It is so true. The meme where one day, the zucchini is tiny but the next it is ginormous. I searched my garden 2-3 days before this day. Nothing. Maybe a tiny fingerling. One at the most. Then comes this day. BAM. Eight fully ready to eat zucchinis.
Also tomatoes, wax beans, and green beans. I wasn’t even planning on harvesting. But once I saw the zucchini, I knew I was overdue.
Lunch was this. So delicious. I would eat this every day if the tomatoes and rustic bread always tasted so good. A little butter, spicy brown mustard, tomato slices. Done.
And for dinner, we had a two-bean, fresh corn off the cob, red onion, cherry tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and balsamic salad. Yummy! Don’t you just love summer garden meals?
But I need some more recipe ideas for the beans. I can’t keep up with them. I give them away, eat a ton, freeze a few (not a great option since we live in the RV-storage space is at a premium). We’ve had stir fry, meat packets including beans, and potato bean onion ground turkey soup.
Ideas please! What is your favorite fresh green bean recipe?
Patting myself on the back here. I found a recipe in a magazine and had nearly ALL of the ingredients on hand! Now that right there is amazing. But also, fresh frozen halibut from a fisher friend, dill growing in the garden, and ginger in the freezer.
We’ve had several good experiences with fish tacos. But I am a careful sort of cook with fish.
And. Ta-dah! This recipe works great! It wasn’t too hard, didn’t have too many steps, and nothing weird or difficult to find at the store.
Success was confirmed by my own taste buds, plus my honey loved them, and leftovers (how long can you keep fish taco leftovers anyway?) were devoured and seconds requested by Jamie and Donavyn next door.
After cleanup, and several photos, because yes, I am one of those people who take pictures of their food, I dug out the magazine. Two stars for me!! This recipe came from Bon Appetit. What?!!! The prep was pretty simple and the taste delish.
It’s a keeper. Anyone else have any fresh caught or frozen halibut?
Just look at all of that corn, beans, and radishes!
Oh. Wait. You can’t see anything but a few stems and missing row of radishes. That’s because we have invaders. Of the rabbit-y sort. The ones who LOVE almost everything in my garden: corn, radishes, green beans, parsley, kale (they really adore kale), and another leafy green similar to chard. All gone.
Plus. Holes. They love excavating as well. I think they can smell the new corn kernel seeds I planted, because several holes line up exactly where I replanted (and replanted).
Ignore the weeds. I gave up in frustration.
We have bunnies (formerly known as pets). People have dumped them. So now between the neighbors and us, we have a colony. A fluffle. We are happy that most of them live beneath the neighbor’s outbuildings (while 4 live at Taylor and Jamie’s as actual pets). But the green pasture is alluring. And the used-to-be growing garden a delight.
Two black bunnies edge nearer to the the pot of gold at the end of the garden rainbow. Grrrrr.
So today. Take that. And that. And THAT!
We installed a bunny barrier. It’s not tall, but we only need to deter Peter Rabbit, Cottontail, Flopsy, Mopsy, Benjamin, and their buds from free ranging the garden beds. We hope.
The question is, besides onions, garlic, basil, several chocolate cherry sunflowers, a few green beans, and a marigold or two, what is there time to replant (time number 4 for some items) that will mature before the frost?
Sigh. It was looking so good! Grumble grumble. Back to the drawing board.
On this date, April 23, 1979, at my dad’s birthday party, this guy popped the girlfriend question. And the rest, they say, is his (and her) story. Our story. What an adventure it’s been! 43 years ago.
The attempted photo recreation…
circa now
The journey continues, my honey and me, best friends.
Hello, friends! Just look at what I call “Girl in a Tree.” Her (current) favorite thing to do is climb trees. She was more than happy to shimmy up and strike a “missing-teeth” pose with Karen Rostoker-Gruber’s traditional retelling of a Yiddish folktale, A Crowded Farmhouse Folktale. Thank you, Miss Autumn.
And thanks to Karen for sending me a copy of this beautiful book and Kathy Temean for hosting Karen and her picture book. You can read more about Karen on Kathy’s blog, Writing and Illustrating.
