Back To My Roots!

Our trip to Louisiana went wonderfully well. We got to visit with one of Daddy's sisters and the two surviving brothers. Aunt Betty was unable to come to the get together and she was sorely missed.

There's just nothing like sitting around a table with coffee cup in hand listening to my family reminisce about their earlier lives. It's a living history lesson.

Uncle Max gave me a picture of my Daddy and him when he was about seven or eight. Daddy must have been about nineteen or twenty. Daddy's face is not clear in this picture but the picture is around seventy years old so I guess that's to be expected. Even with his face blacked out my Daddy is a handsome man. :)



One of my first cousins, Cliff, came to visit with his parents while we were there. He brought three of his four children. I had not seen Cliff in near on fifty years. It was nice to get to know a little about him and his family while we were visiting Uncle Max and Aunt Jackie.

Becky also came over and brought her newest granddaughter, Shelby. Shelby is only four months old and a little beauty. Two of Becky's granddaughters stayed with their great-grandmother and great-grandfather on Friday. Bailey and Madison is their names. They are cuties.

Below is a picture of my sweet aunts and uncles: From left to right: Uncle Henry Teasley, Aunt Jackie Teasley, Aunt Shirley Smith and Uncle Melvin Smith. Seated is Uncle Max Teasley. Precious, precious people.



Cliff and his children; Katie, Sarah (in front) and Jeremy Teasley.



Cliff almost lost Sarah to William. She really took up with William and wanted to come home with us. :) All the children were sweeties.

Now is the time to share the pictures of the Great Tamale Eating Event:

Each year we visit with Aunt Jackie and Uncle Max they get tamales to have to nosh on before lunch. As Aunt Jackie calls them "They're just a little snack." before lunch.

Uncle Max goes to pick the tamales up and they are placed in the center of the table and everyone dives in. I'll admit I am one of the divers too. I don't allow any pictures of me and my tamales. Everyone else is fair game. :)





Along with the tamales, Aunt Jackie always lays out a feast for our lunch on the get together day. That woman is a wonderful cook and can work a circle around me even at her age of seventy-seven.

These wonderful people know that I love them but I don't think they will ever know just how much they mean to me. They're a part of my Daddy and that right there says it all.

This last picture is of the Red River as we traveled across it near the town of Clarence.



We had a long trip home. Uncle Max drew William a map that would take us through Natchez on our return trip. William missed his turn in Winnfield which sent us about seventy-five miles out of the way. We did get to see parts of Louisiana that we'd never seen nor would we have seen traveling interstates. However, most of the scenery was nothing but trees. LOL Sometimes I felt we were in "God Forsaken" country. We made it to Natchez but the missed turn caused us to have a longer trip home. Oh, well I was in good company. :)

We always have a wonderful time visiting Western Louisiana. I should say we have a wonderful time visiting my family in Western Louisiana. It's a treat each time we get the opportunity to go. I'm already looking forward to next year. I hope Aunt Betty can be at the get together then.

Thanks Uncle Max and Aunt Jackie for making each trip a trip we'll never forget. We love you all! God bless.

First Day Of Summer?

Could have fooled me! We've had summer for several weeks. When the temps get to the mid-nineties then it's summer time. LOL

Nothing much is going on in the garden except some harvesting. Oh, and watering. Lots of watering. I let the water go until there's at least an inch on the plants. When we get our water bill we may faint.

The beans that I planted around the tepee poles are beginning to make. We picked enough of the Italian flat beans to have for dinner last night. They were really good. William and I both like the Italian flat beans. We both like green beans in general.

The Louisiana Purple pods are doing pretty good. We're picking them in the morning and are going to take them to Louisiana to the Aunt's and Uncle's house. Along with the beans we will be taking some yellow squash, peppers and hopefully some ripe tomatoes.

The flowers in the hideaway will need to be watered before we leave on our trip. Everything is so dry. I suppose with heat indexes near one hundred five I can't expect anything else.

The tomato plants we have for our late tomatoes almost drowned when it rained Thursday night. I had the cups setting on some paper towels in a large plastic container. The towels held moisture so I didn't have to water every day. After the rain Thursday night, there was about two inches of water in the plastic container and the tomato plants were floating.

I recued them by taking the cups out of the container and adding more soil. They're looking all right now. Guess I need to put them back in the container with more paper towels and water them well before we leave on our trip. I'll put the container in the storage building just in case of rain.

We plan on putting these plants out by the middle of July for tomatoes until frost. I would hate to lose them to drowning. :(

That's about all that is happening around this area. I have to get back to my chores. Thanks for coming. Come again anytime you want to drop in. By the way, I will be posting some more pictures when we return from our trip. :)

It RAINED!!!!!!!

YES! We got a good, slow, soaking rain last night! In fact it rained for almost three hours. Our garden was so happy this morning that the plants all had their little limbs lifted up giving thanks. :)

We could use more rain but I am truly thankful for the water that fell last night. More will come and it will come right on time.

I had some small tomato plants in cups sitting in a plastic container. These tomatoes are for late tomatoes. This morning I check on them to make sure they got some water last night. Yep, they got plenty of water. The cups were floating in about three inches of water in the container. I emptied the water out of the cups while my nice husband put more soil around the roots of the tomatoes. They were looking pretty good when I looked at them this afternoon.

I was on the brink thinking I'd lost my fall tomatoes. But not everything is as it seems. Thank goodness.

I've gotten a few veggies put in the freezer but no canning done yet. I've never used a pressure canner by myself. I have a new pressure canner that has never been used. I read all the info about how to properly use it and was all set to can green beans. Well.......I couldn't get the blasted top to fit.

I was so frustrated when William got home from school bus driving license renewal workshop. He walks over to the canner....Picks the top up and "CLICK" it fits perfectly. GRRRRRR......He wanted to know where the beans were....I just smiled and said "In the freezer." :)

Next time, I hope he's here to put the top on the canner. He's sure handy to have around. Reckon he be's a keeper!

William is getting all the materials together to build us two more raised beds. He thinks there's room for two more sixteen foot beds. That would be really nice for collard greens, turnip greens, kale, swiss chard, mustard, radishes, and lettuces for fall.

I'm planning to plant more yellow squash, zucchini and cucumbers the middle of August. With the late tomatoes we'll be set until frost.

Time to call it a day. Thanks for dropping by. Come again anytime. :)

Still No Rain!

We haven't gotten any rain yet. William watered the garden for about four hours yesterday. Maybe that will hold it for a while. That cholorinated water just isn't the same as what we get from the heavens. It's rained in the area but as my Mom used to tell us "Guess we ain't paying the preacher enough." LOL

William gathered the green beans this morning. I have them ready to wash and put into jars. This is the first time that I gotten to use my new canner (I bought it last summer and our garden fizzled). Also, the first time I've ever used a pressure canner to put up green beans. I'm so excited.

The beans are looking promising this year. I would be happy if I can get at least fifty jars of green beans. Most of them will be pints but a few quarts to have when we have family get togethers.

We are getting the second spurt of zucchinis too. I'm shredding some of them to put in the freezer for breads, muffins and fritters. One of my e-buddies gave me a fritter recipe that is "OH SO GOOD" as Mr Food likes to say. The fritters are great served with field peas, chicken and a few pods of reallllllllllllllllllllly hot peppers.

I made zucchini muffins for breakfast this morning using splenda as the sweetener. They were good but a little too sweet for my taste so next time I will cut back on the sweetener a little. I sprinkled some Parmasan across the top of three just to see how they would taste. The were pretty good...the salty flavor paired with the sweet flavor was good with a cup of hot coffee.

Next time I make the muffins I'm going to do half white flour with half wheat flour and see how that works. It would good if I could make the muffins with all wheat flour and none of the white. I don't know if that will work very well or not but there's nothing like trying it once to see. Got to be adventurous. LOL

The skies are a little cloudy. Maybe....Just maybe....we'll get a shower this afternoon. Doesn't hurt to hope....and pray.

That's all the news around Hunny Bunny Haven for today. I have to get busy canning the beans. See y'all later. You come back now, ya hear!

