One Day, One Block

Good morning, my friends. It's a hazy day here at the Three Cats Ranch. The air is smoky from fires burning all around us, and fortunately, none locally. If you're living in one of the affected areas, I'm crossing my fingers for y'all to stay safe. 

Yesterday started with a trip to the farmer's market with Erik and Mae...always a good way to start the day. I was able to find the tomatoes I wanted, and so gazpacho is on the menu for tonight. I'll post the recipe tomorrow after I've made it. After that, it was time to water the annuals and harvest vegetables from the garden. The sunflowers are having their best year ever. I have around 14 varieties, and some have not yet bloomed. It makes it fun to check in each day to see what's new.

Also, it helps to distract me from my sad bean poles covered in dead bean vines. Sigh.

Back inside, Smitty is feeling a little better, but still sleeping a lot. He was excused from sewing again yesterday. He's sneezing a little less than he has been, but he's still pretty snuffly.

When I made my way to the sewing room, the whole day was spent making this one block. It's definitely one of the more complicated blocks I've ever pieced together. So, I took its picture, but then...what do I see? RATS! Do you see it?

The 4-patch in the lower left corner is rotated 90 degrees. 😠😠 

By that time, I was really tired of working on this. It was tempting to leave it, but I didn't. It took me another 20 minutes to fix it. There we go.

Okay, phew! I'm glad they're not all so complicated. The next one is quite a bit easier, but that won't happen for at least a couple of months.

It was time to stop for the day. It was nice outside. We considered eating dinner outside, but the yellow jackets were going to be pesky. We ended up just sitting outside for a little while. While we were watching, a drama ensued.

What's he looking at?

Oh...now I see it.

There was a long stand-off. Eventually, I looked out and the squirrel was gone. Smitty continued his vigil for a while longer.

For dinner, you'll be absolutely amazed to know there was not a single morsel of zucchini served up. Instead, we went to work on the garden green beans. I measured out about a pound, and that was approximately half of my entire harvest of beans for the year. This is Peanut Butter-Glazed Salmon and Green Beans. It was tasty and simple to make. And, as several of you have noted, I love a meal that can be cooked on a single sheet pan.

It was tasty, and I liked the recipe because the salmon could be prepared this way without the green beans. And, honestly, any vegetable could be roasted and served as a side dish. It's another NYTimes recipe. If you can't open that link I've given you, email me and I'll be happy to send it to you.

On the side, I used some of the zillions of cherry tomatoes from our plant. I simply cut them in half and then added some blue cheese dressing. Simple and tasty. This will be a daily dish while we're trying to keep up with the cherry tomatoes.

Today I have a couple of housekeeping chores to do, and then I'll get to work on the Painted Ladies. Also, I'm going to trace out the next block for the Joyful Journey quilt. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

I'm nearly finished with the two blocks for "The Story of My Day," and I think I can finish the next Joyful Journey block before we leave on our trip. If not, I can always take it along, although I'm trying to keep my project boxes to a minimum for this trip.

With the air quality so bad today, it seems like a good day to stay inside. I'm worrying about y'all in the path of the storm in southern California, and those of you living with fire and smoke. Stay safe and dry, my friends. Let's meet back here tomorrow morning.