Now, as a person who lives full-time in an RV with her husband and quite hunting-crazy cat Monet, I know something about being crowded. When all the grands are over (7), there is nary a place to sit. We have to double-up AND use the floor. Inside the RV, we have also had: 2 cats, 1 dog, a fledgling goldfinch, spiders, earwigs (YUCK), flies, wasps, adults, grandchildren, 2 bunnies…I think that might be it. Thankfully, this crowd was not all at the same time. Oh, and the occasional Monet-attempted catch-and-release mouse.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Crowded Farmhouse Folktale. Told both in rhyming and lyrical text, the mix was perfectly combined for a satisfying read. Not too much of either, but just right. For a fun retelling of a traditional story, you need to read about Farmer Earl and his crowded farmhouse.
What I Like About This Book:
-humor abounds, though I imagine Farmer Earl would not feel the same way
-the hugely huge family (this phrase cracks me up)
-a fun, re-imagining of a classic tale
-the animals and chaos
-perfect little rhyming couplets that young readers will pick up in no time
-the combination of both lyrical and rhyming text
-adorable and engaging illustrations filled with plenty of details to amuse readers
Amazon Blurb:
Farmer Earl has had enough―his home is too crowded! So, he visits the wise woman in town for help. She tells him to bring all his ducks in the house. And then all his horses. And all his goats too! How will there be more room with all these animals? This updated folktale uses humor to explore what it takes to gain a new perspective.
RV life in the winter, particularly in a four-season location (like the Pacific Northwest, east of the Cascades), is not a piece of cake. Nor is it for the faint of heart.
I should have opened with a question mark and let you guess first. How many fleece blankets do you think a person would need to adequately block window drafts against winter chills? In January. While living in an RV? And all-season RV. At least that’s what it says on the side.
Nine. We require an assortment of 9 lap throw-sized fleece blankets to tuck along the cracks of all window openings to block drafts. Is this a pain? Yes. Do I despair? Yes. Murmur? Unfortunately. Yes.
But we are warm! The draft-blockers do their job. So well, in fact, that on super chilly mornings, they block the heat to portions of the curtains and the curtains freeze to the windows. Don’t worry! It eventually melts and we wipe away the beaded rivers streaming down into the window tracks.
Extra tasks are required for RV life in the winter. There is a longer daily chore list. But we keep warm. Our tricks of the trade keep us nice and toasty, despite ice, fog, snow, sleet, wind, rain, and sub-freezing temps. How about you? Any winter RV tricks you’d like to share with a couple of RV popsicles?
The day after Taylor, my son, mowed the pasture, I was playing my one-millioneth game of chuck-it with Ginger and she stopped to nose around up by the ditch. Usually NOTHING will keep her from her ball, but something smelled goooood. I went up to see, since she was ignoring me.
And rats. It was a broken egg, most likely crushed by the lawn tractor. This had happened once before, with a killdeer nest. The babies were so silent with fear, they flattened out and survived the blade. This egg was unhatched and didn’t survive. But when I looked closer, the shell appeared white, and the yolk huge. Not a killdeer egg. But what type of egg was it?
This past weekend, my honey was changing the sprinklers and found an egg. Right in the middle of the grass, tucked down low. I went hunting, and sure enough. A big-enough to be chicken, but not quite pointy on either end, with a tinge of green.
Same day, later, Taylor was weed eating the pasture edges and ditch bank. With his fans in tow (Donavyn and Autumn), they discovered 2 more broken eggs and 2 whole eggs, but none in a nest beside each other. Some on this side of the ditch, at least one on the far side. One of the broken ones could have been the broken one I found. Or not. Same type of egg.
Later, after dinner, I went walking the pasture. I found yet another egg, randomly laid in the middle of the pasture. That makes 6 or 7 eggs, not in a nest or placed close to each other. Chicken-egg sized but oblong rather than pointy, all with the slight greenish hue.
What a mystery! As often as the next door chickens come and eat our bugs (thank you, chickens!), one would think we should have an egg or two found in odd places. But though I often urged them to nest up and share, they all know where they live, and at the slightest hint of one of us, they go running home.
Which is good. Because. You know. Bird dog.
Pasture. Roaming neighbor chickens. Turkeys. Wildlife by the buckets. Hawks, magpies, the occasional heron, crows, ducks. I’ve been trying to think of the larger birds that could be possible wandering egg layers. There’s just no sense of why here, and there, and way over there??? The egg on the opposite side of the ditch sort of rules out chickens, as they would have to cross the water and they are not too motivated unless food is involved.
Here is one of the eggs, with my thumb to give an idea of size. Does anyone have any ideas? All day yesterday I was on high alert, watching for birds in that area. Zip.
Love, Laughter, and Life 