Family

Recently we traveled to visit some extended family a couple of states away. Family means everything to me, and I've come to know that the reason for that is my parents always put emphasis on family. We were (are) a pretty tight knit family, my parents, sisters, and me. We spent holidays with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts, great-uncles. There were various family reunions to attend and occasional telephone chats with far-flung cousins.

As the cousins grow up, and people move farther away from their "roots", I see this changing. When my great-aunts and -uncles are gone, will we still keep in touch with their children? I was lucky enough to be brought up with old-fashion traditions regarding family. And I intend to do my part to see those traditions continue.



Sit long, talk much





Young meets young-at-heart

Museum visits

I'be been kinda busy lately, so haven't been blogging. I spent a few days in Memphis with my parents, sisters, and nephew. Unfortunately my husband had to work, so didn't get to join us. The first day, my sisters, nephew, and I went to the Pink Palace Museum. We've been a couple times before, although not in years. Unfortunately, J was scared of the animatronic dinosaurs. He was interested in the miniature, hand-carved, working circus though.




The next day, along with my parents, we went to the Childrens' Museum. But don't be fooled---just because it's a museum aimed toward children doesn't mean the adults can't have fun too!














Who says the whole family can't have fun wherever you go?

My garden

The garden is growing like crazy right now. We've got plenty of squash and zucchini. Also we've got:



Cucumber plants growing nicely. I probably will pick the first cuke today.





Watermelon. I only planted one plant, just to see how it would do in the raised bed.





Broccoli! We've got lots of it, which is great since we are big broccoli eaters around here.

double nephews

At a family gathering recently, our great-nephew and nephew were together for the first time. They are 7 months apart in age, but they managed to play together a bit, and watch another nephew outside who was shooting fireworks.

Recent guests

We've had some guests to our home lately. First off is this lovely lady:







It's not unusual for us to have deer, but they're not normally this close to the house.


Our next visitors were a couple of these:




They just appeared one day, taking a dust bath in the hole my dogs dug in the backyard when they were mole hunting. We've got an adult red tail hawk that hangs out in the lower front yard and feasts on the crawdads in their little mud castles, so we're wondering if these are a couple of baby red tail hawks. Whatever they are, they're adorable. They've made 2 appearances so far.

Saturday market goodies

This was my first visit to the Saturday market in a neighboring town. There were several participants, and I found lots of goodies:

nice red onions with tops still attached
organic yellow squash
organic elephant garlic with top still attached
organic turnip greens
French bread
homemade granola


Next time I will take my own repurposed plastic bags. I don't normally use plastic bags, but my mom will give things to me sometimes in one. Normally I just take them to the grocery to be recycled, but I'll save a couple for weighing produce at the market.

The makings for aloo gobhi

This makes me smile.



Having grown the 2 main ingredients that I need to make one of my husband's favorite dishes. And the fact that they are ready to harvest at the same time.