Wordless Wednesday- Summer Flowers
Tag: summer
Wordless Wednesday- Throwback Summer Flowers
Simple Sunday- Summer
“If I had to describe the scent of Michigan in spring and summer, it wouldn’t be a particular smell – blooming wildflowers or boat exhaust off the lake – it would be a color: Green.” – Viola Shipman, The Charm Bracelet
“When I figured out how to work my grill, it was quite a moment. I discovered that summer is a completely different experience when you know how to grill.”-Taylor Swift
“One of my favourite things about dining outdoors in a warmer season is that it frees hands and bares skin. … When we don’t need to wear or carry heavy clothing, our bodies feel lighter and our hands are freed for other things. Like carrying bottles of rosé; bags of stone fruit, fish, and clams; and a simple kettle and a tiny grill for a quiet, all-day beach excursion. Then we can eat well.”― Kirstin Jackson
“All the season pale in comparison to the excitement and freedom of summer.It’s the one time of the year when I can cut loose and feel like a kid again.Before the responsibilities, before the soul crushing pressure of trying to figure out my future. I can forget my crappy job; I can forget about my even crappier love life. Summer is my superpower.”― T. Torrest, Down the Shore
“By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather And autumn’s best of cheer.”- Helen Hunt Jackson
“Even if you have nothing in your wallet, nothing can keep you from having a great summer. You can listen to crickets sing you to sleep, trace the Big Dipper, breathe in the stars, run through a sprinkler, host a cartwheel contest in the front yard.”-Regina Brett
Simple Sunday- Summer
“Summer was a lady who didn’t give up her spotlight easily.”― Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells
“I like summer. I like warmer weather and long days. I’m one of those silly people who still enjoy lying in the sun – my children are horrified!”-Danielle Steel
“Summer has filled her veins with light and her heart is washed with noon.”-C. Day Lewis
“Summer was over in twenty minutes that day. Finished. At four o’clock in the afternoon the roses were quiet on their stems, full-blown, fulfilled; the water in the pool was warm; the leaves on the trees quiet, too, and green. The cat lay with his belly to the sun, steeped in heat.”― Elizabeth Enright, Doublefields: Memories and Stories
“Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.”-Regina Brett
How Does Your Garden Grow?
A little too well currently! My yellow squash plant is taking over, as one would expect from a squash. I know my Dad will agree with me on that one. Squash is his sworn enemy, after all. 😉 Here’s the squash in question.
The squirrels have already started plotting their garden attacks. Mysteriously, there are baby squash bits in my garden. Piggy has been investigating the herb garden and has rediscovered the green apples in the lawn. She likes the crunch because she will pick one up and eat it while running gleefully away from us when we try to get them back.
It’s hard to see the other plants in my squash bed, but I do have a bunch of cucumbers, peas, beans, and peppers. Also carrots down the middle so they’re out of the way. I’m going to go tie up the squash plants and prune the leaves a little when it finally stops raining.
The berry and squash bed is also doing well. I have some smaller plants in there.
The berries are looking a little rough, but I’m hoping that they’ll come back better next year. My poor blueberry bush is just a bunch of twigs, so I’ll have to keep buying them at the store, I guess. 🙁
The tomatoes look nice and have a lot of flowers starting, so I think that’s a good sign.
The herb garden is growing wonderfully well. I think I’m going to have to harvest and dry a bunch of the bee balm and the hyssop for tea. The Thai basil is destined for an Asian inspired pesto to go over rice noodles tomorrow for lunch.
My little salad buckets are doing really well too. I’ve had a couple of salads all from the garden, including the nasturtium leaves! I need to eat more salads this week to keep up with the arugula and lettuce growth.
We have a little garden friend too. Piggy gives it a heart attack about once a week by chasing it, but it seems to like our yard.
We are fighting poison ivy and think possibly the Husband may be immune. I am most definitely not, as evidenced by my recent doctor trip and itchiness. Ugh. Over all though, it seems to be going pretty well. I’m impatiently waiting for when I have other things besides lettuce and arugula to eat.
Hope you enjoyed the garden tour! I’m sure everything will be a lot different after all the rain predicted this week. I’m not looking forward to the weeding! I’d better go rest up now for it. 🙂
Simple Sunday- Summer
“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” – Eleonora Duse
“If your knees aren’t green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life.” – Bill Watterson
“Nature doesn’t need people – people need nature; nature would survive the extinction of the human being and go on just fine, but human culture, human beings, cannot survive without nature.” – Harrison Ford
Big Summer Blowout- Party Post!
This is Fancy wondering why she isn’t getting pets and what that weird thing is on my lap. She’s quite intense. She doesn’t understand the importance of blogging about the party!
I had a terrible migraine yesterday and ended up doing some hand quilting while watching Star Trek. My coordination was so off and I kept dropping things, so the Husband kindly and firmly suggested I sit down and not touch anything breakable. He’s so smart. 🙂
We had a fun weekend. I made too much food as usual, but we are working our way through it. The featured post is the view of the whole table minus the crab dip, as it was in the oven. We might need tiered serving trays or a bigger table…
It was the Husband’s birthday as well, so he had a chocolate dragon cake to celebrate. I don’t own a regular bundt cake pan, only a dragon one. 🙂
It was from Tastes Better From Scratch.
https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/chocolate-bundt-cake/
The cake turned out to be nice and tender and had mini chocolate chips in it as well. I poured a bittersweet ganache and edible gold over the top. It made kind of a vaguely dragon shaped lump.
It tasted delicious though!
I also made Pineapple Sage Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with the homemade jam from Southern Living Little Jars Big Flavor.
They were delicious! I used almost the same recipe for frosting as I did the fruit pizza. I added lemon flavoring to the cupcake frosting though.
Here’s the fruit pizza. I thought it would be so summery and fun. It was both!
I used the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/05/23/fruit-pizza/
We had chocolate chip cookies too, of course. The Husband was so happy. 🙂
One of the most fun parts of the party was seeing how many recipes had things from the garden in them. This zucchini bread had some of the zukes in it.
The Caprese salad had garden basil.
I used heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella cheese from the store. My in-laws had given us some fancy oils and vinegar for Christmas, so I used the pomegranate balsamic. It was very good.
Garden tomatoes were featured in the pasta salad, which I don’t have an individual picture of, and in the Firebreather salsa. There were some Jalefuego peppers in there as well.
You can see the peach salsa too. It was a little sweet for me, but not as spicy. Those recipes I covered in the last canning post. Also in the canning post were the pickle recipes. 🙂 To refresh your memory, I made zucchini pickles, dilly beans, garlic hot pickles, and ginger pickles.
I tried all of them, except the garlic ones by accident, and liked them. Now I just have to remember to eat them! Part of the long pickles were actually made from cucs from a friend’s garden. The hot pickles have tiny spicy chilis from my garden in them. I think even my Mom might agree that this might be enough pickles! 🙂
It was a delicious and fun summer party! I’m already planning for our next big party, which will be a Harry Potter Tasting Party. 🙂 We actually had quite a few good meals last week too, so I will post more about those later. I remembered to take pictures!
Now, I need to go figure put dinner for tomorrow. We need a little break from leftovers. Send us good dinner vibes!
Thoughtful Thursday
Yesterday was a horrible day, starting with Fancy getting into skunk poop right before I had to leave for work and continuing to get worse from there. By the time I got home, I was too frazzled to do anything but watch silly TV and eat ice cream. So here are some happy pictures which will hopefully make today better for both me and you.
