Category Archives: 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons

I love to garden. I love to eat. I love to enjoy the seasons. And home is where my heart is!

The Broken, the Fallen

1 Christ is All, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think

I didn’t know,{more than 20} years ago, when a Mike Murdock song, “Bring Me the Broken,” became sort of a life’s prayer, an anthem of my heart’s desire…I didn’t know then just how much brokenness was in me and how much breaking was left to be done to get my things set right.  I wish I could say it is over, but I know it isn’t.  But this is a song I still pray

Somewhere close by a heart is breaking in two
No one hears their cry or knows exactly what to do…
Lord, I’ll pour the oil
To take away their doubt and fear
Bring me the broken
Make me healing oil
Bring me the broken
Lord, I know that what’s You made me for
Let me lift up  the fallen
Wipe their tear stains away
Bring me the broken
I want to start their miracle today.

How could I have known He would hear and answer that prayer?  And that it would sometimes hurt so much?  And that I would really, truly have to share in His sufferings?  And that dying daily would be the path it was on?  And so worth it…

 

 

The neighbor’s Maple a little over 2 weeks ago, bright orange at first, red the following week

 

The neighbor’s Maple tree getting redder and redder as the first leaves were drifting down slowly (my flowering pear getting yellower and yellower), last week

 

 

This morning – windy and a tiny bit rainy and the leaves blowing off by the basketfuls!  *sigh

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.  Romans 8.17 NIV

October Skies

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , , , , , , , , ,

l (a leaf falls) one li ness  e.e. cummings

 

My “leaf-is-falling-but-not-really” photoshoot in the backyard. ;p

    

    

It had actually already fallen.  I was just replicating it a little {camera in my right hand, leaf stem in my left}.

I quit watering the veggies when I went to Montana over a month ago.  I have been gathering regularly ever since, as the vegetable garden seeks to proliferate madly before the end.  Then the rainy nights came and they thought they had been asked to stay a while longer.  It pains me to tell them no, but I must.  Until the spring, my sweet veggies – just until the spring…

“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a Moondance

With the stars up above in your eyes

A fantabulous night to make romance

 ‘Neath the cover of October skies

And all the leaves on the trees are falling

To the sound of the breezes that blow

And I’m trying to please to the calling

Of your heart-strings that play soft and low

And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush

And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.”

 – Van Morrison, Moondance

FULL MOON on the 23rd!

Growing Season

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think

“Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.”

– William Cowper , yes, the writer of one of my all-time favorite hymns, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood” He and I are soulmates, I am certain of it now (though he has been with Jesus, lo these 210 years or so)…

This morning I am watching the burning bushes turn to blazing red minute by minute.  Overnight the neighbor’s Maple tree went orange, a bright, baby pumpkin -ish orange.  Gold leaves adorn the lower branches of the Aspens like a 14k necklace.  A steady rain all-day one day last weeks signaled the turn.  The sun has shone in joyous celebration since, spotlighting the color’s arrival.  Bright yellow spagetti squash, dotting the yard and garden from the various locations echo back with sunny resound. 

  

NOTE TO THE ZUCCHINI:  Enough already.   Time to stop.  I have run out of room.  And recipes.

True AND a great tip:

“Fall is not the end of the gardening year;  it is the start of next year’s growing season. The mulch you lay down will protect your perennial plants during the winter and feed the soil as it decays, while the cleaned up flower bed will give you a huge head start on either planting seeds or setting out small plants.”  – Thalassa Cruso

  

Today for breakfast

Really good, reeeeallly good bacon and sliced red red red tomatoes from the garden, sweet and juicy, tangy and true to God’s original intent.  O yes.

You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.  1 Cor. 15 The Message

Drmatically and wonderfully different!  Viva la garden tomato! 

After-school snack last week with the grand~bebes (the first five): graham crackers and buttercream

  

Gavin, Hunter, Gemma, Averi and Guini

  

Graham Cracker Decorating 101, everybody gets an “A” for the day!

Gas ‘er up

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

Refuel.

I cannot help the fact that I have an innate distaste for the Kum & Go gas station chains.  It is the name.  Ew.  No, it does not work for me.  They were strewn all over Nebraska and I hated them then, but now we have not one, but two of them in Brighton, flanking the east and west sides of the city.  Every time I go anywhere, there they are: two Kum & Go stores.  I pass them leaving the house, I pass them coming home.

Refresh.

But they also have the best gas deals near my house and if I run out of my morning blend, they are the closest place to get a really good cup of coffee fast – a really good, BIG cup of coffee.

Uh-huh.  The ones in Brighton look exactly just like this…only with a city and neighborhoods around them.  Why can’t they just have a better name?  Like Refresh and Refuel?

