Thursday in Texas...

This is our Celeste Fig tree (on left). It is actually behind the gate, but falls over into the front drive.

The picture on the right show how many figs it seems to be making. We're not sure if they will all ripen as there are way too many.

We enjoy eating these figs fresh...
if the birds (mostly bluejays) and squirrels leave us some.  We do have a Turkey fig tree in the backyard - these we leave for the birds and squirrels.





We also have a ton of mint growing out front. It is taking over our front yard. But we love it and it smells wonderful.  Also tastes great in DH's sweet tea!

even growing out of cracks in walkway!

Weather has gotten warm... supposed to be up to 98 this afternoon. We're also in for more severe weather this evening if the weathermen can be believed. This spring has been a bit much with the tornado watches and severe thunderstorms. Our sirens went off yesterday afternoon and we were like... "WTF?" (sorry) The sun was out in our area and it looked fine - but sure enough, it got black and started pouring in about 30 mins and they kept the tornado watch on until about 8 pm. But luckily our area was fine. Some were not so lucky. But unless I'm mistaken, no one was hurt.

This next pic is oldest grand daughter at a horse event last Saturday. She has been working a lot lately and this is the first event in a while that she could attend. Both she and her horse did well. My daughter sent us the pic.

June 2019

I'm still working on my seals. This last one, "seal and pup" I just finished.  Well, not finished,  as it will have to dry and then be underglazed and fired. But it's a little larger than I usually do... maybe 6 inches. Most of my sculptures are between 2 and 4.

seal and pup

tiny fat cat

OK... that's all I've got.  Going to go read for a while and maybe take a short nap. Thanks for visiting! Wish I could serve you some tea or coffee.  We have a really good Lemon Ice-box pie in the freezer. It was a new recipe that is definitely a keeper. 

Hugs,
Rian

flag in the front, armadillo in the back

Pic taken when outside waiting for the 4th of July neighborhood parade yesterday!

armadillo in the backyard 

This little visitor came by Saturday morning. He was rooting around and Polly (one of the feral kittens) was fascinated. She was following him ... but not too close. This is what caught my attention. 

In the top picture, I actually walked almost right on top of him and he wasn't intimidated - just looked up at me.  We see lots of possums and raccoons in our yard (which is by a creek) and they they are very wary, so I was surprised at his boldness. But I took pictures and he eventually went off down the rabbit hole*.

While I was out there I decided to take some pics of our figs which are getting larger every day. Hopefully they will be ripe by next week.  We have 2 fig trees;  a Turkey fig and a Celeste. The Celeste are smaller and much sweeter. We generally leave the Turkey figs for the squirrels and mockingbirds... and pick the Celeste for ourselves and friends.

and we have a *Bay leaf tree* also.  It does wonderfully well and supplies us with plenty of fresh bay leaves for cooking.

Bay leaves

* I starred rabbit hole as many of you may not know what was meant by that. Well... there's a hole in our bushes which runs directly from our backyard down an incline into the lower yard which is next to the creek. This hole and path was made over the years by the critters that have used that path for the 30 years that we've lived here. My grand daughter when she was younger disappeared down that rabbit hole to check it out. She said it was "awe-some".

Have a good week!

figs, purple peppers, peach torte, and English TV...

It's the middle of July and our Celeste Fig Tree is producing like crazy!  We gave away about 6 dozen figs to friends on Wednesday and DH just picked 8 dozen more. We love fresh figs (as do the birds and the squirrels), but this tree is an over-achiever. We can't eat them fast enough (and I only like them fresh - not canned or preserved, etc.) But we have some friends that use them in various ways - so we try to give them away in bulk.

This is the second batch DH just picked. We really like the Celeste Figs. They are sweet.  We do have a Turkey Fig  in backyard, but it produces very large (not as sweet) fruit. We let the birds and squirrels have those.








BTW, are any of you familiar with *purple* Bell Peppers? Not red - purple! They also had the (what I call normal) red, yellow, orange, and green peppers - as well as these *purple* and even some *white* ones. This was at Central Market this morning.

