Gma and the Blue Jay

My Mom, who has been staying with us since March, enjoys sitting on the patio on sunny mornings. A blue jay, I believe it's a Western Jay, spends a lot of time in our backyard; he used to chase our elderly cats (both gone now) and even occasionally attacks the dog!

Mom keeps a jar of unsalted peanuts stashed in her walker bag and, when Jay appears, she puts a few on a towel in her lap. She doesn't want to give him very many at a time but, if he doesn't think it's enough, he perches on the chair and screeches at her.

Fritters on Friday

Thanks to "Carolyn in Ohio" from the Stashbusters Mystery Quilt Yahoo group, I have a new recipe for Zucchini Fritters. I had never eaten fritters but, I've got to tell you, these are really good! KAS did the video; she and her sister anxiously counted the fritters and were a little upset that I didn't get the 20 specified in the recipe. I guess I made them a little bigger than they were supposed to be.



The results were better than hoped for. The girls wolfed them down and even my Mom, who rarely asks for seconds, had a second helping of these.

Green Beans for Dinner

This was our green bean planting on July 7. The plants were racing towards the top of the trellis but there was no sign of any beans. Every day I would go out and search with no results. When they made it to the top and there were still no blossoms, I was beginning to think that maybe I should be topping them. But then, one day last week, there were a few blossoms, then more; finally, last weekend, there were some itty-bitty beans.





Yesterday I deemed them large enough to pick and found these magnificent seven. We put them in the fridge to wait for enough more to make a meal. And today I did a really thorough search and did find enough for a small serving for each of us. I steamed them for a few minutes and they were tender and yummy. If past experience is anything to go by, we should have more than we can use in another couple of weeks.



The Week 4 clue in the Burger Queen Mystery Quilt was published yesterday. This time it's 3" blocks - lots of them! I have been reading one of Judy Martin's scrap quilt books and she uses her bias square ruler to make half-square triangles. I bought one years ago but have never actually used it for a quilt, just played around with it a little. So I decided to try it to make all these 1.5" hst's. I don't think it saves any time but it does make them easier to handle. The easiest thing would be to use the Easy Angle ruler and sew the triangles together but I don't think my elderly hands could manage such tiny pieces. I probably should learn to paper piece!

SPIDERMAN LAPGHAN COMPLETED

I started the Spiderman Lapghan in March and finally finished it this afternoon. The first couple of months were pretty tough – I was having a lot of hand pain and crocheting was more painful than knitting, but at that point I still hoped to have it finished by my grandson's birthday in late April. Once I realized that each round was getting bigger (and taking longer) I slowed down because there was no chance of finishing it that quickly. Since then, I only picked it up occasionally, mostly when I needed something mindless. The final step was to reverse single crochet around the outer edge. I really worked at it but could not get it right. So I finally settled for a slip stitch all around and I think it looks pretty good. I'm not entirely happy with the way the webs look but they'll do. I may enter it in the County Fair this fall and give it to DGS after that.

While it was in progress, I usually kept the afghan in a bag next to my chair. But one night I wanted to see how it looked spread out, so I put it on the bed in my sewing room. The next morning I found Leo curled up on it. That gave me the idea of making a small version for him using the leftover yarn. That solves the problem of royal blue and red acrylic yarn added to my stash.

FRIDAY IS GRANDKID DAY AGAIN

SIL called yesterday to say that PG&E is cutting off power to their neighborhood from 8am to 5pm today. So of course we said they were welcome to stay here all day. For years one or the other parent would bring one or both children here every Friday for "Papa Day." But now that the girls are getting older and have more activities, there is still a "Papa Day" every week but not always on Friday. I have to go for a perm this afternoon and Gpa may take the girls to see Kit Kitteridge while their Daddy enjoys the peace and quiet.

Later: Kit Kitteridge is off the agenda because it is no longer playing at our local theater. Daddy and Gpa ended up spending the afternoon cutting down a small tree that was growing too close to the back garden wall and the girls helped. EAS is spending the night and she and Gpa are planning to see "Space Chimps" tomorrow morning.

EAS and I picked a bunch of swiss chard for dinner. I fixed it with garlic and served it over polenta. It was so much better than what we've been buying at the market.

