Every Blooming thing in the Neighborhood

Yesterday and today are going to be action-packed, let me tell you. We had a nice visit with Mike's sister yesterday. The kitties anticipated a busy day, and so they hurried through their morning naps. Smitty got wind of the Quilts of Valor effort. He's adopted the Stars and Stripes quilt as his personal quilt of valor...well-deserved, I'd say.

Sadie will sleep on whichever quilt is draped over someone's lap.

My first task was to bake a Dutch Apple Pie for Two.

Only...this is a Dutch Apple Pie for Three. These little six-inch pies are a little too much for two, and yet, not enough for four. For three, it was just right. The pies for two are baked in a 6-inch pie plate. I have this one made by Anchor Hocking. And this can be so simple because you can use Pillsbury pie crust, which is what I do when we're traveling. If you don't want to make the pie filling, you can use one can of your favorite pie filling from the grocery store. I was using some of my homemade pie filling, made with apples from Erik and Mae's tree back home. This is the recipe I use when I make them.

Dutch Apple Pie for Two
Serves 2-4

Topping:

2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling:
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water
2 cups chopped peeled tart apples (about 2 large)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.

Filling: In a large saucepan, mix sugar, cornstarch and water until smooth; bring to a boil. Cook and stir until thickened, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in apples and vanilla. Pour into prepared crust of your choosing.

Topping: Mix flour, brown sugar, oats and butter. Crumble topping over filling.

Bake until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly, 40-45 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Serve that up with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and you've got yourself one tasty dessert.

So we mostly sat around talking, but our shadow selves were getting bored and restless. We decided to take them out for a walk.

The weather has been a little gray and chilly since we've been here. Yesterday was still on the chilly side, but the sun was shining. Our shadow selves always feel best when the sun shines brightly.

There are citrus trees in the park laden with fruit. I don't know if these oranges are good for eating, or if they're strictly ornamental. I've also seen lemon and lime trees in the park.

The RV park is called Golden Village Palms, and these trees line the driveway.

Some of them are sporting bunches of green dates.

And there are always lots of blooming things growing here, and so I took pictures of everything I saw.

In California, these are called Bottlebrush, or Callistemon, if you must know their snotty botanical name. I think I might have mentioned this before, but I can never find anything on Google to back up my claims. Nevertheless, here's what I have to say about this: When I lived in Hawaii as a little girl, we called this same plant "Pele's Tears." As legend would have it, if one picked a blossom from Pele's Tears, it would start to rain. And in Hawaii, being a tropical state, it rains a little bit most every day. So, the legend always worked when I tried it.

Moving on...

These Bird of Paradise were surrounding the pool area and blooming to beat the band.

This pretty rose bush is located just a few sites down from ours.

This Pampas Grass is growing near the front gate. We have it back home too. We can never get ours to bloom. In the 15 or so years since we've planted it, it's only bloomed once. It might be too cool a climate where we are.

I needed this sign for my Whine One One day.

This one is for my pig-loving friend, Sue. It's made from an old propane tank.

When we got back to the RV, we got Smitty out for a walk. He spends a lot of time sniffing around these bushes. I imagine there are lots of animal markings to smell. He's been very brave since we've been here, watching woofies and Mans walk by with nary a twitch of a whisker.

And that was kind of our day...just a lot of gabbing and relaxing. Dinner was good, and we were tired when we went to bed last night.

We're up bright an early this morning. We have about an hour's drive to Ontario for the Road to California Quilt Show. I'm so excited to finally be getting to a big show. We'll stop along the way for our beloved Egg McMuffin. Mike always has a Sausage McMuffin...but what does he know? If you ask me, Egg McMuffin is the food of the gods.

I'm kind of wondering if I'll be able to take pictures at the quilt show. With everyone carrying around cameras on their phones these days, I'm not sure how such a rule could be enforced, but one never knows. I surprised even myself last night by being too excited to go to sleep. Also, I kept reminding myself not to forget the tickets, and that didn't help.

So pictures or no (but I hope with pictures), I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about it. For now...it's time to get moving if we're going to get an early start.