ANNIVERSARY BALL JARS

Saw these in the store...

They only come in the 16oz size according to the Ball website HERE, but they are cool.

And pretty!  They are designed to mimic the historic patterns that have been used throughout the history of the company.

From the Ball website:

Celebrate the 140-year history of Ball home canning, as a beloved staple in kitchens across the country, with these collector's edition Anniversary Mason Jars.  Created in celebration of popular patterns and designs that have graced the homes of jar lovers and devoted canners for generations, the Anniversary Jar is a beautiful way to commemorate this legacy of preservation and creativity.  Express yourself beautifully with the canning jars that Ball has been known for since 1884.

Of course, I HAD to buy a package, just because!

EVER HAVE ONE OF THOSE DAYS

 Well, I had one of those days on Saturday.

Haven't mowed in two weeks (rain) and there was rain in the forecast so I went out and this was the weather when I started.

Pretty picture, with the green and the contrast of the sky but I was on a mission to mow.  I started out and did the driveway, around the back of the house and around the barn and shed and then started on the front yard when the mower just stopped cutting.  The engine was running fine but the mower stopped.  I thought maybe it got clogged up again but all I had to do was look down from my perch on the seat...

...oops, that's not good!  I drove it to a flat area and crawled around checking it out and it was frayed and cut in a few spots.  I kind of wonder if the issue the last time with the clog caused the belt to become worn.  Could also be a stick with thorns that got stuck in there.

Honestly, in all the years of mowing on the other mower, I never ever had a belt break. Replaced it once during an annual maintenance because it was nearing the end of its life, but it always kept going.  

This was how much of the front I got done.  You can see right where it stopped.  Sigh.

Only 33 minutes and got a little less than halfway done.

As this posts, we're awaiting the Deere dealer service department to reach out so we can see what our options are.  If we lived out there and had a concrete floor garage, to make removing the mower deck easy, I could order a belt and I bet I could figure out how to fix it.  But we don't have the luxury yet so, $$ it is.

But wait...there's more.

So I decided to drive the truck, as I always do, to keep it running and in good shape and I got in and rolled down the window since it was cool, and then I slammed the door shut.

Wasps flew out of the MIRROR and almost into the cab of the truck.  I've never rolled up a window so fast.  It is an old school crank handle and my experience from pre-power window days came in handy (young people today wouldn't know what to do, ha!).  I took the wasp spray and handled that.

But wait...there's more.

I went to the porch to rest my body after all the excitement and I was in the rocking chair when something stung me.  It was a glancing blow and I was wearing shorts sitting in a chair, so I'll spare you the pictures because this is a family oriented blog, LOL.

I jumped up from the chair, sending it flying across the porch (and broke it the seat out of it)...

I nursed my glancing sting and let them reassemble on their nest...and then I took care of that too.

At this point I was done for the day.

I'm gonna blame it all on the solar flare! 😆

Yep, that's it!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART MOTHERS DAY SUNDAY

Here we are, another week gone by.  Yesterday was supposed to be mowing day, but things didn't go exactly as planned.  More on that tomorrow.  Today is rainy.

Time for some good food and some Hobart!

We started with a salad of baby spinach with spring greens and mini Roma tomatoes...

And then the main course, oven roasted Mahi-Mahi with shrimp and potatoes with Aleppo pepper and topped with sriracha and chives.

YUM!

Hobart is unimpressed by the good food...so we moved the couch cushion out of the way so he has room to spread out while sleeping.  Because...

#notspoiled

And of course Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there!  2nd Man and I lost our mothers years ago but we always think of them and hold their memories close.  Hope you all have a wonderful day and get the wonderful treatment you deserve!

CRAWLING AND CREEPING

So the other night, "J" from 2nd Family (they live at the front of the property that butts up next to ours) sent us these pictures. 

First up, this one:

She said she woke up, went to the kitchen to wash her coffee cup and found this scorpion crawling around the sink.  She said that after her heart rate came down, she dispatched the scorpion as quickly as possible.

Yikes!

And then she sent this one:

The dogs were barking one night and checked her front porch to find this little guy/gal creeping around.

We've always had a soft spot for them, yes they aren't as cute as raccoons, but they do eat a lot of bugs and things.  We even rescued a baby opossum from a pool and bottle fed it for a day until we could get it to the wildlife rehab center.  It was raised and released into a rural park.  Nothing wrong with that.

