Sunny Skies

Good morning, my friends. It's another sunny day here at the Three Cats Ranch. It's starting to feel like spring. Today, I'll probably get out and do a little weeding. The annoying hairy bittercress is popping up everywhere, and I want to pull it up before it goes to seed. But I'm getting ahead of myself already. Let's just back up to the pretty day we had here yesterday.

Of course, no morning is complete without a little slow-stitching. As expected, I finished March's block for A Year in the Garden. With March arriving tomorrow, it seems completely appropriate.

Here are the three blocks I have for this quilt so far.

From there, I was itching to get outside. I donned my walking gear. Checking the thermometer, it was 57°F, so not warm, but not cold either. I had on a thermal shirt, a hoodie, and a windbreaker. I figured I could take off the windbreaker if I got too warm. As it turns out, I was too warm even without the windbreaker. The walk to the top of the hill is uphill almost all the way, and it had me huffing and puffing. I've been treadmill walking all winter, but it hasn't prepared me for the steep inclines we face outdoors.

Starting out, I marveled at how much our little Christmas tree has grown. It's a Blue Pyramid Cypress.

You might remember when it was our Christmas tree several years back. We were trying to have the Charlie Browniest Christmas tree ever that year. It was in a pot and about waist-high. I'd seen it at a specialty market, and passed it by. But then I couldn't get it out of my mind, so I went back for it.

Continuing on, I took a look at what remains of the downed tree from the wind storm earlier in the week. The neighbors had cut it in half and moved it off the road, but Mike still needed to do some clean-up. He'll have to grind out this stump later on. It leaves a gap in the trees that line our fence, and so we'll find a sapling somewhere and plant it in this spot. They pop up all over the property.

The rest of it can be seen on our burn pile.

Continuing on, these are the only blooming things I saw. My phone tells me these are "Snowdrops."

There wasn't much blooming, but I saw plenty of things getting ready to bloom. Our flowering plums are budding out. It will probably be another month before these actually open.

The deciduous trees are leafing out too. This is probably an alder growing along our shared driveway.

These are the buds of our state flower, the Oregon Grape. 

It's not a grape, though. It produces purple berries that look like grapes. But it starts with a yellow flower. Here's one from a different walk on a different day.

From the top of the hill, and looking north, I had a nice view of the mountains. This is Mt. Adams. We could see it from our house 20 years ago, but the trees have grown up and block our view now.

Walking on, I could see Mt. St. Helens on the right, and Mt. Rainier on the left.

And I can never walk past a Holly bush without taking a picture.

Looking south from the top of the hill, there was an expansive view of the Willamette Valley.

I turned around there and headed for home. Along the way, I noticed an alpaca in a pen up close to its barn. Sometimes they are closer to the road, and I can get a better look at them.

Also...Smitty & Sadie have a side hustle going. "Guaranteed," my friends. You won't find better mole & gopher control than what we have here at the Three Cats Ranch.

Back home again, I baked some bread for our pre-breakfast morning snack. This is Whole Wheat Zucchini-nut Bread. It's made with whole wheat pastry flour, pecans, golden raisins, and the last of our garden zucchini frozen from 2023's garden.

Cutting into it this morning, it looks like this inside.

The link to the recipe is broken, and so I'll share the recipe right here.

Whole Wheat Zucchini-nut Bread

recipe from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup granulated or brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour

3/4 cup Unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup shredded, unpeeled zucchini (1 small to medium)

3/4 cup raisins (golden are nice)

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F; lightly grease a standard 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 loaf pan, or line it with parchment.  In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, oil, molasses, sugar, and vanilla until smooth.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.

Stir in the zucchini, raisins and walnuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Bake 50-55 minutes, until the loaf tests done (a wooden tester inserted in the center will come out clean).  Remove bread from the oven, and place on a rack to cool for 20 minutes before removing from the pan and returning to the rack to cool completely.

* * * * *

While I waited for that to bake, I thumbed through this book purchased recently from America's Test Kitchens. I stopped buying cookbooks some time ago, although I have some wonderful cookbooks in my collection already. I'm realizing that most of my recipes are found online these days. Nevertheless, I get a discount when I test a recipe for them. When I saw this one, I couldn't resist. I love baking, but, as I'm sure you know, baking makes it hard to maintain a healthy weight. When I bake for two, it's one and done. You might say we can have our cake and eat it too.

There were a few things within its pages I'd like to try.

And so it was a busy day. I didn't make it into the sewing room until nearing dinner time. All I accomplished was getting Snow Happens sandwiched for quilting.

This is the fabric I'm using for the back.

I'll be using this sparkly white metallic thread. I'm not sure how I ended up with so many spools of this, but I won't run out. I'll use a regular cotton thread in the bobbin.

When that was finished, it was nearing time to make dinner. I spent the rest of my day taking the first stitches on the final embroidered section of the Girls' Getaway quilt.

And if you've enjoyed this post, you can thank Smitty for his careful editing as he reads over my shoulder.

Okay, so weeding will take the place of exercise today. It'll be nice to be out in the bright sunshine again. No doubt I'll get a start on the quilting today. Tomorrow I'll be heading out to the farmer's market with Erik and Mae. It's been many months since we've been to the market together. And I'll probably take a day off from blogging tomorrow. I've needed a mental health day for a while. Blogging is good for my mental health, but it's still good to take a day off now and then. 

So welcome to March, my friends. It's the month when spring begins, so let optimism abound.