A surprise

for OnlyDaughter.  I have spent the last two weeks working on and off on a surprise for OnlyDaughter.  I can only show you the back since what's on the front will be the surprise.  I will be giving it to her in about three weeks and will let you know her reaction at that time.  I will also be able to show you the front and give credit to the creator of the pattern.


Our walk early this morning was nice but my walking buddy, R, and I were both sweaty when we finished and the "bitey" flies were after us on part of the walk.
Mr P spent some time this afternoon installing head and tail lights on our golf cart.  Mr P says now we can drive around after dark!

It's hot here again today but not as hot as it had been.  It's to be cooler this week.  Hope you have a good week wherever you are.
PS Hopefully the foks who told me they are not able to leave a comment will be able to do so soon.  OnlyDaughter says it probably has something to do with Blogger.

Unrelenting heat and humidity

 Our weather has been hazy, hot and humid recently or as they say in these parts, the three "h's".  There have been short walks during the day at work this week but only for my 15 minute breaks.  No walks in the evening until tonight.  My walking buddy, R, called on her way home and we are walking at 7PM.  Skies were gray and the wind blew on the way home and once I got home.  Strong thunderstorms were forecast but they have since passed.  It's much cooler since these storms moved by and we're hoping to get a walk in without getting wet.

 

Mr P trimmed back our fig tree before winter last year quite a bit.  There is a lot of new growth and the leaves are big and beautiful but the figs are few and far between right now.  Can you see the tiny one in the crook of the leaf below?  Keep your fingers crossed that lots appear and have a chance to mature before cold weather sets in.
Until about 10 years ago, I had never tasted a fresh fig.  We have friends from Greece who gave us the tree to plant and my first taste of a fresh fig.  I was hooked and the last four years harvest have been wonderful.



The bunny pictured is one of the infamous munchers in my garden which is where is was leaving when I took the picture.  He favors my leaf lettuce but I've still managed to get enough to supplement my salads during the week.  

The weekend is to be less humid and cooler which is a relief.  Breakfast tomorrow with a sister whose birthday is on Sunday.  Hope you have a good weekend wherever you are.

Beautiful flowers

There's lots of color around the yard and at The Puddle Pond.
Butterfly Bush at The Puddle
Day Lily next to house
Another purple flower out back (don't remember the name)
Day Lily out front also called a Ditch Lily because they grow profusely in ditches

 

 

 

Not a lot going on here at The Puddle Pond Lately.
The weather was beautiful both yesterday and today for the morning walk with my walking buddy R.  We brought my Mom down yesterday to start another jigsaw puzzle, a Charles Wysocki scene, which is not quite 1/2 done.  We stopped long enough to cook dinner on the grill.  We had Tequilla Lime Chicken, a recipe from Ina Garten the Barefoot Contessa.  I found an interesting recipe for Leek Salad that I was thinking of making as a side dish but when I checked the leeks in the garden in the morning, I decided to wait until another time to make the salad and let the leeks have some more growing time.

Mr P got a box of goodies from OnlyDaughter for Father's Day which included golf balls.  Hope all Father's had a nice day today.  Thinking of my Father who passed away almost 24 years ago and missing him.

Rumour has it...

No it's not Adele's new hit song and really it isn't a rumour.

The elementary school where OnlyDaughter went to kindergarten through sixth grade will no longer have students attending there.  Mr. P and I stopped after I got home from work to take some pics for OnlyDaughter.  Two teachers were wheeling out rolling carts filled with classroom supplies and loading them in their cars.
One teacher very kindly asked me if her car was in the way for my picture taking, which it wasn't.  She confirmed that today was the last day anyone would be occupying the building in its role as a school.  We haven't heard what, if any, plans there are for the building and the grounds.



OnlyDaughter's kindergarten classroom.  Remember it N and your kindergarten teacher?

The main school building. 

An end of an era for a lot of students and teachers.

A picture of the sky from the driveway at the school around 5PM today.  The day has been beautiful.

After dinner, I cut lettuce and picked a colander full of sugar peas.  Marauding deer plowed through the garden overnight eating the tops of all the potato plants and snacking on one of my pickling cucumber and zucchini plants for dessert.
My walking buddy and I are going to go out for a walk again this evening.  No rain in the forecast for tonight so I think we'll be able to finish our usual four mile trek. 

Hope you are having a good day wherever you are.
.  

Eureka!

Look what i found on the trunk in the family room.  The two missing pieces of the puzzle.  The only reasonable explanation is that they dropped to the floor at some time during the past few weeks, were picked up and placed on the trunk (why they weren't put back on the puzzle table is anyones guess) and got shuffled under a few pieces of paper.  The pieces of paper got moved last evening and Voila!!!

The puzzle was already dismantled and returned to its box so the offending pieces where plunked in with the rest.




The weather forecast here is calling for showers every afternoon through Thursday of this week.  My neighbor and walking buddy, R, called last evening to schedule a walk.  Agreed upon time was 7PM and this is a picture of the sky just prior to our departure.

