the Stephen Foster Story

The Stephen Foster Story is a musical play performed at an outdoor theater in Bardstown, Kentucky...near the site of "Federal Hill", the mansion that Stephen Foster wrote the song "My Old Kentucky Home" about.

 The play has been held every summer for years, and we have often talked about going to see it.
So when I recently came across a special for half price tickets, I didn't hesitate to make a reservation.

Curtain time is 8:00 in the evening but we drove down to Bardstown early to have dinner and look around town a bit.

We ate at Kurtz Restaurant...in this stately old stone home.

There were several dining rooms. We were seated in this bright and sunny front room. We had it to ourselves for a few minutes before more diners arrived.

Our meal was "meh".  They bring out fried cornbread and sliced beets(?) before the meal, then bring more cornbread and rolls with the meal.  Lonnie had a roast turkey dinner and I had a salad with grilled chicken.

Everything was okay and edible...but not so good that you'd go back again. 

We had extra time before the show so we drove around awhile admiring neighborhoods of well kept old homes and buildings (and a few dilapidated ones).  We drove past some of the bourbon warehouses. 

We said we should definitely do the "Kentucky Bourbon Trail" sometime, which is a map of all the distilleries around the region. Most have tours and/or visitors centers now.

Lots of bourbon here! 

Then - time to head over to the theater.  It's built on a hill, the box office at the top.

Southern belles in full skirted dresses outside to greet us.

Wish I could have one of those lovely pink dresses....

But wait....maybe I can!

I'm ready for my close-up!   

It would have been hilarious if I could have convinced Lonnie to stand behind there instead...like a cross-dressing Colonel Sanders!

But, back to the subject. After you pass through the box office, gift shop and concession area, you are in the theater. The seats are facing down the hill to the stage at the bottom.

We had great seats in the front row, but that meant climbing up and down the stairs for a bathroom break during intermission. 

The show began with the full cast in their costumes, singing Stephen Foster songs.  All ages, including children.

Then the story of Stephen Foster.  

To change scenes, several different smaller stages were rolled out, then back away.

To represent Foster's time in Bardstown, a curtain was dropped to reveal a mock-up of Federal Hill. 

It was an enjoyable and well done production!

Just as it was getting dark we were bothered by an army of little black gnats. They didn't bite, but everyone was slapping at them for a while.   

The show lasted just over 2 hours including an intermission.  We are hardly ever out that late!

the birds and the bees

A few weeks ago the Sasquatch was moving stuff around in his shed and noticed a big pile of fluffy goose down in a corner... inside were a few largish eggs.

He didn't see the goose that made the nest until a few days later. She was going in and out through an open window not too far off the ground.    She would hang around awhile - maybe laying more eggs - then finally she began setting on them.

It's funny that she chose that spot. She walked a pretty good distance from his neighbor's farm pond, was brave enough to jump in that open window and browse around in there for a good nesting spot.

According to info on the internet, the babies should be hatching soon. The Sasquatch was wondering if they would be able to get out of the shed through that same window when the time comes...so he has been leaving the shed door open in the daytime and closing it each night.

Mama Goose had pushed one of her eggs away from the nest.  After it was there a couple of days the Sasquatch removed it.  Here is that egg compared to a regular chicken egg.  

I hope we get to see some photos of the baby geese before Mama takes them off to the pond.

Also the Sasquatch took these amazing close-up photos of bees that were collecting nectar from his "Rose of Sharon" bushes.  He had noticed that the bees were so weighed down with pollen that it was hard for them to fly.

Zooming in. You can see the tiny grains of pollen clinging to the bee's furry body and legs!

Look at that big eye! You can even see the tiny claws on his feet.

This one had landed on his car roof rack for a rest, and seemed to be trying to clean some of the pollen off.

So interesting to really get a good look at these busy little creatures.

He said the bees didn't really seem to be bothered by him getting so close to them.  They were just busy doing their job.

Still wishing I could get good photos like these.

nutty chocolate caramel bars

This recipe has been in my stack of "haven't tried yet" recipes for years. It came from a bag of Diamond walnuts and I like to try recipes from product packaging. I figure they try a lot of recipes to come up with something really good to sell more of their product.
 
It calls for caramel ice cream topping, so last week, when I realized I had 2 open jars of caramel sauce in the fridge (from a mark down sale), it seemed like a perfect time to try these...

Nutty Chocolate Caramel Bars
2  cups flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup butter, melted
12 oz. package semi sweet chocolate morsels
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts
1 cup caramel ice cream topping

Combine 2 cups flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda,and salt in a large bowl (I used my stand mixer).

Add melted butter; stir until all ingredients are moistened.

Reserve 1 cup of this crumb mixture; press remaining mixture into bottom of ungreased 9"x13" baking pan.   ( I used the buttery side of a butter wrapper to press the mixture).

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. 

Remove from oven; sprinkle with morsels and walnuts, Drizzle with caramel sauce.

Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool in pan then slice in small squares or rectangles.

We had these for dessert after our Sunday dinner of Italian Beef, macaroni salad, sauteed cabbage, potato cakes, and cauliflower casserole with added zucchini...and 3 varieties of sliced cucumbers that the Sasquatch brought from his garden.