Pumpkin Spice.

This morning Dave “surprised” me with the Kum & Go version of a Pumpkin Spice Latte, my drink of cold-weather choice from Starbucks every year over which I mourn longingly when it is gone for the season.  Ok, thank-you, honey…yeah right.  But guess what?  It is pretty stinking delicious.  I had my own whipped cream and for half the price and double the volume?  Oh my.  I do feel somewhat like a cheater, but Starbucks-darling, watch out for the Kum & Go.   Now when they add nice comfy chairs and wi-fi….

NOTE TO SELF:  Check out the Kum & Go career possibilities and see if I can be vice-president of re-naming the chain.  How about Come Here & then Leave ?

Ten.Ten.Ten

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

10.10.10

Little Obi-Wan arrives

Darth-daddy and the Light-Saber Family

Ten G R E A T  things about today~

  1. Rainy.  Cool and rainy.  Finally like fall.  Gentle and sweet.
  2. Burning my Yankee “Autumn Festival” Candle (a birthday gift).
  3. Baking 10 loaves of zucchini bread with extra cinnamon and a little bit of butter-rum oil in that batter.  Buttered and sweet cream to top it off – too much heaven!
  4. R2-D2, the cake for Hunter Magoo’s 6th birthday party.  Dark chocolate fudge with buttercream.  I doubt I shall ever use a shaped Wilton pan again, but thus, it was baked, iced and eaten.
  5. With ice cream!
  6. Party for me.
  7. Wrex singing a birthday song for me to the tune of the Partridge Family’s “C’mon Get Happy.”  Lots o’ music and memories!
  8. Broccoli Cheese soup (super cheesy and made from scratch!  almost 5 pounds of broccoli, 4 pounds of cheese, chicken broth, cream, fresh onions and garlic, just the hint of nutmeg…soooooo good!)…tomato soup…bread…goldfish (cracker fish) to swim about in hot steamy bowls of kid-soup.
  9. The grand-fish  (real fish) have been visiting for a few days (and I forgot to feed them almost everyday they were here, mea culpa little goldfish).  The house loud, music  and song, food flying, the grandbebes swinging from the chandeliers…having fish on the mantle makes it feel like we are living in a Dr. Suess book! ;p
  10. Time with people I adore:  Dave and the Powers and Kelleys.  Rocky & familia and the Phipps’.  Tredessa and Stormie.  The grandbebes and my mangy dog.

Little Jedis; the R2-D2 cake

Loved my video, too, honey.

Why I Still Blog

1 Christ is All, 2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, ,

Still blogging after all these years.   { Thought Collage,  est. 2006/11 }

 

What I hope the blog {as autobiographical as it may be} is accomplishing:

From Frederick Buechner’s words in Now and Then (via John Eldredge’s Walking with God)

“There is something more than a little disconcerting about writing your autobiography.  When people have occasionally asked me what I am working on, I have found it impossible to tell them without an inward blush.  As if anybody cares or should care…

But I do it anyway.  I do it because it seems to me that no matter who you are, and no matter how eloquent or otherwise, if you tell your own story with sufficient candor and concreteness, it will be an interesting story and in some sense a universal story…

If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the Church, then I think that he speaks to us largely through what happens to us, so what I have done in theis book…is to listen back over what has happened to me – as I hope my readers may be moved to listen back over what has happened to them – for the sound, above all else, of His voice…[For] His word to us is both recoverable and precious beyond the telling.”

This is the record of the sound of His {unwavering, thoroughly faithful} voice in my life. 

I am leaving it here for Tara, Dave and Hunter Magoo, for Steph, Tristan and the Kelley kids (Gavin, Guinivere and Gemma May), for Tredessa, for Rocky, Jovan and the girls (Averi and Amelie Belle), and for Stormie and the blessed add-ons ;p and to all the rest to come and for all those ever-after who come from them.

We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy.

1 John 1.3-4 NLT

NOTE TO:  Stephanie, Stefane and Kimberlee, Tredessa and Stormie, Ellie, Mary and Sarah, Heather and Denise: L O V I N G the chance to hear your hearts and walk this season-of-the-soul with you!

See the visual record on my new HOME MOVIES page

October Glow

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 5 Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think

“Just before the death of flowers,

And before they are buried in snow,

There comes a festival season

When nature is all aglow.”  – Author Unknown

I am always mourning summer’s end, but really.  Could we have had a more perfect month than September was, than October is?  Fruitfulness in the garden, warm, sunny days and cooler nights?  Slight breezes and swaying branches.  Green grass, blue skies.  I see a little color starting to paint the tips of Aspen leaves out the back door.  October’s glow is golden and warm as I continue to carry in armloads of tomatoes and cucumbers, zucchini and squash.

