet with some bread machine French.  I was actually concerned that just flour, water and yeast wasn't really going to taste all that great, and I was right.  BUT I will toast it up and smother it in boysenberry jam for flavor.  

Still waiting .... until finally it was time to dump the mass out on the floured board, because flour on the counter and floor is just not enough.  Now I'M covered in flour from head to toe.  Let it rest 30 minutes.  Good grief .. this stuff is getting more rest than COOPER!!  

I worked on the puzzle for all that time and finally found six new pieces.

AT LONG LAST ... very delicately make it into a boule (WHAT?) and stick it in a lined basket.  Thank goodness I didn't throw that basket away last week.  

No one told me it takes TWO DAYS to make one little loaf.  Who knew?  Well probably Terry Russell because I can hear her laughing as I type.  She's a cook extraordinaire!!

So what happened then?  You're not going to believe this ... it goes INTO THE FRIDGE for the next 10-12 hours to proof.  And so as of this morning, here it is, safely tucked into a pillowcase because I didn't have the required whatever-it's-called.  

There is certainly NO instant gratification involved in sourdough bread making.  This morning, after heating the cast iron dutch oven in the 500 degree oven for an hour, I will drop this baby upside down in it and begin the baking.  The problem is my oven's temperature gauge has been on the fritz for about five years.  There's no telling what temp it will be.  Forty Five minutes later will tell the tale.  

In the meantime, I will remove the flour from two big counters, the floor, the ceiling and ME, while washing a load of flour covered laundry.  Whereupon I'll probably be out picking even MORE zucchini and some WEIRD cucumbers!!

Squashed and floured, I'm signing out!!

The New Caller

 What can I say ..... it's HOT.  Not as hot as Arizona I imagine, but it's an ugly hot here.  Wouldn't you know that the day our Secretary takes off for ten days ... and you know who has to put on her Secretary hat ... the air conditioning going out in the office.  Completely ... no cool at all ... won't even turn on.  In other words, it's toast.  

So when I arrived yesterday morning at 9:00, it was already 85 degrees in spite of the two fans in the office.  Hopefully all those folks who were so mad at me for killing their fanciful expenditures, will now realize why.  Things happen, and this was a $12,500 thing.  We have a three story building this new unit has to go on top of.  SO ...... I went back home.

In no time, because it just seems to fly right out the window, I was BACK for BINGO!!  The office was up to 90 degrees by that time.  I grabbed all the paperwork and headed to the bar to peruse the bills.  SO much fun ... but the best was yet to come.

Both of my gals showed up, leaving me free to hit the bingo machine and once again practice handling the bingo balls.  They are actually ping pong balls ... super light and easy to drop.  I pulled 50 of them for the Bonanza game while the girls sold the cards.

And THEN ... the NEW CALLER arrived.  ME!!!  I'm the new Bingo Caller!  My Knight in Shining Armor called the first game while I watched, then I took over.  SCARED to death, but ready for the slings and arrows.  I made a couple of mistakes right off the bat.  It's nerve wracking to pull one ball while adjusting the next one so it shows up on the television screens, all the while watching the timer that tells you the exact second to call the number.  Surprisingly, no pitchforks came out.

Obviously no pictures ... I was WAY too busy.  The next game went just fine ... one lucky winner ... and on to the third.  BUT ... and there's always a BUT ... the flaming torches showed up in SPADES!  I dumped the board and began the next game without dropping the ball in the camera.  OOOWEEE did I ever get YELLED AT!!  

To make it worse ... the gal in front of me won $1199 on the first game, then won THE SECOND GAME.  If looks could kill, I wouldn't be typing right now.  Thank goodness the first four games went rather fast.  

To my shock and surprise ... the King said to call the Early Bird Games also.  Wait ... that's FIVE MORE GAMES.  I felt like I didn't know what I was doing, but I muddled through the next two games before one player came up to the stage in a RAGE!!  No kidding, she was screaming bloody murder!!

That lady keeps calling me a Mexican and says she's going to kill me.  What?  YOU HEARD ME!!  Thank goodness my Knight was still on the stage with me.  Here's what happened.  

