Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Hot, muggy, still summer

Everyone is complaining (including me) that summer is coming to an end, but today's weather in northern Illinois doesn't convince me! It is very humid and sticky.  There are signs that fall however, is right around the corner.

Too many zucchini's

We raise zucchini in our garden and we grow them so well that we run out of ways to cook them.  You can only eat so much of it before you get tired of it.  I put it in soups and salads, bake zucchini bread, fry it, saute it, and eat it raw.  I even "juiced" it once (minus the skin) and put it in a smoothy for my granddaughter.  She loved it!  I was encouraged. I even created a board on Pinterest to hold zucchini recipes

Mums

I find myself looking at the mums being sold everywhere now. I have needed to scale back on purchasing flowers because I am still unemployed on "Sabbatical" and trying to promote my new website to find clients. Yes, I guess this would be considered a shameless plug.

But back to mums - I have managed to keep 1/4 of my spring plants almost alive but the drought killed off most.  I salvaged 3/4 of the edible plants however, and nothing kills zucchini in my garden - so I guess I did OK with my first attempt at being in control of the household garden, after taking several years off. My husband and son planted, somewhat weeded, and grew lots of zucchini, tomatoes, spaghetti squash, beans, peas, kohlrabi's broccoli, peppers, radishes and onions for several years. This year, since I was home from the beginning of "gardening season" I started and followed through - including regular weeding - and have determined that they had a better crop, but my garden looked neater.

Hmmmmm........not sure that is such a good thing.  So again - back to mums.

I love the dark red mums so I think I will get 4 plants this year. To put in the front yard. And that ends the discussion on mums.

Christmas and Halloween and Thanksgiving pins

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am addicted to Pinterest.  Over the weekend I think I spent about 15-20 hours on that site. Really! One pin leads to another - on Sunday I found a Christmas pin that led me to a Christmas blog on tumblr.com Wonderful! I am linking you to it so you can find it easier.
Mistletoe and Glogg actually plays music! You can follow the little snowflake and click on the words Mistletoe and Glogg and it leads you to several pictures - you just need to check it out.  Of course it inspired me to start yet another blog so I can write stories. Mostly about Christmas but about other topics as well. It will be fun!

I also found many crafts, which I think I can actually make by myself!  I am not crafty enough to have a craft blog - thank goodness because I have started enough blogs for awhile - but I do enjoy making things for gifts or to keep for myself. I am in the process of taking an inventory of what I will need to purchase to stock my Santa's workshop for this year.  I am also searching for ways to incorporate Hanukkah into the holiday as my daughter-in-law and granddaughter are Jewish and we are celebrating both in our home now.

If you have ideas to share about how to blend both holidays - please share them with me!

4 comments:

  1. I love zucchini bread! My granny used to make the best I've had, but doesn't anymore. Do you have a good recipe?

    I found you on the BBN, and wanted to say hello. Hope you're enjoying the site.

    Katie

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  2. Hi Katie!

    Thank you for visiting my site! I am enjoying BBN although I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment.

    I have two favorite zucchini bread recipes ~ I plan to post them on here tomorrow, along with the reasons I use both. Hope you'll read!

    Beth

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  3. Hi Beth, this might be a silly question but what is "mums" it may be known as something else in Australia. I just pinned your Zucchini recipes on Pinterest, I hope you are going to put more up there as I am just about to plant some and they really flourished last year and I was giving them away left right and centre and all from 1 plant. Thanks for following my blog www.fitfabforty.com I hope I can inspire you.

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  4. Hi Rachael,

    "Mum" is short for Chrysanthemum, which is a hardy fall plant with beautiful flowers here in the Midwestern region of the United States. I am sure they grow elsewhere too. I am just not used to people reading my posts from anywhere, much less a region of the world that may not understand my "slang".

    As far as the zucchini recipe goes, I have to say, I am borrowing others recipes - like today I am baking a version of Paula Deen's zucchini bread and hope to post pictures and the recipe. If it all turns out, maybe I will "pin" it too! I can relate to having an overabundance of zucchinis and giving them away, if fact some people now see me coming toward them with zucchini's and they walk the other way!

    Thank you for visiting!

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