My parents 40th wedding anniversary was yesterday and to create something romantic for them I thought I would give them a custom dinner for two in my garden. That meant a little clean up and a little planning. My laptop with a slideshow and a music playlist from 1969 was a help (click here for the list of song from 1969). Along with many candles and the soft gurgle sound from my fountain made the setting special. The weather even cooperated by waiting a few minutes to downpour until after the dinner celebration was done. It was nice to have someone else enjoy my place for a little bit. It made it all the more special.
In memory plus a wet gopher
Yet again another tree in honor of one of my longtime pets. This was a stray cat that was just always there. I have no idea how old she was since I was a little kid when she was a kitten. I planted this olive for her today. Unfortunately the name tag of the olive fell off so I don’t know what kind it is. I had planted another one earlier this year in memory of my dog that was a much more of an upright olive. This one has more scraggly branches. Seemed appropriate for a straggly old cat.
A funny thing happened though while digging the hole. We used a bobcat with an auger to dig the whole but the ground was hard clay. So we had to soak it. The water backed up into a gopher hole and as we pulled the auger up the water spilled out from the gopher hole on the side and out poured a wet gopher – a bit confused. Don’t worry – we rescued it and relocated it in a field well away from the garden.
No animals were harmed in the making of this video 😉
Senoritas!
Time to start chopping and frying!
This is a harvest of señorita jalepenos. They are the mildest kind of jalepeno there is. I like them because you can eat them straight without them being too hot. Because they are not so hot you can actually taste the jalepeno flavor. It’s hard to taste it when you are over powered by the heat as with the more popular in store variety.
I will chop all these up and they will be fried in a pan with some butter and then stored in the freezer for later use in a variety of dishes.
Recipe
My very talented co-worker who decided to leave us and go on to more great and wonderful things left me a recipe the other day I thought I would share. I’ll miss you Amanda!
- Dice & saute your red peppers
- add diced onions & caramelize them if you like
- Add: honey, fresh chopped & diced garlic, fresh thyme, cinnamon & ground clove (all to taste)
- Serve as a sauce for chicken or pork – could also use as a glaze for a pork roast.
Things that are currently growing well in my garden
Along came a spider
For some reason this year I have seen a lot of garden orb spiders. They make some of the coolest webs but they are not much fun to walk trough at night. They’ve been spinning their webs every day and they can spin a 4 to 6 foot circle in little under an hour which amazes me. We also see to have an explosion of black widows as well whose webs are quite the opposite in beauty. They are tough tangled messes that just give me the creeps. The garden orbs on the other hand do not – still I freak out if one falls on me. This one was hanging above my head against a dark wall so I couldn’t resist trying to get a shot. I used a Nikon D200 with a hand held flash off camera triggered by the built-in flash of the camera.
Moonlight garden
Chocolate covered sunflower seeds
Yum Yum!
