Cooking with Gas

In the early morning hours yesterday, I got a bug to get out my DSLR camera with macro lens affixed and take some pictures of the bee garden. Some other images crept in there too, but most of this stuff is from the garden. Feast your eyes and see what the bees see. These are the Black-eyed Susans out front.

Of course the sunflowers are irresistible photography subjects. This is one of the Black Oil sunflowers planted by the squirrels. 

This is one of the giants.

This one is called Floristan.

My personal favorite: Ring of Fire.

And Red Lemon Sun.

I planted all these same sunflowers last year, and the squirrels ate every last one. The flowers are appreciated double this year.

And then let's take a look at all the wonderful flowers in the bee garden. The bee garden resulted from the broadcasting of 1/2 pound of a Pacific Northwest mix of wildflower seeds. These are what my friend Marei identifies as "godetia."

These little guys are about the size of a quarter. They look like a little sunflower, don't they?

Here's one I don't know. One time I read that once you learn the name of a flower, you stop seeing the flower. I don't agree, but it gives me a reason not to worry about knowing all their names.

This one is cosmos. I'm surprised at how much cosmos came up.

My friend Christine identified this next one as a corn poppy. They are small...also about the size of a quarter.

This is another I don't know.

Here's another color of cosmos.

Here's another of the godetia. Some of them are more red, some more pink.

Here's another one of these a little closer up.

The corn is going great guns. I'm really hoping we'll be able to find two ears big enough to take with us. If not, I'll make a trip to the grocery store. 

Around the back side of the house, I'm loving the echinacea. The bees love it too.

To finish off the flowers, some blooming mint. 

The cantaloupes are about the size of softballs now. This is a small variety, and it should be 4-6 inches in diameter when it ripens. 

Here's a pickle I missed when I harvested the day before. I intended to get back out and do some more harvesting yesterday, but then got caught up in the day's activities (more about that below).

The plums are starting to turn purple. I'm hoping these will be ready before Labor Day.

And then there are apples. There are several dozen on our small tree. They're still small...about the size of a racquetball.

Okay, and so the day didn't go quite as expected yesterday. It worked out great for me, not so great for Mike. Let me just say right up front that you'd be hard pressed to find a better handyman than Mike. He can fix pretty much anything that breaks. Being an engineer, he's familiar with electricity, which is always a bonus. He's also an excellent plumber and an excellent carpenter. All in all, he's a talented and smart guy. That being said, sometimes things go awry. When his brother Phil was alive, he loved to tell the story of Mike's childhood repair ambitions and when he was in the process of repairing an electric razor. (He was about ten years old at the time.) I'm no expert, but he got something reversed and knocked out the electricity for the whole house. Later in life, he built Phil's new computer, and Phil forever swore off talking about the electric razor debacle.

Moving forward in time, Mike has been working feverishly setting up a system of faucets, "splitters" and hoses to create what amounts to an automatic watering system for the landscaped areas of our home. This involves electronics and apps, and I don't know what all. (If you remember Andy Griffith, you can say "I don't know what all" the way he said it.) In the process, he has repaired or replaced four of the outdoor faucets. 

Such was his task yesterday, and when I saw him, he was standing chest deep in a hole he'd dug trying to get to where a leaky pipe was preventing the faucet from shutting off completely. In the process of digging his hole, he cut the gas line to the house. Oops. That's all repaired now, thanks to the gas company, and we're back in business. But it meant I couldn't cook until it was repaired, and that left me with the whole afternoon to work on my challenge piece. I was actually kind of glad he cut the gas line so I could spend my time in the sewing room without guilt.

And I'm sorry, but only a peek for you. This first image is a peek at the hardest part of this quilt. I thought about how to do it for several days, and I managed to get it put together yesterday. I'll be stitching in some details when the whole piece is finished.

Here's another peek of a different section.

Intriguing, no?

There's just one section left to finish this off, and then I'll be doing some top-stitching and quilting before I finish it off with a binding. No borders for this quilt.

Today I'm going to be doing more cooking for our trip, but then I'll have the food pretty well wrapped up. Today's dish will take a little more time. I'm making Turkey and Artichoke Stuffed Shells with Arrabbiata Sauce. It makes enough to feed an army, but I'll be splitting it into two 8 x 8 baking dishes. We'll take one along, and I'll freeze the other for future travels. And I simply must get out to the garden to harvest some more cucumbers and zucchini. Currently, I'm letting a few zucchini grow a little larger. I'm going to take them along and slice them thin the long way on a mandoline. Then we brush them with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic salt, and Mike grills them five minutes on each side for a grilled zucchini side dish. It's a great way to enjoy zucchini.

If there's time, I'm hoping to finish off the rest of the quilt. But first...Mike earned his Sunday morning Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes yesterday, poor guy. That's where I'm headed next.