Thursday, June 11

We were up around 8 a.m. this morning, and after breakfast, I did a treadmill session and resistance exercises, as usual. Around 9:30, Hubbie left to go to a Master Gardener meeting.

Once I was ready for the day, Mother came over, and we worked on a couple of projects. She made a greeting card for a friend of ours, who will be honored at a retirement reception at the Extension Services office next Monday evening. This lady has served as a secretary for the agency for 45 years. We've known her for at least 20 of those years.

While Mother was doing that, I manipulated a photo on my computer, printed it, and framed it as my contribution to the silent auction of the arts council fundraising event later this month. The deadline for submitting art work was last Tuesday, but the director said she would extend it for me, since I was sick for a while, and then we made two back-to-back trips. So I'll take the photo to the gallery tomorrow night during the Second Friday events downtown.

After that, I made a batch of orange pecans, which will be my contribution to the refreshment table at the art gallery for Second Friday events. This is a very good recipe, submitted by a community theater friend to an arts cookbook several years ago. It calls for fresh orange juice, grated orange peel, and sugar, brought to a boil. Then pecan halves are added a few at a time until the syrup is absorbed. The recipe calls for the juice of one orange, peel grated from the orange, a cup of sugar, and two cups of pecans, but I halved the recipe, since I felt I'd only need a small dish of them...there will be lots of other goodies on the table.

Hubbie came back from his meeting at noon, bringing several gardening books that another Master Gardener was giving away, because she is moving and trying to get rid of things. One interesting book he brought back for Mother and me is called "The American Girls Handy Book." It's first copyright is 1887, and it had a fifth printing in 1993. I don't know if it's still in print or not.

The book describes itself as "an end-of -the-century publication for young ladies, instructing them in such hobbies as fancy needlework, handmade dolls, china painting, painting in oils, heraldic painting, preservation of wild flowers, and many others." We looked through it, and there are several crafts we'd like to try, even though we are no longer "young ladies." Just reading the book is fun, and the black and white illustrations are wonderful.

After a lunch of sandwiches, made with the leftover chicken from last night, with lettuce from Mother's garden, plus cottage cheese or chips, Hubbie went in search of marigolds and impatiens for Mother. Not much luck. He did find some dwarf zinnias that will do, and some white impatiens. Mother would prefer colors, but will settle for the white. A nursery lady offered to give Hubbie some wilted marigolds free, and he took her up on them. He and Mother feel that if planted near the tomato plants, the marigolds, though way past their prime, will still help keep aphids off the tomato vines.

Speaking of tomato plants, ours have tiny green fruit on them, but it'll still be weeks before they will be ready for the table. Since that is so, Hubbie and I stopped by the roadside vendor's truck this afternoon during our errand-running and bought tomatoes. This vendor plies his wares right out in the sun, though, so I don't know how long he'll be able to stay there. He tried putting a canopy up, but a wind destroyed it. Today, I picked up not only tomatoes, but yellow and zucchini squash, and a cantaloupe.

For supper, Hubbie and I had Mexican casserole, which is one that I cooked a few weeks ago and portioned out for the freezer. With the casserole, we had a garden lettuce salad, with tomatoes, squashes, mushrooms, and Vidalia onions.

I checked the eagle nest, and nothing exciting is going on there. The mother is calmly standing there, looking out over the trees and lake, and the baby is hunkered down beside her. From time-to-time, he walks around and flexes his wings. At one point, he stretched up to look out over the territory (yearning to take flight, I wonder?).