End of Summer

We have been having cool nights for the past several weeks.  It was lovely to leave the windows open to get the fresh air, until the minions arrived, those nasty stink bugs that swarm in absolutely EVERYWHERE!  So, the windows have stayed closed for the past week, and we gave in and had the house and garage sprayed last weekend.

The garden has a few more things growing, especially tomatoes.  I cooked a bunch of them up into pasta sauce today.

There are still pumpkins and butternut squash growing, along with kale and chard as well.  The pumpkin plant must be a pie pumpkin, as the squashes are fairly small.  In fact, I wasn't sure which would give me more space to carve, this little pumpkin or my giant tomato?

I had disappointing harvests of apples, pears and green beans this year.  I'm not sure what happened with the apples.  Most of the pear blossoms froze, and the rabbits are still getting into my garden somewhere and eating off my beans.

Just this past weekend, I was surprised to find a rose blooming in my flower garden!  This bed has been completely devastated by the deer this summer.  I didn't have any flowers after the spring ones.  You can see that everything behind it is eaten off.  I brought it in for safe keeping, and to enjoy its lovely fragrance.

Over Labor Day weekend, J couldn't come home, so we went up to Pittsburgh to spend the day with her.  We got to see her throwing some clay mugs at the studio she is interning at.  She also took us to both of her workplaces - an Asian grocery (where we used her employee discount to stock up our pantry) and a tea shop (where we enjoyed a pot of Moroccan Mint Tea.)  We went out for dinner and hung out at her apartment for a while.  It was nice to get a little glimpse of her life right now.

Early Fall is the time that I have to clean up the black walnuts out of the chicken yard.  We bought a used John Deere Trail Gator ("Ally") this summer, which made disposing of the walnuts super easy.  I just parked it outside of the chicken yard, dumped buckets full of the nuts into the bed, then backed it up to the woods and dumped it.  The young hens are still not laying, by the way.

This is also the time when I spray and weed around the house and the pool for the second time.  Here is before and after:

We never opened the pool this year and have decided to take it down next Spring.

And finally, for fun, I attended the Great Gatsby Gala Fundraiser at our local library with a friend.  I decided to forgo the gown from last year that made me somewhat uncomfortable all night and went with men's wear this year.  It was a fun time out with my friend.  AND I won another basket of goodies!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Experiment

Yesterday I had 2 packages of Aldi pizza dough blowing up in my refrigerator.  As I did not expect to make pizza in the next 24-48 hours, I decided to use it to make some bread.  I rolled up cheddar cheese and "Everything Bagel" seasoning in one and sprinkled the top with the seasoning, and rolled up Nutella in the other and sprinkled chopped pistachios on it.

They turned out a bit chewy, but otherwise ok.

In the Kitchen

I spent a lot of time this weekend in the kitchen.  I found myself with a bunch of tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, as well as a zucchini, and (once again) TOO MANY eggs.

This year I'm having the same issue with my cucumbers that I had several years ago:  they are very prolific, but because it has been dry, some of them are intensely bitter.  I thought I would have enough cukes to can some pickles, but half of them were inedible, so I started some refrigerator Bread & Butter pickles - they have to marinate for 24 hours before we can try them.

I also made some NY style pizza sauce that went into the freezer for later.

I baked 2 loaves of zucchini bread and made 3 quiches (2 ham and cheese for JP & myself and Mom & Dad) and one cheese pizza one for L and managed to use up 3 dozen and 1 eggs.

For dessert, I made "Train Wreck."  Train Wreck is like a messy trifle of my own creation.  I make it with layers of cake cubes, pudding, crushed candy/oreos/fruit, and whipped cream.  This one was angel food cake, chocolate pudding, crushed Skor bars and whipped cream.

Poor Stella had surgery on Thursday to remove a growth from her eyelid.  She doesn't want to leave it alone, so she is having to wear an Elizabethan Collar as well as socks on her hind feet.

She looks like a hybrid vacuum/dog:

Speaking of hybrids, JP and I finally went to look at a car yesterday (one month after losing the Subaru.)  We drove a Hybrid Hyundai Tucson.  It's a nice little car, and we were seriously considering it, but when we came back home and did a bit of research, it has a pretty poor reliability rating with Consumer Reports.  I think we will look at a plug in Hybrid Toyota Rav 4 later in the week.

That's about it for my weekend.  Time to go taste the quiche!

Little Green Men

 So, this morning the local newspaper had an answer to my UFO question.

So now we know!

34

Once again it's been awhile...not too much is happening, but enough to make me feel busy ALL THE TIME.