Overnight on Sunday, a storm moved through here dumping rain and whipping up winds.  At the start of our walk, we moved branches off the edges of the roadway so as not to brush and maybe scratch any passing cars. 
About a mile out, the rain began to fall and the consensus was to turn around and head back homeward.  We got about 1/4 of a mile homeward bound and the rain began to fall harder.  We were getting wet and several people drove by waved to us (probably because we are familiar faces as a result of our frequent walks) which made us laugh.  Both R and I forgot to take our cell phones so we kept walking, trying to pick up the pace and starting to get drenched. 

Mr P was on the deck at home when the rain began.  He realized my cell phone was not with me and the rain was starting to really come down so he came to our rescue and drove in the car to meet us.   Almost as soon as we were in the car, the heavens opened up and the rain poured down.  We dropped R off at her house and came home where I dried off. 

It's almost fall-like here today and rain is forecast again this evening.
I will be at the local library tonight doing my volunteering which involves anything that needs done.
Hoping you have a good day wherever you are.
My sister-in-law V had a safe trip from PA to WVA today and Grandson #2 moved up from grade 4 to grade 5.  Grandson #1 will move up tomorrow and summer vacation will begin for the boys.

Tah Dah!!!

My Mom came down yesterday afternoon to work on the jig saw puzzle and have dinner with Mr P and me.  As you can see, we finished the puzzle we started quite some time ago. If you look closely there are two pieces missing around the frogs.  We were missing three pieces when we finished up about 9:30PM last evening.  After a search, I found one in the track of the sliding glass doors next to where the table sits during hiatus.  The other two have yet to be located and may well have been eaten by the Dyson when I was cleaning.  As Mom stated, "Even with the two pieces missing, the puzzle is a beauty."  Next up on the agenda is a Charles Wysocki primitive scene that I bought at the library's semi-annual book sale which began yesterday.



The pea vines have started to produce peas and the colander holds the first official picking.  When I was young, we grew an extensive garden which provided all our produce that my Mom canned for the winter use.  There were traditional ways that "first pickings" were always prepared and the one for the first mess of sugar peas was to make cubed, creamed potatoes with peas.  I love them prepared this way, but when I asked Mr P if he wanted a baked potato and sugar peas on the side to go with the barbecued spare ribs for lunch today or creamed potatoes and peas, he opted for baked potato so baked it was.

The sugar snap peas were scrumdillicious stir fried lightly in some olive oil and lightly salted.  

Memorial Day weekend was hot, sticky and humid.  My lettuce is still doing okay but my radishes bolted in the heat.  Mr P pulled them out this morning and I managed to salvage about a dozen radishes that will be sliced on my salads for lunches at work this week.  The bushy plants directly behind him are the two rows of potatoes that we will harvest later this season.

For Mother's Day this year, Only Daughter and her family sent me gardening goodies.  One item was a garden box with soil and three different seeds to grow as micro greens.  My first planting is ready to be cut and sprinkled over salads.  These will partner with my radishes and other veggie delights for my lunches this week.  I have enough seeds to have second go round with planting.  The seed varieties are peas, carrots and cabbage.  They also sent me a large variety of herb seeds to plant that are in the seedling stage right now.

 We are to have rain here again starting this evening for the next few days. Right now the sun is out and it's pleasantly cool so I'm on the deck enjoying the weather while I type this post.

Hope your weekend is going well and your week is just as good wherever you are.

June 1, 2012

 It's Friday evening, I'm sitting here listening to the rain coming down and we are to have a humdinger of a storm tonight.  Tornado warning, flood warning for our area.  We have battened down the hatches as they say and are settled in for the evening.  Mr. P went down to The Puddle Pond today to take the first of the month picture.  While it may look like there are a lot of lily pads still on the pond, there are a lot less than before.  The heavy rain should beat down any that are dead and dying.  The little john boat next to the dock has been emptied of water that has collected from rain over the past week or so and turned upside down.

I promised a picture of the grape-like "fruits that are hanging in clusters on that most interesting shrub at the side of the house.  The birds will have it cleaned of in short order and the leaves have already started to turn yellow-orange.  It's a most intriguing shrub!

Our garden got an early start with the warmer than normal temps back in March and is going strong.  I have been cutting lettuce every few days and harvesting asparagus almost every day.  I wonder if the early beginning for the asparagus patch will mean this wonderful veggie will be done before the end of June.

Our sugar and snap peas are climbing the netting and are full of flowers.  Other veggies planted are onions, leeks, zucchini, yellow squash, two types of cucumbers, potatoes, radishes and lettuce.  An empty spot was seeded with beets and there is a small plot where the horses corral used to be located with kale, kohlrabi, pumpkin and watermelon. 

 

I borrowed a BBC sitcom series entitled Doc Martin from the library last week.  Mr P and I started watching it last evening and it is really cute.  Long story short is Doc Martin was a former surgeon who leaves brain surgery to become a GP in a quirky little village.   I highly recommend it even with only two episodes under our belt.
The rain is to end overnight and tomorrow is to be dry but cool.  My two walking buddies and I will be out early tomorrow morning for our weekend constitutional.  I will be helping out at the local library for a while in the early afternoon and then getting my Mom so we can finish the jig saw puzzle we started some time ago.
I hope the weekend is nice wherever you are.  Enjoy!