My Best Imitation

After a lovely morning on the patio in the cooling 74 degree weather (which never lasts long), I tromped out to pick up the game camera.  With so much water everywhere and so much greenery, there have been few visitors.  I caught one glimpse of a rabbit hind leg as he ran behind that cactus like there was a coyote on his tail.  That was it ..... no visitors ..... although the quail bock I put out had moved about twenty feet down the hill.

This beauty was most likely the culprit.  Just look at those ears!!!  This Momma drank for a long time and hung around after before wandering off down the hill.  It's so weird to see them at night.  I've never known deer to be up at this hour.  The camera date and time are wrong ... I forgot to reset it after replacing the batteries.

Okay, time to get to work.  I'm did my best imitation of a plumber.  The toilet in bathroom number two is leaking water badly.  It's that little red rubber thingy in the bottom.  Press on it and the water stops running.  I had the perfect solution.  I went outside and got the biggest rock I could find and set it on top of the rubber thingy.  It stopped running.  WHAT A PLUMBER, YES??  Of course I can't use that bathroom now, but I'll get another "thingy" tomorrow.

I had more important things to do ... like bake an apple pie so the house would smell better.  You may not know I live between two sets of railroad tracks.  The original one into Tucson built in the 1880's and the new faster version south of me.  That can occasionally become a problem when you have ice cream in the car.  The train is stopped.  If I had to wait for it to start up and those 125 cars to go by, my ice cream would be liquid.  Thankfully, someone pressed the button and the arms raised up.

BECAUSE ..... there was pie to bake .......

and eat with ice cream.  Yes, bad Nancy had this for breakfast.  The diet starts in earnest today as I say goodbye to my favorite foods.

Here's the recipe for that soup.  It's from Pressureluck Cooking (look it up on Facebook).  Some of his recipes aren't all that great, but this one is a keeper for me.  I cut everything in half so I wouldn't have to eat this for the next two weeks.  One can of chicken broth worked great, as did one 9.2 oz package of tortellini.  I also used 3/4 cup of half n half.  As to the Boursin cheese, you can substitute parmesan ... or any cheese (maybe mozzarella) or leave it out altogether.  I don't think it adds much flavor, but it makes it creamier.  NO hot sauce for me.

I did not make the soup hotter at the end ... it was just perfect after stirring everything in.  I hope you like it as much as I did.  

More games ensued as I tried to imitate a great quilter.  All went well until the thread broke and I couldn't remember how to tell it where to go.  Neither the instructions nor the lady on the phone could get it to work.  These are donation quilts, so it wasn't critical that it be perfect, but that's rather against my nature.  In desperation, I finally just started it up at the beginning of that row and went over the first stitching.  Naturally it was about 1/4 inch off.  Guess I'm not so good at imitating a quilter.  It will make a very nice doggie blanket.

I've got five more of these to do, so I'l get lots of practice before I start on my projects.  

I'm back to imitating ... this time a gardener.  I've discovered a big leak in the drip lines out front of the house.  It's going to require shovel work, so I better get to it before the heat shows up.