We took our yearly vacation up to Presque Isle in Erie.  It is usually a pretty relaxing time - we hang out, play games, go to the beach, ride our bikes, etc.  What I DON'T do is cook!  This time we took in the new "Superman" movie on a super hot day (and discount day at the theater...gotta like that!) We also took a sunset cruise on the lake, which ended up being really enjoyable and beautiful.

We decided ahead of time that we would try to find some bulk peaches while we were up there to bring home and can, since I haven't been able to find any for the past 5 years.  We came home with 2 bushels full.

I worked for 3 evenings to can 40 quarts and freeze 3 gallons of sliced peaches.

While we were gone, the pullets and cockerels continued to grow.  I'm disappointed because we ended up with EIGHT young roosters and we only need ONE.

These young ones are proving to be a bit problematic.  I made them a small run so that they could scratch outside, but they didn't seem to like it, and only went as far as the "stoop" directly outside of their door.  While we were away on vacation, they started getting in with the old hens.  They also seemed to forget how to get back inside, and started perching for the night on top of a door on the hens' side.  I have pulled them off for several nights in a row and set them in front of their door to make them go in.  I finally took down the dividing fence to allow the young and old chickens to integrate, and they have done fine, although the young ones still can't manage to get back inside in the evening, although they go in and out all day long.  Sigh...bird brains!

I had some appointments north of us on the 1st Monday that we were home from vacation, and J suggested that I check out a coffee shop at the outlets not far away.  I was pleased to see this display of some of her work for sale! 

We have been working on the purchase of this used pop-up camper for about 6 weeks (the sellers ran into some problems with the paperwork.)  They pulled it down from Pittsburgh and we were able to finalize the sale last week.  I spent most of the day Saturday cleaning it from top to bottom, airing out the cushions, and laundering all of the cushion covers and curtains.  We are looking forward to some camping trips in the near future!

Last night L and I laid out on a blanket to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower.  We saw 7 or 8 in the 40 minutes or so that we were out!  We also witnessed this UFO that no one can explain.  It was too close and quiet and slow moving to be an airplane or helicopter.  Is it a drone?  Any ideas?

JP has worked 4 out of the last 5 days, including our 34th wedding anniversary on Sunday, and he is exhausted.  I have been busy taking the dog and both of my parents to their various appointments lately.  Stella is having a procedure tomorrow to remove a large skin tag from her eyelid, so the running around hasn't ended yet.  One of these days, we need to go shopping for a new car to replace my poor Subaru.  I think the 2 of us should go out for dinner as well, don't you?

In the meantime, the summer has sped by.  Kids are heading back to school soon, and it is amazing to think that this is the first Fall in 12 years that I don't have anyone going back to school!

Making Music

 Well, it's been an eventful couple of weeks!

I'm done harvesting blueberries, so I opened up the enclosure to the birds so that the remaining berries won't go to waste.  I picked enough rhubarb yesterday to make a rhubarb crisp for dessert last night - it is doing extremely well in its new area!  L planted some sunflowers, which were striking even as buds.

The deer have become extremely bold as of last year.  So far this summer, they have eaten off my mint and potted sweet potato vine, which is RIGHT BESIDE THE FRONT DOOR!!  They are also munching on my weeping cherries and hydrangea bush, as well as the balloon flowers and gladiolus in my flower bed.  JP and I made use of an old VCR tape to put up some moving hindrances, which isn't especially attractive.  My flower bed is not especially attractive anymore either, especially since the deer ate off most of the gladiolus buds.  I thought it was working to keep the deer out for about a week, until I saw that they have further decimated my hydrangea.  There have been a set of twin fawns sleeping out in the yard for the past couple of weeks as well.  HUMPH.  I purchased hunting licenses for all 3 of us on Monday...revenge will be MINE!

I spent some time recently taking care of indoor plants as well.  I had several that needed re-potting, as did my mother.  She also lost her spider plant while she was in the hospital as I didn't think about watering her plants, neither did my dad.  L had a lovely spider baby that I potted for her in a little pot that J made.  Isn't it sweet?

L recently spent a few days at the beach with some friends.  As she was packing to leave, she discovered that the case of the accordion that my mother gifted to her last summer, was moldy, and had transferred to the fabric covered trunk that she used at college.  We ended up throwing away the case, since it was moldy inside and out, but I cleaned up the accordion.  I had to bleach the heck out of the trunk before it stopped smelling musty, but despite leaving the accordion opened up out in the sun for several days, I was unable to rid it of the musty odor.  After a couple of YouTube videos, I figured out how to take the instrument apart.  I also found a tip that suggested using carpet cleaning foam on the bellows to help take away musty odors.  What do you know?  It really worked!  I would say that it is about 85% improved.  Thanks, reddit folks!

