Dead Plants

After work today I went outside and started weeding the half moon circle bed, cut back the daylilies that have finished for the season now, and removed the dead plants. Earlier in the spring I had planted 3 gorgeous beautiful blue azaleas in this bed, but unfortunately this heat and drought have killed them. I am realizing that I need to make installing the drip irrigation system a much higher priority, otherwise, if this drought continues next year, I won't be able to plant anything in the spring without needing to water constantly by hand throughout the summer (which I don't have the desire to do each day). In the spring I can't resist buying and planting new things because the nurseries suck me in with all their flowers on display. Fall is the best time to plant here, but planting bare root or bare stemmed plants just isn't as exciting. Tomorrow I will water and spread mulch on this bed and then move onto the next bed. The weeds are really kicking in high gear now. Back inside, after dinner, I reorganized the pantry a bit more and I am happy I made the effort. I now can see the actual shelves and this means we can buy more food, ha ha. Dinner for me was left over rice, brocoli and chickpeas, heated up with a little cashew curry sauce that I got from Whole Foods. Simple, fast and nutritious. I bet Andrew is happy he is in Boston - he emailed me that he's going out for a steak dinner tonight!

96 Degrees

They are forecasting 96 degrees today and tomorrow - the country is still in a heat wave. I notice that Vancouver is a very pleasant 70 degrees and sunny for the next week and I'm jealous! I took a photo of the last oriental lily for this season. It is a pretty one but I don't know the cultivar. It came from one of those boxes of mixed bulbs. Yesterday I went shopping and bought some more things for the kitchen. Since we are getting into cooking a bit more, our pantry is stuffed full so we need better organization. I bought some canisters which should help and I also reorganized the pantry. I bought some large cutting boards after realizing that Andrew needs a bigger chopping board so he doesn't get onions all over the place.
On Saturday I made some focaccia bread. It was very easy but I let it brown just a little too much. Next time I will keep a better eye on that. The cats are missing Andrew but they still are playing a little in the evenings. I got a shot of Sidney attacking the rat toy on the tower the other night. She really likes to lick things to death.

Snake In The Tree

Yesterday evening just before it got totally dark, I went outside to collect up the cats. They love to run around and play chase but eventually they come inside. Now I know why! I saw a strange shadow on the tree trunk in the circle island flower bed, and when I looked closer I saw that it was a huge black rat snake. I ran back inside to grab my camera and get a photo. I have never seen this before. After doing a little research on the internet today, I learned that black rat snakes do indeed climb trees because, in addition to rodents of all sorts, they love to eat birds and bird eggs. And apparently they have a tendency to accidentally fall out of the trees so at least I am now prepared should one ever fall on me while I am gardening. We had a few rat snakes living in our crawl space under the house - I have seen lots of baby rat snakes many times. We used to have mice in the crawl space and so that must have attracted the snakes. They are slow moving and harmless to humans, so I am not worried and welcome them to my yard. I had just never seen one climbing a tree before, and had no idea they could fall on my head. From now on I must remember to look up now and then when I'm working under the trees.
Tonight for dinner I made penne pasta with an arrabbiata sauce - basically just tomatoes with hot chilis and a little onion and garlic. Of course I had to grate a little fresh parmigiano reggiano on top cause I just love that cheese. It was delicious and I have enough left over for lunch tomorrow.

Everyday Things

Andrew left for a conference in Boston this morning and he has arrived safe and sound. Naturally he has requested lots of cat photos and movies, and he wants me to blog often so he can be kept abreast of the everyday things. So don't say I didn't warn you. After work today I mowed the grass and then cooled down with a beer. I ran into Angie and Callie while taking a garden tour. Angie is our next door neighbour and she is also my hairdresser. I have decided to grow my hair out for awhile and so I don't expect to get it cut until next year, but I might need her to trim up the ends at some point. Callie the black lab is now 3 years old and her and the cats have met but don't always get along. Mostly the cats hide until Callie goes away. I took a photo of Harley lying on the brick path, trying to act tough, and later got a movie of her drinking from the outdoor water dish (an "Everyday Things" movie). She is a strange cat in that she must lap up the water from the edge of the dish, and therefore she spills more water than she drinks. Inside the house we must put very large plates under the water dishes otherwise the floor would be soaked. For dinner tonight I finished off the rest of my homemade hummus on some toasted whole wheat bread. Now I have garlic breath but I don't think the cats will mind. I have finally learned to make (after several attempts to adjust the proportions) what I think is excellent hummus. Mine has lots of garlic and lemon, and fresh parsley from my herb garden. In the food processor, dump 2 cans of drained and rinsed chick peas, a heaping tablespoon of tahini, juice from 1 or 2 lemons (I use 2), 3 to 6 cloves of garlic (I use 6 small), sea salt and a little pepper. Pulse that until finely chopped, then start drizzling olive oil down the feed tube until you get a nice paste consistency. Then spoon this out into a bowl and mix in chopped italian parsley. This keeps for a good week in my fridge in a tupperware container.