Let It Rain, Let It Rain, Let It Rain!

The Mississippi summer is here. It's so hot and so dry....the ground is dry that is. The humidity is horrible.

I planted some tomato seeds in cups for late tomatoes. I went to water them today and the humidity is so high my clothes stuck to my body in less than three minutes outside. Whew!
One thing for sure, I didn't tarry outside for very long.

Our garden needs a good rain. We've talked about watering it but the weather person has promised us some rain tonight and tomorrow. We hope she's right.

Production has slowed down in the garden already and it's just started producing. We have high hopes for this garden. I hope we're not disappointed.

Nothing major is happening around here these days. William is working on a chair for one of his co-workers. I'm holding down the fort inside as much as possible.

Maybe we will get a good rain and the temps will drop some and the humidity will fall too. Then I will venture back outside for some gardening. Until then me and the air conditioner are going to be joined at the hips. :)

A Little Color Here, A Little Color There!

William sold a bench recently. One of the little benches that look like there's birdhouses on the back. A co-worker bought it for her little girl. William builds them mostly to sit flower pots on but they are about the right size for a small child.

Anyway the sale has him working to get some of the benches he has made prettied up so he can try to sell them. The colors he has chosen are bright and cheerful.

The color on this bench reminds me of watermelon.



Talking about bright and cheerful, this bench would brighten up any yard!



The glider that is going in my secret garden. I will make some pillows to toss on it to give it more color.



Nice relaxing summertime fun sipping tea, coffee, having breakfast, reading or I could just sit and comtemplate.

Comfort Quilt

Some of the ladies on Homesteading Today got together (online) to sew blocks for a "Comfort" quilt. The blocks were to be cheery colors of blues, greens, whites, yellows, etc.. The block I made is of yellows, whites, blues and greens. All the fabrics are small print florals.

There is no pattern for the block. I decided to call it Sunshine and Blue Skies in Florals. :)

Still at the sewing machine.




All squared, trimmed and ready to mail.




It is my wish that the person who receives the "Comfort Quilt" enjoys it and they will know that each block was sewn with love.

Fried Green Tomatoes!

I made fried green tomato/bacon sandwiches for lunch today. I'll have to admit that I stole the idea from the corner coffee shop here in my home town. I did alter the recipe quite a bit though so it's not the same sandwich they serve.

First of all I used Karla's Fried Green Tomato recipe: This recipe came from my e-buddy Karla in California. It's simply delicious, That's all that needs to be said. I've have had tomatoes cooked by this recipe for breakfast, carried them to a family get together, cooked another batch up for my brother to eat all by himself after the reunion and had them on a sandwich. It doesn't matter how I serve them or when I serve them they are soooooooooooooooo GOOD! I will post the recipe below after I get through bragging on my sandwich I had for lunch. :)

We set out some Early Girl tomatoes. These tomatoes don't get very large so they were right for picking this morning.

Waiting to be lunch:



Getting dressed for the party:



Into the hot oil:



Bacon and tomatoes about to meet:



Plated up and ready to eat. I used sliced cucumbers for the "crunchy" instead of chips.



Nothing but crumbs and very few of them!



Let it be said we southern people know how to eat! Not only was this lunch good it was kind of healthy. I did use olive oil for frying and very little oil at all. Maybe that will cancel out the mayo I globbed on my bread. hee hee hee.

Karla's Fried Green Tomatoes

1/2 Cup all-purpose flour l/4 Cup Seasoning Salt
l/2 Cup Lemon Pepper Blend 3 Heaping Tablespoons of dried
basil

Put all ingredients into a plastic bag (except for tomatoes). Pour some of the flour mixture on a plate to coat the tomatoes. Use firm green tomatoes sliced very thin. Pour a small amount of olive oil and vegetable oil into a pan. Coat the tomatoes and put them in the hot oil. Fry tomatoes on medium heat until a fork easily pierces the center portion of the tomato.

Change oil after frying a couple of batches of tomatoes. Add fresh oil as crumbs from tomatoes will begin to burn.

You may refrigerate leftover coating mixture for future use.

All you have to do now is enjoy!