I've been baking a bit too. Made a fresh peach torte Wednesday and a peach bread pudding with amaretto sauce yesterday. Why? Because my peaches were about to go bad if I didn't use them... as well as 3/4 of a loaf of egg bread with raisins! We had company Wednesday so the torte was eaten, but we may be having bread pudding for breakfast for a while....

On a different note, do any of you watch "Doc Martin" on PBS?  I've watched PBS shows for ages, but Doc Martin is fairly new to me.  I love the little English coastal town where the show is produced... so quaint!


A few pics:

my chick and his hatch-mate

squirrel outside front window doing acrobats to get birdseed

a little of this... and a little of that

figs from our tree

We have 2 fig trees in our yard, a Turkey fig and a Celeste Fig.  The Turkey fig is older and the figs are larger, but the Celeste fig is very prolific and produces very sweet figs. This year we have filled this size bowl maybe 6 times already.  We can't eat enough of them and don't know that many people who like fresh figs, but we have given some away and gave some to my son to take to work. Now the birds, squirrels, and turtles like them, but even with them eating some, we seem to have an over abundance.

I brought another batch to my friend today when we met for coffee.  She loves them and has decided that those she cannot eat, she will dry.  I've always avoided dried fruits and veggies because of my migraine problems.  Anything that contains sulfates, sulfides, preservatives, nitrates, etc. can be a problem for me. However, I wonder if you just dried them without anything else... if they would be safe. My guess would be that you couldn't keep them any length of time.

And I'm guessing that most of you out there have heard of the new *food contamination* problem. They apparently have not be able to find the source, but know only that it is probably contaminated fruit or vegetables (possibly from out of the country). They advise all to wash your fruit and veggies very very well and/or cook them thoroughly.  Well, I don't know about you, but the illness born from this bacteria seems serious enough to just plain avoid fresh fruits and veggies (for the most part) until they find the culprit... unless you're using home-grown (like my figs). Anyway, this is *my plan*.  Tonight we had marinated pork chops, wild rice, corn-on-the cob, and fresh figs!

Oh... one more mention: We switched from Time-Warner Cable to AT&T a few months back (supposedly to save us money - that didn't actually happen) and by doing so, lost the Hallmark Channel (which I loved). So I've been biding my time till our contract is up and plan to change back unless the Hallmark Channel is re-instated.  However, lately all I see are advertisements saying that AT&T is getting ready to drop CBS where what few programs I do like exist.  If I wasn't brought up better, I would say, "WTF"?  Now I'm down to KERA and the Cooking Channel or Food Network... and I'm beginning to wonder if what we pay per month is worth these few shows?  It's odd to have hundreds of channels, but so few worth watching...

"Pie fixes everything" dish towel

I found this dish towel in Fredericksburg, Texas when a friend and I were there visiting a few weeks ago.  Loved it!  Says exactly what my hubby believes.  Out of the blue when we are either sitting around watching TV or doing something around the house... he will say, "I need pie!"  It has become a mantra as has "Have you pilled Jack?" (another story, another time).  Told him that I plan to write these on our tomb stones: "I need pie" on his and "Have you pilled Jack?" on mine.

The tomatoes on the Aga are from my friend's garden.  Tomatoes are apparently doing well this summer. My daughter brought some up from her garden in the hill country and my friend brought these last week from just north of Dallas. Luckily for us, we like tomatoes. I especially like them broiled with a little seasoned breadcrumbs and butter on top. They can't compare to the creole tomatoes grown down in Louisiana, but they'll do.  I did miss those when we first moved to Texas... as well as creole cream cheese, pickled meat, and other delicasies that can't be found here.

We also picked the first figs from one of our trees yesterday. There's a trick to getting any figs from our trees. They produce a lot... but between the birds, squirrels, and box turtles... we have to be quick if we want even a few.  Of course we plant the fig tree for the little beasts, so we really can't complain if they take them all.  Our yard is a certified wildlife sanctuary... and we like it that way.

Hubby just brought me some fresh made sweet tea, so I've got to go for today.  I like my new made tea warm and fresh from the brew.