It's Crepe Myrtle Time

One of the first plants that really caught my attention here in the South is the crepe myrtle. I had never seen them before and when they are in full bloom they truly steal the show. I have 2 varieties in my garden - the medium pink 'Hopi' and the light purple 'Muskogee'. The pink ones are really bright.

I am thrilled to see that one of my muskogees has reached the age of maturity where I can finally see the smooth colored bark. In the photo you can see that it has started to shed its outer layer in rolled up sheets to reveal the beautiful bark beneath. Over the years I have been disappointed with my crepe myrtles because their bark was all mottled and scaby looking. It was never that smooth creamy color that I saw in all the gardening books. The crepe myrtle is regarded as a 4 season plant down here, in the spring the new green growth pops out and you have a nice multi-trunked tree, in the summer the blooms knock you out, in the fall the leaves turn color and the bark and sculptured branches provide winter interest.

New Things

I finished the autobiography of the Dalai Lama last night . Tibet sure got a raw deal from China and I really doubt there will ever be peace for Tibet. My knees are doing much better now. The rest, while frustrating, has worked and by next week I will be able to start exercising again. I have lost 13 pounds so far (slow but steady) and I am feeling very healthy. I recommend everyone read "The China Study". The idea is that all animal products (meat, fish, dairy, etc.) actually promote disease in our bodies and we should therefore follow a plant based, whole foods diet. That basically sums up the diet choices I am making and I do feel really good. I have not had meat since March and I honestly do not miss it at all. The only animal product I still enjoy is cheese, but I try to save it for really good quality cheeses in meals where the cheese really makes the dish. I also like Starbucks Lattes - I finally tried a soy latte yesterday morning and it was awful. So I will be sticking with the milk lattes. We bought some soy icecream on the weekend and it tastes excellent. Way better than I thought it would.

Last night we made a new dish "Black Bean Chili Pot Pie" and this one is a keeper. Just a medley of beans, corn, peppers, onions, tomatoes and garlic with a corn bread topping - very easy to make. I am going to start a binder of all the keeper recipes with photos so meal planning will be much easier when we don't feel like experimenting with new dishes.

Andrew and I went shopping after work today and he picked up his new drum set and I found a neat salt & pepper set and some towels at Pottery Barn. My amazon book order came in this afternoon - I am starting to get back into reading and I like it! I am currently reading "Under the Tuscan Sun" and have almost finished "The China Study", with that one I want to take some notes and put them up on the fridge.
PS: The timestamp on this post is incorrect, it should be 9:44pm. Blogger.com was having troubles.

Cooking Show

Well another week is coming to a close - last weekend we went out boating and Andrew insisted on wearing only a 4 suntan lotion. He fried up like a lobster and now his forehead is peeling. I used 45 and still managed to get some color, so that tells you how intense the sun can get. I hope he will consider using 30 next time. I have had to suspend my morning workouts this week because my knees are hurting. I think I have over done it on the high impact of running on the treadmill. This is a real drag since I want to get back into working out regularily. Now my knees hurt even to walk. But they will get better and then I will have to use the elliptical machine instead of the treadmill. Or perhaps the stationary bikes. So I haven't been doing any yard work this week, but the weather is still in the mid 90's so I don't mind being forced to stay inside.

We tried out a new dish this past weekend - Manicotti stuffed with Butternut Squash and Tofu. It turned out really good except that next time we will not be putting the cinnamon into the tomato sauce. Neither of us cared for that. The dish made 8 servings so we were living off it for nearly the whole week. Last night we were trying out another new dish - Bowties with Potatoes, Capers and Olives - and we decided to make a little cooking show out of it. I hope you enjoy the episode! It is our longest movie yet so be patient with the download.

Dog Days

The summer heat and humidity is here in full force. It is hard to do much but sit around after work. Each afternoon there are rumblings of thunder and sometimes we get a pop up shower, but lately the rain clouds have been just to the north and just to the south. Today I mowed the grass and it turns out Andrew was stealth filming me. I guess it is about time I was in a video but please ignore my fat ass - I am working on that! Last night we watched the most terrible movie I had seen in a long time: The New World. Spare yourself and do not rent this. It is a mindless 2 hours of watching people walk around doing nothing but staring wistfully into the distance. Our home theatre video projector has bit the big one and we are now having to watch movies on the TV. Oh the horror! Andrew is trying to get it fixed but realistically we aren't that hopeful. Tonight we are going to watch "Pride and Prejudice". Netflix has been great with the turn around on movies and we are impressed with the service, but now that the home theatre is bust, movie night just isn't the same.