We have one player of Asian descent who has Alzheimers.  This is the only thing she knows or remembers ... playing Bingo.  Every week her husband drops her off (probably not the best thing to do) so she can play and he gets a break.  She has never caused a problem before, but if you've ever been involved with this terrible disease, you know the symptoms.  When I looked up, they were both in a rage and shaking their fists.  

It took some time to calm them both down before I could continue.  How sad for everyone involved.  

Back to calling, I knew not what I was doing and couldn't remember what I was supposed to say each time, but I muddled through it without getting yelled at again.  In all I called EIGHT GAMES!!

The sweet grandmothers said I did a great job.  I certainly didn't feel like it, but with a little practice, I will get better!!  In the end, it was rather fun.  The best part ... I don't have to sit at the infernal machine all night long without a break!!

I celebrated with a cheeseburger and fries.  BIG MISTAKE Nancy, BIG!!  Now I was miserably full.

I ended the night not quite balancing the infernal machine, but it was fixable, so I showed my new cohort how to take charge.  I was out the door by 9:00.

Now for the bad news.  The King says for the next few weeks, I have to stay until the very end so I can learn how to close up the place when he's gone.  Oh yeah ... like that's two hours after my bed time!!  The New Caller protesteth (I'm sure that's a word) to no avail!!!

Though I would like to sleep in this morning, I'm off to the office to check messages and mail while it is still relatively cool.  Then I'm going to find a cool dark room and crash!!!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!!

And POOF ..... just like that, June disappeared into the sunrise.  It's July 1st ... and that means HAPPY CANADA DAY to all my Canadian friends!! 

Though Mr. Cooper wanted to celebrate with me, he just could not hold back the NAP.  He also seems to be having a bad hair day.  

I on the other hand, started out the day brilliantly.  I had bread pudding for breakfast.  Why was it brilliant?  Because I took a big swig of that REAL Canadian Maple Syrup and stirred it in to the sauce.  It made it even better than bourbon!!  I guess that means I can eat the entire casserole now.

That brought up the other GREAT day.  It was National Clean Your Garbage Disposal Day!  Who knew?  As you can tell, it DOES need to be cleaned, even if I never use it.  They are great for city dwellers, but bad news for a septic system.

Now that THAT is out of the way, it was on to Home Depot.  My list was not long, but it was rather frustrating.  I knew where the Miracle Grow was (one tomato plant is looking quite sad) because it lives next to the Roundup weed spray.  That last stuff I bought last time didn't work at all.  What a waste of money!  I tried the home recipe too, but it only made them a little sick.

I was then on the hunt for Dap gutter repair.  Of course it was in the exact opposite end of the store.  They didn't have any ... and only one said it was actually for gutters.  The last thing on the list was a small propane bottle.  Not the green ones, but maybe a 1 gallon small one.  

They literally had me going to all four corners of the huge store ... to find not a single bottle.  I don't know where people get them, but I would like to have one for my patio barbecue and not be throwing away bottle after bottle of the small ones that don't last more than three times.

I returned home to find this guy once again sitting on the top of the couch.  Apparently that is the lookout station.  It's so sad that he misses me so much.  I find I'm staying home more and more just to keep him company.  Even worse, his eyesight is getting bad, and he didn't even see me when I snuck in the house.  Lots of love and scratches made it better I guess.

We headed outside immediately, only to find THIS!  Oh my ... this stuff is growing like crazy now.  

After fertilizing everything and contemplating the ladder for gutter repairs, I decided caution was the better part of valor.  Maybe I can find a volunteer.  Instead, I drug out the air fryer and cooked another batch of bacon.  EVERYTHING goes good with bacon .......

Especially zucchini!!

I spent the afternoon doing this ... decoupage.  Anyone remember doing this back in the dark ages?  It's interesting to note I have very little interest in all that crafty stuff we used to do.  I seriously don't know how we had time to make all our Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, house decorations, change the furniture around once a month, gather all the vines for wreath making, drive to the coast and back once a week, grow a HUGE garden and actually work 7 days a week!   How did we DO that?

I saw this and thought how cute it would be with candles inside ... so I ordered the stuff.  It sat on the counter for a week before I actually got motivated enough to do just one.  Brush on mod podge, place dried flowers and mod podge it once again.  Let dry.

DONE!  It's actually much prettier in person, but you get the idea.  Thank goodness I didn't try to dry the flowers too!!!  The idea was to make ten of them for the patio, but I pared it down to five on my living room shelves, which ended up being ONE on the stove.  I'll try to get a little more motivated.  Maybe when the fake flickering candles arrive I'll get back into the swing of it.

That was it for the day, and a very nice day it was.  Tonight I'll be off to the Magic Kingdom of Bingo where for the first time EVER ...   I will be calling the pull tab games.  Nervous?  You betcha!!!  I'm waring my steel underwear just in case I mess up and see flaming arrows heading my direction!!

HAPPY CANADA DAY EVERYONE!!!

The Truth Comes Out

 Ninety nine degrees was the magic number of the day for what was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday of healing up.  But when you get an invitation for breakfast ... you go.  Mr. Cooper and I were up early as usual, heading out on our morning walk.

I laugh at this skateboard every time we go by it.  This is old time ... anyone else put roller skate wheels on a board and try to slide around 90 degree concrete sidewalk corners?  It's been hanging out here for ages, broken in half.

This is SO very true ... Cooper makes EVERY day a GREAT day for me.  Except yesterday, when I headed out to breakfast.  I forgot something and had to return, to find him crying at the back door.  Talk about making me feel bad ... I almost cried myself!!  

Almond Tree was the restaurant choice ... one of only two in town open for breakfast.  I met my friend who asked me to help do all that serving.  The truth comes out.  It turns out the only reason she wanted to be there was not to really help, or even to get a nice prime rib dinner.  

It seems her grandson has been selected as an Aide in Washington DC.  Her only reason for doing this was to smooze with the politicians, handing out his business cards to them.  She's trying to get him hired full time in the sleazy world of politicians!  Hmmmm next time I'll ask more questions.

Breakfast was chicken fried steak, scrambled eggs and country potatoes.  I'll be honest ... though they raved about it, I've had better.  

The REAL reason for the meet was to take my sewing machine over to their boat and stitch a nylon handle on to the rod holder.  My machine is as heavy as can be, and it took two of us to get it IN the boat, not leaving much deck space for moi!  To make it worse, my machine is foot controlled only.  I finally half laid down on the deck and worked the foot control with my hand.  SUCCESS!  We got it done!

When I got back home, breakfast brought up the question ... why oh why don't I just make my OWN breakfast.  After all, I have all those eggs I bought for $1.99 a dozen!!

I chopped and hacked up every veggie I had in the fridge, adding lots of eggs and cheese.  It became lunch ... and was SO much better than breakfast!!

I finally snuck in a little nap before finding my cutting board under all those boxes in my laundry room.  Remember I was going to cut it down?  That brought about a frenzy of cupboard door opening, looking for the sander I KNEW I had SOMEWHERE.  Looky here!!!  FOUND IT!

After ten minutes of sanding, I took it out for a fit check.  IT'S PERFECT!!  Now I have a little more counter space in the van.  It slides back and forth perfectly ... but hopefully is still tight enough to not bang around when traveling.  

There were no more naps, but I finally remembered to check the zucchini again.  It's just amazing how fast they grow when it's hot!  Half of ONE is one meal, so I better get busy eating!!  

By the way, I looked through my phone for an hour trying to find that Kings Hawaiian roll bread pudding recipe so I could post it.  I'm guessing I accidentally deleted it.  I looked online, but none of those recipes are even close.  Hopefully I come across it again soon, because it was (and still is) DELICIOUS!  Yes, only 1/3 left to eat!!

By the way, I think I forgot to mention the centerpieces at the dinner.  They were really beautiful.  When the nice lady said to please take them home, I snatched this one.  Maybe it will last until July 4th!!!

Speaking of which, I got a giant reprieve yesterday.  Another friend was having a food booth at the local July 4th Parade.  Her help ghosted her and she called me.  You know I can't say NO.  That meant a 6:00 am arrival .... UGH .... I only do that once a year on Mother's Day.

Lucky for me, not only did her help call back, but the help is buying the whole shebang ... food trailer and all.  WOOHOO!!  Sometimes saying yes works out just fine in the end.

We're in for another scorcher today.  Summer has finally arrived in Central California.