It's my brother Dean's birthday today and I'm thinking he'll spend it relaxing a bit after having had son Jeremy's family there for several days. Yesterday Jeremy and Helen and the kids embarked on their new adventure, a move cross-country to the Seattle area. Another place for Dean and Helen to visit and close to brother Bruce in Centralia.
Last week Bob completed some carpentry projects, and I worked on the bed of iris; and I do mean 'bed'. They'd been allowed to grow for what must be decades leaving a solid mass of bulbs and leaves about 75 ft. square. In that particular location they may as well have been planted in cement and it's truly tedious to get them out. I was also working to clean up around two very large Butterfly bushes which are just now setting flowers and coupled with all the pollen from the adjacent wildflower bed I soon had a terrific headache. So much for those plans.
The new driveway circle bed is looking really great and we can hardly wait for the smaller plants to begin growing, especially the Russian Sage in the middle.
Yesterday we had a fun and sweet couple over for brunch after church. We'd decided to serve fresh-squeezed o.j. and lucked out in finding a bag of Valencias at Wally World. The juice was yummy. We've enjoyed Bobby Flay's Brunch show on the Food Network, and Bob did two dishes, both of which we had already tried out to make certain they'd be good. The first was Apple Pie Oatmeal, a small portion served in a ramekin. It's cooked oatmeal which you layer with previously slightly cooked apple and craisins and then put it under the broiler for a crisp sugar-y top. The "main" course was Poached egg served on a baguette slice (Bob made the baguettes on Saturday). The baguette is grilled, then spread with a goat cheese/honey/black pepper/olive oil/WW vinegar mixture, covered with thinly sliced tomatoes, then the poached egg which you cut and open slightly and a sprinkle of watercress. It calls for microgreen sprouts which in this part of Virginia is as well known as lutefisk. I made a fresh peach cobbler for dessert.
Tomorrow Jack and Anne Hershbell are coming to see our completed projects and the chickens and for lunch. They have a donkey, Marvin, and guinea hens which serve as alarms, but which also wander around and tend to get run over. In a couple weeks we should start getting eggs from our "girls."
The weather has been odd again, and forecasts keep changing. We love the cool nights as it makes for wonderful sleeping weather, but some of the locals think waking to 52 degrees in June is a bit extreme. There's nothing we can do about the weather, so we try to go with the flow.
Until later.........
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