Turnips! Turnips are the garden now. Usually what I make with turnips is an awesome chicken or turkey frame soup. But alas, it has been 90 + degrees, not exactly soup weather. So, I’ve been dicing and blanching and freezing for fall.

Last night I heard our little Sheltie dog barking up a storm. She stays in at night, but really wanted outside badly! I knew something was afoot. I groggily opened my eyes and nudged Mark and then –ewww!! skunk! Unfortunately, Lena our big black shepherd dog got the brunt of it. Oh boy did she stink. She did keep the offending rodent away from the red hens, though. A large bottle of white vinegar took care of it, although she is still mildly pungent. I hope the bugger doesn’t come back.

For walking-around spending money, I play in a local folksy type band. It is a lot of fun. I play bass guitar. We have a fun outdoor gig scheduled for this weekend. I am pretty excited about that. If you are reading this blog from a local area, please stop by and see us. We are at the Firehouse downtown. It’s a really cool venue. Non-smoking — yay! And its an actual converted firehouse from the days when they had horse-drawn firewagons. I remember going there as a kid with my dad and eating hamburgers that were huge! The size of my plate. The gig starts at 9 and goes until 1 (yikes!)

Other than that I have been just plain lazy. But hey, it’s summer, it’s hot and I have a hammock in the backyard under the aspen trees

Boy am I having fun with the rhubarb! Besides the ice cream and the painting of the rhubarb, I just had to make sugarlaws jam recipe. Oh. My! It came out perfect! I was worried about using just the 1 tsp. of pectin, but it worked. I processed it in jelly jars for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. Again, we are so easily entertained around here that we were calling out “there’s another!” when we heard the *pop* of the lids as they sealed.

I like these little jelly jars. This way I feel like I actually made some jam. Instead of all that work and ending up with only 1 or two of the larger jars.

One thing we like to do around here is bake bread. I have modified a recipe so that I can easily pour the ingredients into my bread machine, put on the dough setting and then shape and bake in the traditional way. Last night I made garlic rolls for sloppy joes. The basic recipe is this:

1 1/4 water

1t. salt

2T. olive oil

1fresh egg

a generous dollop of honey

1 cup oats

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup bread flour

2t. yeast

Put all in bread machine in that order and start dough cycle. Once the dough cycle is complete, take out of the machine and roll out into a long rectangle. Sprinkle liberally with dried, minced garlic and press into the dough.

Roll up jelly roll-style and cut 1 1/2 circles with a kitchen shears.

Place on baking sheet and let rise in a warm/moist place until double.

Brush with beaten egg and top with more garlic, sea salt & sesame seeds. Bake @ 350 for 20 minutes.

Then go paint a watercolor picture of the finished product for your blog!

This little guy was hilarious. I was hanging out in my favorite place – the hammock, listening to all the birds flocking around. There is a good-size koi pond by the back deck and the birds really like to congregate in the quacking asp trees between the hammock and the pond. Anyway, I heard the typical “chicka dee-dee-dee” call of the chickadee and I started to mimic it. I heard chicka dee-dee-dee and I would chicka dee-dee-dee right back. This little guy above was answering me! He would fly back and forth from the tree to the pergola where I was swinging in the hammock, calling to me. It lasted a good 30 minutes. I guess I am easily entertained . . .

I grabbed some field watercolors and some cold-pressed paper and did a quick sketch of him. Not really anatomically correct, but hey, done on the fly (get it — on the fly?) and swinging in the hammock. I think I captured his jaunty, fluffy personality.

This is one of my favorite hide-outs on the place. This hammock hangs on a rough-log pergola under some large cottonwoods with quaking asp nearby. A weeping willow hangs behind me. A nice floral pillow, a cool drink and my shoes off. Nothing better after mowing 5 acres of pasture! Money sure can’t buy this kind of contentment.

Where do our eggs come from? So glad you asked. Meet two of the three red hens

Welcome to my new blog. I hope you enjoy your stay. Please visit often as I will be adding content and artwork daily!

This image is of the windowbox on my children’s playhouse. On Arches watercolor paper. The small wave petunias and million bells were of such a vibrant hue that I couldn’t pass them up.

Enjoy!