  

No actual autumn rain, but a gorgeous autumn, nonetheless.  Pie, mmm….and coffee I received in Montana!  Delish!

…I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring…
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness…
– W. S. Merwin, The Love of October

God bless him, Rocky requested pumpkin pie for his family birthday celebration the other day.  Early cool morning the house smelled of brown sugar and cinnamon baking as yellow and orange sunbeams rose slowly, then erupted into a merry dance and if only I could have stopped time…

 

 Amelie (trying a new look) and her mommy.

“October is nature’s funeral month. Nature glories in death more than in life. The month of departure

is more beautiful than the month of coming – October than May. Every green thing loves to die in bright colors.”

– Henry Ward Beecher

“Where on earth have you been?” the lemon cuke scolded.  She was miffed at my absence while I was in Montana.  “You can see what has happened here, can’t you?”  Yes.  I could and I had warned her of such trickery when the sunflower had perched so slyly in the tomato row.  Yes, he’s offered his shoulder, but just as soon as lemon cuke was entwined, depending heavily on Sunflower for support and tomato thought a forever friendship had been established, he turned his head and bowed out.  Oh, still he is there, less cocky than before and slightly bent over, but he is of no use to them now.  Once the dashing provocateur, now a shadow of the promise. 

Not to worry, I comfort heartbroken lemon cuke.  The birds will soon peck his eyes out. {I cannot help laughing at myself for thinking such violence, and lemon cuke finally gives in with a faint smile…}  The spell broken, lemon cuke returns to her garden square, esteemed and protected by King Zucchini.  Summer has ended.  Farewell, oh dashing Helianthus Tuberoses.  Fare thee well … {the birds really are gonna pack his eyes out!}. 

We took a colorable version of Picasso’s “Guitar Man” and wrote blessings and words of love for Rocky for his birthday as part of the song of his life (this year is all about song at our celebrations…ask Wrex about “Rocky mountain guy”  hehe!)

Today the pool is packed away.

{But it DOES kinda still FEEL like summer…*b i g smile!*}

I have created a new page here at the blog:  HOME MOVIES

Yum

2 Mi Familia, 4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think,

My best stuff

These are the things I cook or bake or make that I get the most positive response from, sort of the foods I have a reputation for.  A list. 

Delectable

  • Chicken and dumplings  {hands-down favorite}
  • Olive balls
  • Crab Spread with Bookbinder’s Cocktail Sauce
  • Pizza Rolls
  • Mac & Cheese (NOT Kraft!)
  • Garlic-Butter White Sauce Vegetable Lasagna (with meatballs and marinara on the side, of course)
  • Garlic Mashed Potatoes  {soooo creamy wonderful!}

Savory

  • Spinach-Artichoke Dip with Pita Chips or warm, crunchy tortilla chips
  • Italian Nachos with crispy-fried won-ton chips
  • Green Chile
  • Swedish Meatballs
  • Garlic-Cheese Biscuits
  • Cilantro Salsa
  • Chicken Filling for Tacos and Quesadillas

Juicy

  • Iced tea.  Amber lusciousness.
  • Lemon-Lime Sherbert Punch. The green-glow refreshment.
  • Cucumber Sandwiches (crunchy AND juicy)

Crunchy

  • Chimichangas, Rocky-style
  • Sesame Cabbage Salad
  • Popcorn Salad
  • Lime-Cilantro Slaw

Sweet

  • Lemon-poppyseed cake
  • Lazy Peach Dessert
  • Old-fashioned Fruit Pizza
  • Strawberry Shortcake 
  • Pumpkin Spice Cake (inventing my own cake flavors is my favorite)
  • Peanut Butter Balls
  • Butter Cookies
  • Sugar Cookies on sticks {they really are as delicious as they look!}
  • Cream Cheese Icing

Yummy

  • Bacon-Corn Chowder
  • Broccoli-Cheese Soup
  • Potato Soup
  • Runzas (Ok, yes, in Nebraska I referred to these as mystery-meat-sandwiches, but mine are pretty tasty and sometimes called Harvest Burgers or Kraut Burgers here in Colorado, but I still call them Runzas).

Tried once ~ no one ever wanted again:

  • Deep-fried pickles (I liked them)
  • Corned Beef and Cabbage (it was St. Patrick’s Day, we were going to watch “The Quiet Man.”  Who knew?)

Plan to try soon ~ will these make the cut?

  • Crispy Zucchini Chips
  • Zucchini Cakes (like potato cakes, only…)
  • Deep-fried Candy Bars  {OH YES I am going to try these!}

Things I never make anymore, but love and should do again

  • Apple Crisp
  • Cheesecakes {with a “surprise” crust}
  • