Fondness for Flowers

It was a full day yesterday. I was on my feet practically from sun up to sun down. Fortunately, most all the work for our dinner is done. Today I'll harvest the first plums from our tree for our dessert, and I'll be brining some chickens and adding some butter under the skins. Mike will roast those on his Traeger grill this evening, but my part will be finished. I'll just need to boil the garden corn, and that is a fairly mindless task. 

Yesterday, I made a Texas potato salad. It's one of my favorite ways to make potato salad, from Cook's Country. Usually those recipes require a membership, but sometimes I can find them online. There are lots of recipes for Texas potato salad online, but you can find the one from Cook's Country right here. I didn't take a picture of mine, so I swiped this one off the Cook's Country website:

It gets a lot of its flavor from the quick pickled red onion and jalapeno. It's spicy, but it won't knock your head off. Do you remember that commercial where something made your taste buds stand up and say "whoopee"? Yeah...that's what this does. I tried to find an image of taste buds standing up and saying "whoopee," but yeah...never mind. It all looked pretty gross.

Okay, so what else did I do? Well, I made some homemade lemonade. Our Kentucky Lemonade has become Mike's favorite evening cocktail. He pours a shot of bourbon over ice in a rocks glass and then fills the glass with lemonade. I like it too. Also, I made this test recipe for America's Test Kitchens. I'll show you the picture. We document everything here at the Three Cats Ranch. One can never be too careful with one's documentation. So here it is, and that's all I can say about it.

Mike and I decided that since this is a "test recipe," and not our official dessert of the night, it was permissible for us to taste it last night. It was good, and it accomplished what ATK was trying to accomplish. There's still plenty left for the kids to have a taste tonight.

There was some housework to do too, but I got outside and took some pictures. The only thing blooming up near the house right now is the echinacea. Being the only thing, it is working hard producing a massive number of flowers. This is only about one-tenth of the whole.

I spied something new in the bee garden. That's a California poppy up top, of course, but the purple thing below...I don't know. I looked at the images included on the wildflower seed website showing me the contents of my mix. I didn't see anything that looked like it.

And then I just took some more pictures of some of the other stuff growing. This godetia has been prolific, and it appears in many colors.

The cosmos has made a good showing too.

And I love these little guys. This is gaillardia.

And, of course, sunflowers in abundance.

Some are starting to hang their heads. The birds love them.

Coming back to necessary chores, I harvested some corn for our dinner tonight and for some corn chowder last night. The corn is so sweet and good. I'm looking forward to serving it up for the kids tonight.

Smitty is improving, but oh, so slowly. He's still pretty lethargic and slept most of the day yesterday. Fortunately, the sneezing decreases by approximately one sneeze per day. All progress is good progress. I took this picture of him yesterday, and then encouraged him to look a little more lively for his fan club.

Oh my...even in his illness the pawpawrazzi gives him no peace. He repurrsitioned himself...

And then mustered this expression:

We're just giving him lots of love and skritches. He thanks you for your well wishes.

Okay, so I'll have an easier day today. Maybe I'll even get some sewing done. Just now I'm off to get those chickens brining. One hour in the brine and then I'll shove some thyme butter under their skins. They are to sit in the refrigerator uncovered for the rest of the day, and that will give them a nice crispy skin when Mike roasts them for dinner. Mae is bringing something green, and we're going to have a good harvest-style dinner. I'm looking forward to it.