Tuesday, May 30, 2017

May 30


Not a lot of cooking going on here, No new recipes but I did make a dish I haven't made in a few years...Santa Fe Rice Salad.


It's pretty good but not really a favorite of ours.  It can be used as a side dish with a Mexican meal, or just scoop it up with tortilla chips like salsa.



I had to take my string trimmer in for repair earlier this month. Same problem as before...broken drive shaft...covered under warranty again...no charge.
This big dog (lab/shepherd mix) is always at the repair shop to greet the customers.

When I dropped the trimmer off,  she came from the back with a red ball for me to throw for her.
I threw once and she retrieved it...but when I threw it again I accidentally bounced it off a stack of boxes. 
She gave me a funny look then picked up the ball and took it to the back room!   Ha! 
It's like she didn't want me to embarrass myself with such bad throws!



This time she had a big Nerf Frisbee.  She did let me throw it but only once.



I can't remember ever seeing one of these Giant Leopard Moths before.


They come out only after dark, but this one had gotten trapped in the screen porch somehow.
It didn't want to fly at all, so I nudged him off my hand onto a tree trunk.

Please excuse my chipped nail polish

One day I glanced out a window and saw my Purple Smoke Tree looking like this...stripped to it's skeleton!  What on earth?


It was these...some kind of small purple caterpillars.  I picked them all off, then tried searching the internet to see what they could be.  Not many results for purple caterpillars.  Maybe eating purple leaves caused them to turn purple?


See that small beetle in the photo below?  There were a couple of those on the tree too.  Not sure if they are related to the caterpillars in any way?  

Not being sure if these were good bugs or bad bugs, I decided to smoosh them.  Probably they are the larvae of some rare and beautiful butterfly.


The last time I planted peas in my little garden, a deer chomped them down just after they started blooming. So this year, I just planted a few snow peas right up next to the back porch.


 I think they are such a pretty plant anyway. As good as any decorative plant you could buy...and all I need is a few peas to add to a salad.


On Memorial Day, I rode over to Evansville with Lonnie to visit his parents grave site.  We are such clods, we didn't even think to take any flowers for the urns.  We haven't done this before and it just didn't occur to us to take any decoration.



After visiting the cemetery, we drove around looking at Lonnie's former homes, schools and other landmarks.  
As we drove past this subdivision entrance (below), Lonnie remarked that it was the spot where he and his older brother sold newspapers when they were kids.

For fun, we stopped and got a picture of Lonnie with some church newspapers he happened to have in the car.  He emailed the photo to his brother Don to see if he can figure out where it was taken.


I don't think there were flowers planted there back then...only grass, but Don might recognize the concrete structure.

Not much sewing lately.  I did finish up all the sailboats.  I will show those next time.







Thursday, May 18, 2017

sail boat quilt started and other stuff

Sewing...
I had been planning to make a baby girl quilt...just in case...but it turns out that I will be making another baby boy quilt.

For a while now, I've been thinking I'd like to use some fabric from my stash with an anchor print, and what could be better than a nautical themed quilt for a boy?
I sketched up a possible layout, including some blocks made from pieced sailboats.

Piecing the sail boats was more difficult than I expected, so I finally paid $1.50 to download a paper pieced sailboat block pattern online.


It's been awhile since I've done any paper piecing so there was a lot of sweating and swearing and seam ripping as I got the hang of it again.
It's gotten a little easier now that I've completed five of the boats.    I'll probably make about four or five more, and then make some simple blocks to alternate with them in the quilt, using the fabrics in the photo below.




Outdoor project....
I think we found a solution to our screen porch door problem.  
We have replaced the original doors twice already. No matter how nice the doors are when we hang them, they end up sagging and coming apart at the corners. We have tried reinforcing with "L" brackets and turnbuckles with no luck.

Then I saw this one day on Amazon's Lightning Deals and thought it might be worth a try.


Lonnie was skeptical at first, but after using it for a few days he told me to go ahead and order another for the other door.
It was quick and easy to put up...but I am going to add a few more nails/tacks for extra hold around the edges.

You just part the magnetized middle strip with your arm, walk through and the magnets snap it closed behind you.
It will make it a lot easier to get in the porch with a tray of plates, drinks, and food for the grill, too.




Those baby squirrels are getting bigger and exploring every square inch of the yard.

"I'm the king of the world"
In the kitchen...

One Sunday, the Sasquatch brought over something interesting for us to try...these unusual drinks from Jamaica.  One peanut flavor and one vanilla.

Both were rich and creamy, but the peanut was the best...a taste kind of like that "Mary Jane" chewy peanut candy.

Fun to try something unusual and different!  These were marked down in price. He's hoping they will go on "clearance" and he will buy more.



And....
In the early 1900's, my Dad's grandfather opened a saloon on Market Street in Louisville.  He was a great believer in advertising and had a variety of give-away items made up to promote his business...mugs, match cases, watch fobs, miniature jugs and so forth.  
There are a few of these items still in the family.

Earlier this week, Chopper and the Sasquatch made a stop at one of those antique/junk malls and came across one of the old advertising mugs for sale. The price was right at $3.

They emailed me a photo...


It's weird because they had mentioned the possibility of finding one as they walked in the store!  Pretty exciting for them to come across something with their great-great grandfather's picture embossed on it!  

Other family members have found them on ebay and at flea markets too. I've never found one myself, but I was given one by my parents.


What would George Deckmann, saloon owner, think about his descendants buying back his give-away promotional items?
Here he is in a photo taken behind the bar at his establishment...


And another - at a different time and with a mustache. ..


One more...


Nice that he made the effort to have these photos taken. Not many are fortunate enough to have photos of ancestors from that time period.

Chopper liked these old photos so well, he had copies framed and they're hanging in his dining room.
What would his great-great- grandfather think of that?