Thursday 13: Around the Yard

Between flowers and the backyard animals, there’s a lot going on in the yard right now, so this week’s Thursday 13 is a little look around the yard.

1.     We’ll start with some zinnias.  I don’t think I’ve ever had zinnias before, but this year, they’re one of my favorites.

2.    Here’s a closeup of one of them.

3.    And here’s the yellow one. 

4.    These are all in pots on the front porch, along with a pink geranium. 

5.    There’s also basil, that looked like this on Wednesday morning.

6.    The basil looked like this by Wednesday evening.  I have no proof, but I suspect the groundhogs feasted on the basil. 

7.    We also have a shepherd’s hook with two hanging baskets of petunias and a suet feeder in the front yard.  

Here’s a closeup of the flowers.  

The suet feeder is very popular.  It was eaten down this much in just a little over twelve hours.

8.    A friend gave us these beautiful hydrangeas.  We have a white hydrangea, but I’ve wanted pink and blue ones for a while, so I was very excited to get these.  We’re still deciding where we’re going to plant them.

9.    Here’s a closeup of the blooms.

10. I put mums in the pots on the porch during the fall and two of them came back.  I think of them as more of a fall flower, so I moved both of them to this big pot.  I’m planning to tuck it in a corner of the backyard and hope that the mums are big and blooming by the fall.

11. In the backyard, the blackberry bush has lots of berries that aren’t quite ripe yet. 

12. There’s also a second blackberry bush now.  I suspect the birds are responsible for planting this one, which I appreciate. 

13.   And no yard tour would be complete without a groundhog video, so here’s a video of one of our groundhogs enjoying a peanut butter cracker.

What’s going on in your yard now?  

Thursday 13: Here’s What’s Going on In the Yard

1.    We have a few lilac blooms.

2.    The hydrangea bush is in full bloom.

3.    Here’s a close-up picture.

4.    We have one marigold going strong.

5.    There are a few straggler blackberries.

6.    The clearance rosebush is still doing well.

7.    It has gotten very tall.

8.    Here’s a close-up of some of the roses.

9.    And there are some buds that haven’t opened yet.

10. The white rose of Sharon is blooming.

11. The purple rose of Sharon is also blooming.

12.  Our neighbor’s free-range chickens came over for a visit.

13. I feed them treats, with our neighbor’s permission, so they come over almost every day.  They wait right outside the door for me to bring their treats out.

 

What’s going on in your yard today? 

We Have Blackberries!

We were able to pick blackberries from our own backyard over the weekend.  We planted the bush last year, and were fairly certain that Duke destroyed it, but to our delight it came back this year.  And now we have blackberries.

We had more berries than this, but we both ate while we picked, so this is all that made it for the picture.  We have lots more berries that aren’t ripe yet, so it looks like we’ll be enjoying blackberries for a while.

I’m ridiculously proud of these.  It’s our first time growing berries, so I’m pretty excited.  It still amazes me when we plant something and it grows and produces food.   There’s just something so satisfying about walking out into your own backyard to pick what you’ve planted and grown yourself.  And I love blackberries. 

We plan to add another blackberry bush next year, and maybe try a raspberry bush, too.  You can’t have too many berries, right? 

Are you growing any berries?  What’s your favorite berry?  If you have an abundance of blackberries, and are looking for a way to use them, here’s a recipe for Blackberry & Mint Green Tea. 

How Is June Almost Over?

I didn’t mean to go nearly a month without writing a blog post, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. 

The rain finally stopped.  We’re still having thunderstorms a few afternoons a week, but nothing like what we had going on for the last half of May.  The flooding and landslides in the surrounding counties seem to have stopped, which is a relief for everyone.

Our garden is doing alright.  Because of the rain, we weren’t able to plant everything that we had planned on, and Duke dug up and trampled a few things.  But the tomatoes seem to be doing well.  They’re still small and green, but I think there are some fried green tomatoes in our future. 

We planted a blackberry bush against the fence last year.  We had the idea that having more bushes in front of the fence might make it harder for Duke to escape, and we both love blackberries, so a blackberry bush seemed ideal.  It didn’t really do anything last year.  In fact, we were pretty sure that it hadn’t made it.  Our leading theory was that Duke had trampled it to death.  Are you seeing a theme here?  Anyway, it started coming back this spring, and now has lots of green berries on it.  I’m not sure if they’re just dormant the first year, or what happened, really, but I’m very excited that we’ll have our own blackberries soon.

