JP helped me pick pears from our mutant "ornamental" pear tree by the driveway. He lifted me up in the bucket of the tractor at least 10 feet.
Even so, some of them were still beyond my reach.
Other creatures were enjoying the pears as well.
Some of these I have already dehydrated.
Well, looking back at my posts, it appears that most of August happened since I last posted! I feel like I've been running around with my head cut off for almost all of that time. It happens every year - we come down to the last few weeks of summer vacation and there is a lot that we didn't get done!
J & L only had 1 week off between the end of their jobs and the start of school, which made things even tighter.
One evening, JP wanted to clean the lint out of the dryer vent, so both girls volunteered to go up on the roof to clean it out. They spent about half an hour up there!
I wanted to give L the opportunity to entertain some friends, so at the last minute she invited a bunch of people out to eat pizza, play in the pool, make s'mores around the fire, and watch a movie outside. They had a lot of fun!
The first weekend that the girls were finished with their summer jobs, my brother and family came from TX to visit. They were on their way to Rochester, NY to take my niece to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology. My parents kindly supplied the girls with a big bag of bugles to play with!
JP smoked about 4 racks of ribs while everyone was here. He trimmed a bunch of fat off, and being a good Mennonite, I felt bad about throwing it away. So...I decided to make lard. First I ground up all the fat,
then I cooked it for a couple of hours in a crock pot to render it,
finally I strained it, fried up the cracklins for JP, and ended up with about 1 1/2 cups of lard. We use this to make tamales around the holidays.
The week before school, we enjoyed some beautiful (and delicious) summer breakfasts of tomato sandwiches, sliced peaches and coffee.
J had an eye appointment North of here, so we finished up back to school shopping that day. Another day we drove up to the Strip District in Pittsburgh and did some shopping.
J had to have a negative COVID test in order to move into her dorm room, so we went to MedExpress 48 hours in advance to have it done. They are so overwhelmed there with COVID patients, that we had a 2 hour wait (in the car) before she could be seen. We did leave to get drinks at Dunkin, and then played several rounds of tiny Uno.
This Monday was L's first day of 10th grade. She is not thrilled with her classes.
She has a great view of the stadium from her window.
We were able to briefly meet her roommate, Sam, before saying our goodbyes.
She seems to be doing fine, but we miss her a lot!
September is almost here, and I'm hoping it brings some cooler weather. It's been in the 90's for the past couple of days, which when combined with the typical high humidity of PA summers makes it barely tolerable.
The mower has needed some repairs, so it's been a couple of weeks since the grass has been cut. JP started on it this evening and was chased in by a rain storm.
We continue to haul water.
I picked about a dozen pears from our tree this evening, they were delicious.
I'm hoping things slow down a bit now.
Happy Back to School!
Yesterday we returned from a week's vacation at Lake Erie. We have been enjoying spending time there for the past several summers, and this time was wonderful as well.
The girls roller skated and scooter-ed on the walks at Presque Isle.
We spent time at the beach.
We did our yearly circuit of Presque Isle by bicycle (13.5 miles.)
J and I discovered a bunch of cute shops within walking distance of our Air BNB. At a coffee shop there, I tried a Mayan Mocha Coffee and was hooked. I tried making some this morning at home and got a fair representation:
Put 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tablespoon cocoa, and 1/8 tsp of cayenne into a coffee cup. Add 1-2 tablespoons of hot water and stir until smooth, like chocolate syrup. Add hot coffee and 1T brown sugar. Mmmmmm! (You may need to adjust the amounts of sugar and/or cayenne to your liking - I liked it just a bit sweet with enough hot to hit the back of my throat on the way down - it's memorable!)
I have done 5 loads of laundry in the past day and a half. Luckily friends stepped in and harvested from our garden while we were gone so that I didn't have a lot of too-far-gone produce to deal with this weekend. Tomorrow is catch up with housecleaning day, but the girls are heading back to work.
Sigh.
It is a couple of weeks past when I expected the hens to start laying, but I finally found 2 eggs in the chicken house this afternoon!