Scorpions though?  No thank you.  Side note, one of my grandmothers used to tell us, right before we'd get into bed, "check for stingin' scorpions, spiders and mice before you get in".  Thanks Grandma, I'll sleep better now...NOT!  However, we understand, no matter how "tight" our house will be, that will most likely be our new normal.  We live in nature, we have to share it!

CURRY LEAF TREE

You know me, never one to pass up on a cool plant/tree/bush and with Arbor Day recently, we got the Olive tree you saw last week.  A couple weeks ago, I  found a fun one online (Texas nursery) and ordered it.

Took it out and got it transplanted into a pot (for now).

This is after I got it into a clay pot. It'll go into a bigger pot once it gets a bit bigger.

We were watching food/cooking shows recently, as we often do, and saw them making some food dishes using curry leaves.  Now this is NOT the same as the curry powder...curry powder is made by blending spices.  This is a tree and the leaves are used and it doesn't really have any curry familiar smell, it's an odd smell but supposed to be a delicacy.  We shall see!

These are used in cooking Indian and other Middle Eastern dishes, usually by adding to a sauce or stew or cooking in a bit of neutral oil to flavor it and use the oil to cook meat.  It will be an adventure!

In addition to culinary uses, it is supposed to be healthy for the body too.  Hey, we can always use something that will be healthy!  There are a couple more plants (bushes) we'd like to find that 2nd Man can eventually use in his cooking, we're on the hunt for those now. 

Stay tuned!

GOOD CINCO DE MAYO FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

It's been a wet weekend.  Yesterday was good for a bit, went to the farm but way too wet from the rains earlier in the week to do anything outside in the yard.  Then last night and through this morning, very heavy rains and storms.  It's slowly moving out and no rain for the next week at least.

Today is Cinco de Mayo and I told 2nd Man we should have some good Tex Mex food.

So, he made his revised heart healthy arroz con pollo.  Oven roasted chicken, removed from the bone and cooked with tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, brown rice, jalapeños, onions, and seasonings (low sodium) and slow cooked together for about 45 minutes.  I made a black bean and corn salad and he made some corn tortillas.  Topped with a little greek yogurt, yummy!

Hobart is lying around, enjoying the sunshine when it pops through the window.  Because...

#notspoiled

NAKED STAR WARS GARDENING

Or something like that?

Today is two days in one:

HAPPY STAR WARS DAY!

Every year, May 4th is the day that is used to enjoy being a fan of the iconic movies (of course a play on the words May the Force Be With You).

And also...

HAPPY WORLD NAKED GARDENING DAY!

The first Saturday of May is always World Naked Gardening Day, so go out there and get naked!

We will celebrate one or both, but no pics either way, LOL!!!!!!

LARGE FLAT BASKETS TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Went downstairs and found these.  A set of large, flat, baskets.  Two of each size.  And by size, they are big.  The large ones are 36" in diameter and the other two are 24" in diameter.

They have hangers on the back, so we guess they are made to hang on the wall?  Or stored by hanging up?

Not sure if they are decorative or if there is another use for them but couldn't pass them up.  We may hang them on the wall but wondering if there is some as yet unknown way we can use them?  Any suggestions?

NEW OLIVE TREE

In honor of Arbor Day last week, I got a new tree (actually two, more on the other one in another post).

I know, I know, ANOTHER tree?  Hey, it's for the future and we only wish we had planted one of these a few years ago, but hey, here we are, ha!

Arbequina Olive.

I picked this one because it had a nice shape to it and looked very healthy.  Arbequina is the most cold hardy olive (once established of course).  Down to 10, 15 and 20 and that should cover our more recent crazy Winters.  It's also drought tolerant, so that means it will cover our erratic Summers as well, ha.   

And check this out:

It's developing little olives on it!

Not sure we'll actually have any, but since it's not in the ground and just in the container (we don't need to worry about root development), we'll let it do its thing and see how they come out.  I may upgrade the container size to help it along, but we're happy to have an olive tree to try out.  We had one at the house in town years ago and actually got some olives off of it and it was growing in a pot, not the ground.

HAPPY MAY DAY!  (is that still a thing?  Ha!)

ZEN MACHINE TIME WITH A PAUSE

It was a good, but interesting, day on the Zen Machine.

I got out there and first thing I did was start mowing...

It has been two weeks so it was ready to be mowed and with rain yesterday and a couple more days of rain chances, I needed to get as much done as possible.   You can see above it was getting a bit tall.  Yes, I cut it short, it's fine as I always do it like this, it helps between mows to keep it more manageable.

But I did encounter an issue.