The bars were pretty rich  - probably a better winter time dessert.  My family liked them okay, but not a favorite. 

All day it was cloudy here and looking like it would rain any minute but just a few drops fell off and on until nearly dark. Then we got a nice thunderstorm!

quilting time

We got a bit of rain about mid-morning yesterday.  
That made me think it would be a good time to do some machine quilting. I like to sew when it rains!

Each time before I start quilting on my machine, I do some stitching on a scrap quilt sandwich (top, batting back).  I try out different thread colors and designs and check to be sure the tension is right on the top and the back.

About the time I got started quilting - the rain stopped. I decided to go ahead with it anyway.

I have a small counter height rolling table that I park next to my machine table. It helps to support the weight of the quilt as I sew.

Sometimes I listen to the radio or comedy shows on Netflix while I work. This time I was watching YouTube videos of my favorite quilting instructor/designer/ author, Bonnie Hunter.

I had considered using a brown variegated thread for the quilting...but went with a light gold color instead.

It stands out more than I would like against the dark fabrics but once it's all finished it will be fine.

On the back, I used the brown fabric that I had originally bought for sashing and borders but had decided it wasn't dark and chocolatey enough.

It's a nice brown though and has a nice smooth, soft feel to it - perfect for a back.

There wasn't quite enough of the brown, though...but I had some teddy bear fabric that coordinates pretty well with it.  And those bears are cute!

I have the hardest part behind me now - quilting the center of the quilt. It gets easier to slide it around as you work out toward the edges.

It's hard to stay out of the sewing room...I keep wanting to go in there and work on this quilt some more!

just zip it

An upside down plastic milk crate makes a perfect seat for when I'm weeding the flower beds. It's easy to carry, easy to move, and when I'm finished, I can turn it over and gather up the weeds or use it to carry my tools.

The problem is...those crates are designed to hold 4 gallons of milk - about 34 pounds, and I weigh substantially more than that!

So my milk crate started cracking between the side and bottom. I was afraid I would get pinched in there, so I fixed it up with zip ties.

That worked for a while but then then another side started cracking.   I haven't tried putting more zip ties on it yet. I have other milk crates but this one still seems too good to throw away!

Anyway, there are a few things blooming around the yard.

Out front around our red maple a few hostas are bloomimg, and a yellow helianthis...

In the back porch border, the St Johns Wort (yellow) is beginning to bloom and Catmint (purple).

The shade bed is filling in and one of the hostas are blooming there too... 

 Here is a nice bright combination that I like...purple gladiolus and red crocosmia....

It's a huge clump of crocosmia... 

I am keeping my eye on  these wild blackberries growing right by the edge of our yard...

A few are ripe already.  They are small and seedy but still tasty!

It seems like blackberry picking always results in a lot of itchy chigger bites.  I'll have to decide if the berries look good enough to suffer through the bites!

more about catalpa worms

My blog has a "statistics" page that I can look at. It doesn't tell me who is reading my blog...but it tells me things like what country the readers are from and which posts get the most views.

It's surprising to me - but a post I did about Catalpa Worms two years ago, gets readers more often than anything else I have put on here.
Either someone has linked to it somewhere or it's showing up in a search engine.

The original post is HERE.

So with that in mind, I would like to show a few more photos that were taken by the Sasquatch, who has a huge Catalpa tree in his yard.
If this is interesting to you, you might want to biggie size the pictures.

There are lots of Catalpa worms on the tree right now. Those bubble-looking things are the eggs that were laid by a Sphinx Moth on the underside of a leaf on the Catalpa tree.
The clear eggs near the top center have already hatched. To the left of those you can see a couple of yellow eggs...those haven't hatched yet.
A little lower, you can see small black pointy things. Each one is on the back of one of the worms.

Here are some tiny, newly hatched worms.

Here is a group of slightly older worms.  Look how they have been munching away at those leaves!

All are Catalpa worms - not sure why some are mostly yellow and others are mostly black.

 Eating all but the skeleton of the leaf.

The end with the pointy thing is the tail. It isn't sharp and doesn't sting. Maybe it's to fool predators?

A smaller one...

And a larger one...

And you can imagine...with all those worms eating leaves there is a copious amount of poop!

The Sasquatch said, when you are standing near the tree, it sounds like rain drops are starting to fall on the leaves...but it's a rain of worm poop!

Some years there are just a few worms and other years they eat every leaf on the tree.   It doesn't seem to harm the tree at all. If it's still early in the summer - it grows another set of leaves...but there may be a new cycle of worms that will eat the new leaves.

 More info about Catalpa Trees HERE
More info about the Sphinx Moth HERE

Can you believe the Sasquatch took all those vivid close up pictures with his phone?
This last photo is one that I took of his Catalpa tree with my camera.
Huge difference in picture quality!  Hmm...is it the equipment or the operator?

Later in the summer the tree will be full of long bean-like pods that are filled with seeds. The Sasquatch has a couple of other smaller Catalpa trees on his property that have come up from the seeds.

I started one of the seeds in a flower pot here a few years ago and planted it when it got big enough.

It's about seven or eight feet tall now. They grow pretty fast!

The moths don't seem to lay eggs on the small young trees. We assumed that they "know" there aren't enough leaves on them yet to feed their babies.