Relaxing on the deck

This is a joint entry with Andrew. Ok, he just refused to make an entry. Today I made a bit of progress on the quilt, the sewing was difficult because the fabric would buckle but I made the best of it. Andrew watched the 3rd place World Cup match (Germany won) and then he hacked back the plants that are invading our dock. Later we hung out on the deck, watching the cats, and talking about world politics and capitalism. Sometimes the world is too complicated for me, but other times the answers seem so obvious. I am glad I am not a politician for a living.

Forbidden Rice

The test quilt is coming along nicely. I have completed the front and the back, and now have to sandwich everything together with batting and then do the actual quilting. The piecing of the front was fun to do (and a little addictive). In the photo I have it spread out on my bed and I am putting in safety pins to pin all the layers together. The final step after the quilting is sewing on the binding strip to finish off the sides.

After work yesterday we decided to try canoeing. The water had come up a bit at our dock forming an S channel and we figured that Andrew could put on his hip waders and push me out a little ways, and then hop in himself. So that went as planned, but then when we got out to the beaver dam, we realized that the dam had in fact been holding in all this water, and behind the dam it was almost bone dry. We could see that a few of the docks in the distance were on dry land. So the dam is working for the beaver, and we have now have a marshy pond around our dock. There are little fish swimming and birds around too. We still haven't seen the beaver but the dam is in perfect shape, all patted down with lots of mud and sporting a grassy green top.

We have tried two new dishes lately, "Rasta Red Beans and Rice" and "Green Beans with Wild Rice". The red bean dish was a keeper, but for the green bean dish we used this Chinese Black Rice, also known as Forbidden Rice. It was a little weird in that it didn't cook up correctly (too wet) and turned everything black. You would not want a grain of this to fall on a white T-shirt. So I don't think we will be using that rice for awhile.

The weather has turned cooler, it should be around 80 degrees today rather than 90, and that makes all the difference. I think it will be a good gardening day and I can spread out mulch and do some weeding and watering. On Wednesday I started going to the gym in the mornings with Andrew since my membership is now active. I am doing 30 minutes on the treadmill (about 2 miles), 15 minutes of free weights for arms, chest and shoulders, and then 15 minutes of situps and stretching. So far so good, I am a little stiff today so working outside should help that. And I have lost 3 pounds but I think that is simply from all the sweating. We watched the movie "Syrianna" last night and it was good. Hard to follow though so you have to really pay attention. Andrew said "This style reminds me of that movie 'Traffic'", and then sure enough, it turns out that the writer/director of Syrianna is the same guy that wrote Traffic.

Five Day Weekend

We are in the middle of our 5 day holiday weekend for the 4th of July. So far it has been very nice to just relax around, knowing that we still have 2 days left! We went shopping today up to Greenville since Andrew wanted to check out new drum sets at a music store. On Friday night Andrew's band had another gig, this time they played outdoors in the parking lot of Sole. I didn't stay to watch since I wasn't feeling that great. I picked Andrew up afterwards and we went to a local bar called Nicks with a couple of his band mates. Apparently the audience said this time they sounded the best. I guess they are getting better now - at Nicks they were joking about touring Mississippi next summer.

I bought some new blue bowls at Pottery Barn, I love the color. I don't need any more bowls but who cares. I think kitchen stuff is my version of shoes. I don't buy a lot of shoes but I sure like to buy stuff for the kitchen. We also stopped by Barnes and Noble (of course) and bought more books. Andrew right now is reading "The Davinci Hoax", a book that disputes a lot of the supposed facts in the Davinci Code book, but he says both books are crap. He also got a couple of classics for reading on the boat: "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "Mister Midshipman Hornblower". I got 3 books on buddhism - 2 by the Dalai Lama (autobiographies) and one about the basics of the religion. I am not becoming a buddhist but I like to learn about new things and have always been curious about the Dalai Lama's life and Tibet in general.

On Friday I received the quilt fabric kit I ordered and have now started making my first quilt. Two problems so far: the rotary cutting mat I bought shrunk in the heat of the car while we stopped at the grocery store on the way home and I didn't discover this fact until I had cut several pieces of incorrect dimensions, and the kit I ordered shorted me 1 piece of fabric, so I had to get creative and change the pattern a bit. Just what a beginner needs to start out. I hope everything still works out but I am learning more than I bargained for and, after all, that is the purpose of doing this kit first before I make the 2 quilts from that original fabric I ordered earlier.

Tomorrow we will be spending the entire day reading on the boat and swimming - it will be a nice lazy day and I am looking forward to it. We might even do the same thing on Tuesday just because we can. I did a lot of pruning and other yard work on Friday, so I deserve a few days off. Some more of the oriental lilies are blooming now, and their perfume is wonderful.