Nothing beats a plateful of homegrown products, and 'cept for the salad dressing and unbreaded chicken breast from Schwan's, this delectable summer combo came from my garden.
Fresh lettuce with tasty, abundant cucumber slices topped off with Catalina dressing---that's all the salad needed.
The veggie dish of new potatoes, green beans and peas blended with margarine, melted cheddar cheese and salt, pepper, garlic and onion salt---every bite, a delightful experience.
Bill barbecued the chicken breast with some of his special seasoning. Later came an equally tasty pork chop.
There's a bit of work in preparing these dinners, but the flavor and knowledge that it came from the fruits of months of garden labor makes it a culinary highlight like no other.
And, the great news----there's much more to come. Just gotta keep up with it all.
Last night's garden dinner topped off a productive day, interspersed with moments of relaxation. Among the highlights----pant legs in a new pair of jeans shortened and hemmed and a back door which has been acting up for a couple of years repaired.
Bill installed entire new door knob set, and now we have to get used to opening and closing the door in normal fashion again. It would either fly open because the latch didn't work, and we'd have to slam it shut OR the latch would get stuck and the door would NOT open.
So, relearning the act of simply closing the door will take a while, but we'll take it.
On another front, along with this summer aplenty have come the sudden dreaded overpopulation of moody bees. Three stings in one week for me so far.
These are not the nice bees from across the road who are thoroughly enjoying the oregano, which is now in full bloom. These are the nasty bees, and they're taking up residence virtually everywhere.
The area above and around our barn door is especially bad----two stings there. The other day they surprised me and got me big time in that flabby section by my arm pit. I was simply watering the flowers in the manure spreader.
Later I found two nests below the tire rim. Our deck is one of their favorite spots too.
This is definitely the time of year to BEEE very careful grabbing on to water hydrants, opening gates, picking fruit or anything that makes bees mad. And, with the upcoming forecast of several weeks with no rain, I have a feeling they'll eventually be driving us inside like two years ago.
Not fun, but this is also the time of year when the critters moving to and fro from our woods bring a smile to the face----as our resident turkey families did this morning.
Today's encounter was total cause and effect. Lily was looking intently at something near the road when I went outside to take her to pasture. I looked around, saw nothing.
So, off to pasture we went. She still stood at the fence with that vigilant stare. When I put Lefty in his pasture, I saw a car slow down just beyond our driveway and in the area Lily was studying.
So, i grabbed my camera and walked to the road. Never underestimate the accuracy of a watchful horse. They're much better than dogs at spotting real invaders.
Sure enough, I saw a turkey down the road. Good Lily. Later, another appeared. It was obvious they wanted to cross the road, but cars and drivers were headed down the road.
When cars came, they returned to the ditch area. Eventually the traffic died down and one, two, three and more appeared from the ditch.
Cause and effect did not end there.
Seems that once the band of gobblers reached the other side of the road---under the watchful eye and bossy instructions of one adult hen----a couple of deer lounging in the woods just off the road awakened.
They jumped from their beds and raced off into our main woods. Turkeys continued on their way not far behind the deer.
Twas a fun sight to watch. That said, today looks like a good day for the humans to get on their way here at the Lovestead.
Happy Monday.
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