More Apricot Content

This is an Apricot Upside-Down cake. It was supposed to be made in a cast iron skillet but none of my cast iron has been used in such a long time that it all needs to be cleaned up and seasoned again. So I used my square Pampered Chef dish and inverted it onto a small cookie sheet when it was done. Worked very well and we had it for dessert tonight. Really good! I used Blenheims from our own tree. We still have quite a few that are not yet ripe, so we'll probably be eating them for at least another week. Meanwhile, the older apricot tree now has some ripe fruit. I'm not sure what variety it is, possibly Moorpark. But the fruit is quite large, even though we didn't do any thinning. Very tasty as well, but of course not as good as the Blenheims.

I picked more lettuce a couple of days ago. We only planted about 2 square feet and we are getting more than we can use. The Arugula has started flowering but the leaves are still edible. I usually throw in a few Basil and spinach leaves for variety. After I wash them, I store them in a plastic box in the fridge and they keep fresh for several days. We always have clean greens for salads and sandwiches. I haven't tried using the Arugula flowers yet but I hear they are delicious on salads.


The grandcats stayed with us last weekend while their family vacationed in Napa. Luke quickly found a nest in my fabric shelves. He was so careful - didn't disturb anything, didn't even shed on the fabric. What a great cat! Meanwhile his brother Duke disappeared under the bed in the sewing room. He surfaced occasionally to hiss at us and presumably to eat and use the catbox, although we never saw him actually do either.

I've been working on Clue 3 of the Burger Queen Mystery quilt. This week it's 6" blocks, thirteen of them, so it's taking a while. At the same time, I'm still sewing four-patches and split 9-patches for the Orange Crush Mystery Quilt. Also working on the Ballerina baby quilt.

Friday was Pie Day

Our neighbor brought us a box of their Blenheim apricots so a pie had to be made. The recipe I used called for Minute tapioca, a cup of sugar and a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. The crust is a plain one but made with lard instead of shortening. We switched because of the trans fat issue but now that I read the lard label, it also has hydrogenated fat in it. DH doesn't like crust made with butter and neither of us likes the taste of the reformulated shortening, so I'm not sure what to do at this point. Maybe I should just use whatever, figuring that we don't eat pies very often, so it shouldn't make much of a difference.


The box of apricots was still not empty, so I made this apricot salsa to put on the grilled chicken. It also has red sweet pepper, a hot pepper (Fresno from Mom's salsa garden), cilantro and lime juice. I also put in a little chopped red onion that I found in the fridge. I like the crunch it added.


These are the blocks I made for the Burger Queen Mystery quilt. The blue is my background fabric and the flowered is my focus fabric. I originally misunderstood the directions and made the block on the right side. I really didn't like it much so, when I found out my error, I did the one on the left. I liked it a lot better and I now have 5 twelve inch blocks and 5 nine inch blocks and am waiting for the next clue. I may use the other blocks on the back of the quilt. Or maybe in a scrap quilt.

I'm also working on a scrappy mystery quilt called Orange Crush. This one is now over, so I have all the clues printed out, although I am still working on Clue 1. That one involves making 150 4-patches and I'm doing those as "leaders and enders" while sewing other things. So Orange Crush may take a while.

Toasty Tuesday

We are having another hot spell. Yesterday and today the temps were in the upper 90's. Happily, though, it cools down quickly in the evenings. That's one advantage to living away from a city.

Our first tomato. Back in early April I bought four Roma tomato plants at Target and planted them in one of our raised beds. Within a month one of them had little tomatoes and I fully expected to have ripe tomatoes by mid-June. But every time I looked, they were still green. Then this evening I did a really good search and found this little darling. I didn't see any more, but the bushes are so thick and overgrown that there may very well be more. It is supposed to be an heirloom San Marzano but it doesn't look much like one to me.

Hard to believe that we only have one zucchini plant. These four join the other half dozen already in my fridge. The crookneck and eight ball plants are producing more slowly but are still giving us more than we can eat. I'm thinking of doing "all zucchini all the time" for dinner tomorrow night. I can stuff the bigger ones and make a casserole with the smaller ones and maybe even make a zucchini salad with the really young ones that are still on the plant.

I also picked a big batch of lettuce. It's a mix of several different kinds and has withstood the heat pretty well. Only the arugula and spinach have started going to seed. While I was working in that bed I found four beets, perfect size, so I pulled them too. Their tops are surprisingly free of insect damage, so I will probably cook them too.
The Kentucky Wonder beans have been racing to the top of the trellis and I was starting to get a little concerned about the lack of beans. But yesterday we spotted the first flowers so it shouldn't be long now.

Fabric Choices for the Burger Queen Mystery Quilt

The flowered fabric is my focus fabric and the other two are candidates for the background. I am leaning towards the blue but it may be too directional. I had originally picked a different focus fabric but I don't have three yards of that one.