Caroline is officially a year old now.  Time flies, doesn’t it?  Per our vet’s instructions, we’re in the process of switching her from kitten food to cat food.  Caroline doesn’t seem to mind the change in food, and definitely hasn’t slowed down any.  She still acts like a kitten.  The big cats are still convinced that Caroline’s food is special, so still eat it at every opportunity, even though more and more of it is exactly the same food they’re eating.  There’s no convincing them of that, though.   They know it’s special. 

I think that’s about it for us.  So how has June been for you? 

This Is What Happens When You Watch Too Many Cooking Shows

I enjoy watching cooking shows.  I never really watched them until a few years ago.  Nick likes a few on PBS that I started watching with him.  He used to watch some cooking shows with his grandmother when he was younger, so it makes sense that he enjoys them.  My dad also started watching cooking shows.  I’m still not sure what’s up with my dad’s cooking show obsession.  He’s not particularly into cooking, and finds the whole idea of cooking for himself to be a major ordeal.  He did develop the habit of emailing me recipes from the shows.  They were usually sent in the guise of “I saw this and thought you might like it”, even though some of the recipes were for things I don’t like, but that my dad happens to love.  He’s into subtle hints like that. 

So between Nick and Dad I started to enjoy watching cooking shows.  Some of them get on my nerves for various reasons, but there are a few that are really, really good.  Some of my favorites are Pati’s Mexican Table (her food looks delicious, and I love how enthusiastic and creative she is) and Lidia’sKitchen (her food looks great, I like her no nonsense, no waste approach, and I love it when she talks about her grandmother teaching her to cook).  I also enjoy America’s Test Kitchen (Julia Collin Davison is my favorite chef; she always seems like she’s happy to be in the kitchen and is having a good time).  And I planned my Sunday evenings around The Great British Baking Show when it was on PBS.  I think I’m actually suffering withdrawal from that not being on! 

I had strep throat at the end of June, and spent almost a week at home.  I watched a lot of cooking shows during that week.  I had no idea how many cooking shows come on during my usual work day! 

It tasted much better than it looked!

Normally I don’t actually make anything from the cooking shows.  There are some things I plan to make and just never seem to get around to.  Most of the time, though, I just use what I see on the cooking shows as a place to start from, or I combine a few different ideas for recipes from a few different shows.  After hours and hours of cooking shows I decided it was time to actually try a recipe from one.

I chose this meringue cake from Pati’s Mexican Table.  Please click on the link to see what it’s supposed to look like.  Hers was beautiful.  Mine was described as “the leaning tower of goop”, and “it looks like you made a giant mud pie”.   It tasted great, but I clearly need to work on my assembly and presentation. 

The filling called for strawberries, but I used blackberries instead.  They’re in season for us right now, and absolutely delicious.  We bought them from a roadside stand, and they were perfect; ripe, sweet, and juicy.  They were delicious in the filling, but I think the substitution definitely added to my cake not looking anything like the one from the show.  I also realize it’s probably not the best idea to go making substitutions in a recipe you’ve never made before, but I’m not really a “follow the recipe exactly” kind of cook. 

I’ve also never made any kind of meringue before, and I don’t really have much experience working with egg whites.  However, I’ve never let a little thing like not knowing what I’m doing stand in my way when it comes to trying a new recipe. 

My "slice".  Clearly it needs some work.  Still delicious though!

I think my meringue needs some work.  I think it came out fairly good for the first try, but there’s definitely room for improvement.  I learned from my Mother-In-Law that meringue turns out a little better when the air isn’t so humid.  It was crazy humid the day I made it, so that may have caused some trouble. 

Over all, the cake tasted good.  We had some trouble cutting it (I think that goes back to my meringue needing some improvement), and it totally fell apart when we were cutting it.  It sort of looked more like a herd of wild animals had torn into it.  But it was really good.  I will definitely try making it again.  It didn’t keep well at all in the refrigerator, so I think the next time I make it I will make sure I have a larger group of willing tasters. 

So what about you?  Do you have a favorite cooking show?  Have you tried making a recipe from a cooking show?  How did it turn out?