I went down to the garden and mowed down the weeds with the push mower this afternoon, and brought a bunch of other produce back up from the garden:
For dinner, we had a couple of experiments. I made Tofu Tikka Masala pizza, using this recipe, substituting a 12 oz block of extra firm tofu for the chicken, and omitting most of the spicy stuff. I used refrigerated pizza dough (which I have NEVER used before) and baked it in a quarter sheet pan so the crust was extra thick.
For dessert I made Blueberry Dessert Pizza, which I kinda made up on the spot:
1 refrigerated pizza dough
3 T butter, melted
1/2 c flour
2 T sugar
2 cups fresh blueberries
1/8 c instant tapioca
1/4 c sugar
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1 T lemon juice
about 2 T cinnamon sugar
Mix blueberries, tapioca, 1/4 c sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg & lemon juice in medium bowl and squish the blueberries slightly. Let sit for 30 min, stirring and squishing occasionally. Mix 2 T melted butter, flour and 2 T sugar to make streusel. Press pizza dough into quarter sheet pan, dock with a fork and bake at 425* for 4 min. Brush with remaining butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, spread blueberries and top with streusel. Bake at 425* for 12 more minutes.
Delicious!
Where did the time go? I'll try to catch you up!
We had a graduation party for J, which was well attended, and she had a lot of fun. There was food,
Tree houses,
Swimming,
As well as a fire for s'mores, an outside movie, and a couple of friends slept over.
We took a day trip to Oglebay Park's Good Zoo in Wheeling, and ate lunch along the Ohio River.
L and I met with the Pediatric Neurologist at WVU and they do not feel that she needs any further work up for the seizure. They are working on treating her chronic headaches, however.
We bought some property in Rockingham Co, VA, and explored it with the girls.
One amazing find there was mulberry bushes!
We had a cookout and a few fireworks on the Ridge with the family to celebrate Independence Day.
The girls started their summer jobs at the library.
The garden is going gangbusters - particularly the blueberries. This weekend I picked 3 gallons of blueberries, zucchini, cucumbers, wax beans, baby lettuce and sugar snap peas.
Whew! I think we are up to speed now! Hope your summer is flying by in the BEST of ways!
Yesterday we broke the 18 + year streak of never taking my kids to the ER, and we did so in a BIG way!
L had a seizure while we were shopping 30 min North of home. She and I rode to the ER in the ambulance, and spent the next 6 1/2 hours confirming that she was ok. It ends up that the most likely scenario was the recent medication increase that she started the previous day.
It turns out that I can deal with emergencies fairly well in my patients, but I don't do so great when it's my kids. All I could think as I watched her seize and turn blue and remain unconscious, was that she was going to die. Right there on the floor at Sam's Club.
She is fine. J and I are having some PTSD type flashbacks, but we are all home and ok. I can think of 1,001 things that I would rather do than spend 6 1/2 hours in the ER with my child on a Saturday (or any day for that matter), but it's worth it to know that the incident was not caused by anything more sinister.
Please hold your loved ones close today, and I'm wishing you all health and happiness.
I have been desperately trying to get the pool ready to use, but am thwarted at every step. First we faced a chlorine shortage, next we couldn't find a fixture to replace one that apparently cracked over the winter, then we were low on water (everywhere, not just in the pool) and we hauled 3 loads to fill it up, and finally found that the skimmer itself was cracked. We have been trying to use epoxy to stop it up, but keep having a tiny leak. I just want it ready next week when J has her graduation party!
In the effort of cleaning off the veranda in anticipation of said party, JP and I have listed the Big Green Egg for sale on Craig's List. When we moved it to the garage for easy loading by a future buyer, one of the wheels fell off. It has taken us the past couple of hours to get it fixed, and in the process, one of the garage door windows got broken. We crawled around on the concrete for a long time, picking up tiny shards of glass.
I discovered this little bugger amongst my strawberries when I was picking them yesterday.
On a happier note, we put together this swing set for the girls over the Memorial Day weekend. JP has been promising the girls for one for YEARS, and needed it to happen before J left home. It is pinned to the ground with 4 giant screws - shouldn't go anywhere!
The pear tree is absolutely COVERED with tiny pears this year.
I am off to do some more veranda cleaning - it appears that the cat threw up on the chair covers and have clawed one of my benches into splinters. SIGH.