This morning, I went out to tackle the chicken yard, which had waist high weeds growing in it.  I weed eated everything down, then took the electric fence down section by section to mow underneath it. (I LOVE my little battery powered weed eater - it is so light and easy to use!  I also put these on it instead of string so that it is able to cut small bushes as well.)  After that was finished, I put up some more fencing to create a small outside run for my pullets and cockerels.  They seemed to enjoy scratching around out there for the few minutes that I watched them.

Whew!  It's a hot one today, and after all of that weed eating, I regret not having the pool opened for a luxurious soak.  C'est la vie.

Even though I won't be floating in the pool, I will do a thorough tick check and get a shower.  Both JP and I have seen so many cases of Lyme Disease this summer.  The ticks that carry the offending bacteria are so teeny, that you have to do an extremely careful check to even see them.

I picked these off me last summer...

This classic "bull's eye" rash was
on a patient last week

In other good news, JP will be starting a new job in Nov, close to home - no more driving 45 minutes one way to work!

In other bad news, L had a minor accident in the Subaru the other day.  She is fine, but the car is totaled, I fear.

Growing

Well, it's been another month, and things are continuing to grow!

I finally overcame my fears and ventured into the garden.  Luckily the grass was growing in the STRAW, not in the GROUND, so came out fairly easily, although with SO MUCH of it, it was still time consuming to pull.  I decided to limit what I grow this year, and plant things in hills instead of rows so I didn't have to clear as much.  JP and I put cardboard and then landscape fabric down over the rest of the garden to try to kill anything else attempting to grow there.  Unfortunately, despite all this AND the liberal use of compost, my seeds are not germinating very well.  I do have everything growing that I planted indoors.

The asparagus did even poorer this year than last, so I transplanted the rhubarb out of the asparagus bed BACK into the garden (moved it from a raised bed in the garden into the asparagus bed several years ago.)  We mowed down the asparagus that had seeded and will flatten the bed and continue to mow it with the remainder of the grounds.  It was too intensive of a project to attempt to start it over (see this post about how we did it.)

Meanwhile, the strawberries have ended.  We had a really good harvest this year, although we ate the majority of them fresh.  I did get several pints frozen for later.  Now the blueberries have come on strong!  I already have 6 gallons frozen for later, and another gallon in the kitchen, waiting to be washed and picked through.

The peeps, who are now 6 weeks old, are fully feathered and look like miniature chickens.  Unfortunately, we seem to have hatched a LOT of roosters - at least 7 that I'm pretty sure of, and possibly a couple more!

This cute little hen was the one and only brown peep.

This little guy has the most unusual 
coloring out of anyone.

I'm pretty sure this one is a rooster, 
and possibly full blooded Buff
Orpington.

We ended up losing our young rooster a couple of days after the hen.  At least we had him long enough to get the fertilized eggs!  The hens really picked up their egg laying when the rooster arrived, and except for one super hot day last week, I am routinely getting 5-7 eggs daily.  I had a plethora of eggs last week - over 10 dozen in the fridge, so over the weekend I made a lot of eggy things.  I made 3 quiches on Friday, using 1 1/2 dozen eggs, plus hardboiled and pickled 1 dozen.  I also took an 18 egg carton to my parents.  On Saturday I made a batch of lemon curd, and also a batch of blueberry lemon curd (which disappointingly just tastes like purple lemon curd), using a dozen egg yolks altogether.  I then baked an angel food cake with the 12 egg whites.  I am down to 6 dozen in the fridge!

The grass has been growing like crazy as well, but we've had so many super hot and/or rainy days, that we haven't been able to get it mowed until this past weekend.  I tried to use the lawn sweeper to collect the clippings for on the garden, but it wasn't working right.  I think my Dad and I got it fixed this morning, so I am heading out to finish up that project before it rains again.

In the meantime, J and her friend headed up to Connecticut with some other potters for 10 days.  They participated in a wood fired kiln up there, camping on the farm where the kiln was on some of the hottest days of the year so far!  They were interviewed for the local public radio station while there.  They seemed to have a wonderful time.

L is getting ready to head to the beach with some buddies in a week, but is currently working full time with the summer work program (that she has been a part of for the past 6 years) at the library.

I need to get outside, it is beginning to look cloudy...