Shelby

Thanks everyone. Just got inside from a garden inspection. I see a tiny new leaf coming out on an eggplant so that's a good sign, right? Have to get up early tomorrow so I'll do some weeding then. I ordered more corn, some okra and 6 tomato plants yesterday. It stormed again in the late afternoon. Sigh. Nothing like the big storm, but still more rain. My plants are like "ok ok enough water already". Beautiful stuff Diana and Wayne. So lush looking.

I love salmon roe. It's lucky I wasn't there. I would have scraped that whole thing clean lol.

Thank you SO much for showing us all of this. Every picture had me leaning forward to soak it all in and I was saying "wow" "OH wow" "wow" over and over and over.

Thank you Elaina--and Kenneth and Deryn and Anna for commiserating with me. Oh, yes, I stood in the middle of the garden Thurs. morning and sobbed. A small pity party for one ensued lol. I'm debating planting--yet again--tomato plants if I can find any....but really most of me wants to just let the ones that are out there try to make it. If they do they do, if they don't they don't. I think I am going to order more Silver Queen I don't think it's too late to plant a bit more.

Thanks, Anna. I realize that I sound super negative. Sigh. It's just so much work to have it all ruined. Bright side is the peas are ok. Might go see if there are enough for dinner before it gets too hot. We planted --for like the 4th time lol--more squash yesterday. The existing ones got whipped around pretty good but...for what they went through, they don't look too bad. And, Ronnie had 4 more tomato plants in the greenhouse so we planted those, too. I weeded and sevin dusted everything yesterday. Then it stormed again in the middle of the night. I'm sure it rained just enough to knock all the sevin dust off lol.

I've missed you guys! We have been internet-less since Wednesday late afternoon. The heat index was 110 F that day and a whopper of a storm built on top of us. It rained 5-7 inches in ONE hour here. 60 mph winds steady with super high gusts. A funnel was spotted just west of my house but we weren't able to see it. It hailed for a good HOUR or more. Pea to quarter size hail. Irrigation was blown over (not mine thank GOD). The storm blew so hard that it caused water to get into the eaves of the house and flood the front room which is where all of my internet equipment is kept. Yeah. Fried it. I got up at daylight the next morning to survey the damage. I took pictures of the "garden" but it's just too depressing to post. All of the tomato plants were stripped. Cukes ripped out of the ground. My beautiful Silver Queen corn flattened. On and on and on. So, I went out yesterday and spent hours gently lifting plants out of the mud, removing all damaged leaves etc. The internet says that if plants have even just one leaf left that they can sometimes recover. I've never ever had such terrible damage. The weeds, however, remained unscathed. As I peer out the window this morning the corn actually looks better. It's beginning to stand up again.....we will see. I still have 22 acres of wheat yet to cut. Remains to be seen whether the hail knocked the kernels out out or not. My field corn was stripped but not laying down like a lot of folks' are around. I usually get at least one tomato around the 4th of July. Not this year.

I was on my own last night so I made spicy tuna inari. I've been wanting to try it for quite some time and finally ordered the tofu skin to make it with. I didn't have any avocado and I subbed in cilantro for what ever herb she used. On their own, the tofu skins aren't my favorite thing to eat because they seem too sweet, but stuffed....delicious. Excuse my crappy picture.

The farmers harvested our wheat on Saturday so this morning we got up at 5:30 and went out to the field and gathered 4 trailer loads full of straw to put on the garden. The garden is all strawed up now. I am exhausted and it's only 9:30. I needed breakfast. I will soon need a nap.

I want to include my thanks to RRO for the ladyandpups site. New to me and looks fun! Leftover steak--reheated in the SV bath. Needed biscuits and gravy to go with.

Frog legs, white bass caught at the lake and collards from the garden.

Well, in my defense, it is a pickling cucumber.

Pickage today. First cucumber. Newman loves lettuce.

What???? Woman, how did you do that? I, too, hope you mend fast. Your garden needs you.

SV'd steaks (oh man they were huge and GOOD.---perfectly rare for me) salad with lettuce from the garden and a few fries. Homegrown strawberries from the wonderful girl that cleans my house and keeps me supplied with eggs

I've been told here ( I think by @andiesenji ) and I've read online that one can freeze heavy whipping cream with no problem. Online it says that you just shake your thawed container to incorporate the separated fat. It didn't work so well for me and I'm not sure why. We bought several pints of the stuff because it was a good price so I froze a couple for future use--mainly with making ice cream in mind. I took one out of the freezer and put it in the fridge for a couple of days. When I opened it up I was surprised to see that it was just one big lump. There wasn't just a bit of butter fat that had separated, it was ALL of it. Seriously, it looks like ricotta cheese. I forged ahead--I knew better, but I did it anyway--and made ice cream. My recipe calls for heating a cup of the cream with the sugar. That part seemed to look normal. The butter fat globs melted back into the liquid. However, the recipe then calls for me to add another cup of cream after removing the pot from heat. That didn't look so normal. I cooled the mixture as I always do overnight in the fridge and went on to pour it into my ice cream maker the next day. It's AWFUL. Big globs of fat that coat your tongue. Blech. It seems to be ok when you heat it like for a sauce...but not for cold use like ice cream. Am I missing a trick to get the cream back to normal after being frozen?

Spaghetti night

Made my first ever whole wheat bread. I had been craving ww toast with lots of butter for some reason. Used a KA recipe with their flour. Turned out ok. A little heavy but certainly edible.

Needed fried chicken again. Please excuse the missing skin on one piece. I picked it off and ate it.

Yay!!!! I'm so glad for you, Kay Such a rewarding feeling and I know that you worked hard for them--and I know that you've had a lot of gardening in your early years and were sick of it. Your mom and dad are up there smiling

Glad you dove in, Porthos! One thing that might help ( and maybe you already did this ) is using hot water to fill your pot. That way it takes less time to get to temp. Another thing....I do chicken breasts at 142F. The most tender, juicy meat you'll ever eat.

I'm wanting to buy another.....just waiting for a tempting price. I've had a corned venison roast going for 2 days and have wanted to do other things during that time so that definitely calls for two.

What a lovely way to phrase it. I wholeheartedly second this. Best wishes and drink some champagne for us!

I do too...not always, but sometimes. I always tell Rotuts to avert his eyes when I've included anything like that

Awesome! (that's my second favorite flower)

Yes, I think squash, too. Don't murder them lol!