Posted on 08/01/2025 6:03:57 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Beautiful! I have a different variety of purple verbena in several pots, paired with a coral colored Calibrachia in one, and English ivy in another. I love them!
Oh yum! I hadn’t scrolled down when I posted about peach cobbler, but that looks amazing!! Maybe if I’m ambitious, I’ll try that! (Remains to be seen…another big day outside planned). Today was hot, and I was drained by the time I was supposed to start cooking. Instead of braised short ribs, I went with a premade fresh ravioli product with marinara and a side salad. Nice and easy meal.
Your Sioux has the same eyes and face as our beloved Sammie, a black lab hound mix that we rescued years ago. (Ok, who rescued whom?) She was the SWEETEST dog I’ve ever known, and that’s saying something!
What a great life Arikara and Sioux have led! Adorable!
Oh, boy. A large black rat snake showed up in the portion of one of our old sheds that functions as one of our chicken houses. It probably would not want to tangle with a chicken, or a chicken with it, but I think this is why that little group of hens has not been wanting to go back in there @ night. This snake can’t seriously hurt me, but might be able to “leave a mark”, ie, a bit of a bite mark on bare skin. So I ran to the house for a jacket and glove, and by the time I got back to the chicken house Mr. Snake was gone. I’ll station a jacket and gloves inside the adjoining shed...
We found rat snakes most often in the rafters of my SIL’s chicken coop & also in the nest boxes, usually with a lump from eating eggs. I made a ‘snake pole’ for handling them: broomstick with a screw eye in the end, some sort of thin rope tied to the screw eye, then run back through to make a loop & long enough to go the length of the broomstick & then some. Get a loop over the snakes head & tighten the rope. I pulled a 5-footer out if a nest box once - so long it coiled around the broomstick & then my arm - my SIL was screaming (literally)!
“We love jalapeño pepper jelly here but I don’t make it myself. The orchard market has a nice one that I just purchase. Got to support the little guys!”
When we go to Monroe, WI for one reason or another, I pick some up at the Swiss Colony Outlet. They carry ‘House of Webster’ out of Arkansas for some reason. Love it with some cream cheese on a cracker.
I’ve made Jalapeno Jelly before and it was always well received. I use the Mrs. Wages mix, because I like her spice mix and it always turns out well. You can also use Apple Juice as the liquid if you don’t have home-grown Jalapenos to cook down. Handy to have in bad growing years - though I never have problems growing Jalapenos (Bonnie Brand, Walmart) for some reason.
Probably because they’re the ONE THING Beau doesn’t like to eat, LOL!
Adding this ‘Jalapeno Popper Dip’ which he DOES like. I made it last Easter and it was a hit with everyone. I used up some frozen peppers I had in the freezer; they worked just fine.
https://www.spendwithpennies.com/jalapeo-popper-dip/
“I love donut peaches, also called saturn peaches.”
The first time I ever saw a Saturn Peach was at a Memorial for a friends’ Dad who was a locally-famous Radiologist. No expense was spared (they were ridiculously wealthy) and they had heaping platters of all kinds of ‘unique’ fruits for us at the meal served afterwards. I think that was the first time I tried a fig, as well. No paw paws, though. :(
Quite memorable - the Doctor and the Peaches! ;)
Sioux IS really sweet - but not to bears! She is currently one of my favorites in the Pack.
‘Ricky’ can be kind of a beotch, but she gets the job done. When we picked her up from the breeder she pooped, peed and threw up on me - so it was official that I was her New Mama from that moment forward, LOL!
What on earth do you cut with a 14 foot chain saw, unless a California red wood tree?
Adding this ‘Jalapeno Popper Dip’ which he DOES like. I made it last Easter and it was a hit with everyone. I used up some frozen peppers I had in the freezer; they worked just fine.
https://www.spendwithpennies.com/jalapeo-popper-dip/
That dip looks luscious———well, “anything” with jalapenos.......chuckle.
Yes, there has been a combination of cold spring, rain and drought in my area—middle Atlantic beach area. My ten year old fig tree was acting strange this year. I have to go to mow the lawn there once a month. In April I had time fig buds. In May there were NONE. In June there were bigger fig buds. I was there from July 26 to Aug. 5, and the very first figs were ripening. Everybody had ripe figs. The last 3 days I had a few to eat and the birds had several. Last year a flock of birds came every day and I had almost none for me. The day I left I picked everything ripe or nearly ripe, and all the ones I thought might ripen in 2 or 3 days, over 3 dozen in all. They are all now successfully ripened. I will return on Aug. 15 and hope there will be some to pick as a number were quite small when I left on the 5th.
Two of the figs were very strange. They looked like a snow man with a fat bottom and a smaller top with a band between the two areas. Was this caused by the sudden shift from drought to heavy rain?
I do not have a dehydrator, but hope to use the oven for drying as was described here for hot peppers. I think I read somewhere that you should slice the figs in half before using the oven. Mine are quite large, over 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Should I slice them thinner than by halving? Any advice would be appreciated, also any recipes not involving large amounts of sugar. Thanks
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