I stopped about halfway through to take a break and then add fuel because the gauge showed it was at about a quarter of a tank.  I did that and hopped back on and it started right up but as soon as I turned on the mower blade deck (PTO), it died.  Just great.

I tried several times, same thing.  I drove it around and then would turn on the PTO and it still died.  So I got off in and left it in the shade to cool down and I did the edging around the fruit tree beds.  I got back on an hour later and same thing, it would die.

I got out my phone and checked some websites and they said to check the belts and see if the pulleys turned.  They didn't.  Something was wedged underneath.  I felt around and found the culprit: a clump of damp grass that had created a wedge between one blade and the edge of the deck.

Here it is!

Pulled it out a little at a time until I could wiggle the blade and then it moved just enough to let me pull this out.  2nd Man said "that little thing caused all that?"  Yep, it was just in the right spot and created a substantial wedge.

It was time to be back on the Zen Machine and after another 45 minutes or so, I finished.

Looking nice and neat...for another week anyway, ha.

I paused the mower app so it would not record extra time or mileage so this is about normal.

On the plus side, I had eyes on me the whole time...or maybe they were just grazing, ha.  But regardless, it was a great view and so relaxing.

Hope you all had a great weekend!  We had a very good meeting yesterday that is getting us closer to an announcement.  Stay tuned!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

We are off to a farm related appointment today and hoping we beat the rains that are coming later this afternoon.  Time for some good food and some Hobart!

2nd Man use to regularly make this, a Mexican dish called picadillo which is ground beef and potatoes in a tomato based sauce (with good seasonings of course).  With our new way of eating he decided to change it up a bit.  He used ground turkey and mushrooms with yellow squash and zucchini.  It's very good!

Hobart will be sleeping while we're gone and of course, we will have to make a warm nest for him to sleep in before we leave. Because....

#notspoiled

OFF TO THE FARM

Tomorrow we have an important appointment so today is the day to get all this done (also rain tomorrow).

First time in two weeks (too wet last weekend).  I'm sure I will also need to edge around the fruit trees and then use the electric mower around them all.  Should be a full day of Zen Machine fun.

With more rest breaks in between of course!

HANDMADE EASTER ITEMS TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

This is what I saw sticking out.  I pulled out the bag and thought, hmm, let me take this upstairs and see what this is...

As I carried it upstairs, I moved stuff around inside and realized it was crocheted items.  I poured them out onto a table and...

...they are handmade Easter baskets, bunnies and eggs!  I sorted through them all and disposed of the Easter grass (we can get that when we need it).

I put them all together.

There were nine complete sets, nothing missing, (unless maybe there were ten or twelve, ha).  There are 9 baskets with 2 eggs each and then 9 bunnies with eyes, big ears and a little puffy tail.  SO cute.

Not sure what we'll do with them.  We have great nieces and nephews and friends with kids of all ages, so they'll be cute to share.  We figured someone made these by hand, with love of course, and probably for someone's child or children so we just couldn't let them end up in a landfill somewhere.  They'll go in our Easter box for next year.  

WEEKEND OF PUTTING UP

This past weekend was a bit of a washout.  Saturday we had an appointment that we couldn't miss (it was a good one, more on that in a future post) and so my plan was to go out on Sunday.  But as we left our appointment Saturday afternoon, it was getting darker and darker and sure enough, the rains came...

...this was the radar at the farm at midnight Saturday  when the storms in Houston woke us up.  2nd Family said that we got about 2 inches of rain and on Sunday it was standing water.  So no need to go mow and I took the break and made myself useful, ha.  I decided to put some stuff up for future use.

First up, really loved the quick pickled onions that I've been making.

I got out some jars and put all the ingredients in.

Now they are ready to go for use over the next couple of weeks in our meals (and snacks!)

I went to Costco at lunch the other day to buy some things and picked up a couple of their famous rotisserie chickens (huge, delicious and only $4.99!).  I took the meat off and made a few bags for the freezer.

I divide them into about 2 well packed cups each and one chicken gives us...

...three bags for future use!

Also picked up a bunch of zucchini and yellow squash at the farmers market last week so I sliced them up, froze them individually while laid out on a sheet pan and then mixed them up and vacuum sealed them for future use.

Our local grocery store had pork loins for 99 cents a pound.  That's too good a deal to pass by. This was an 9 pound loin so it was $8.91.

After slicing it up, we ended up with two pork loin roasts and six thick cut pork chops.  That's five meals for us, seven actually since we eat the pork roast over a couple of days.

Rainy days are productive!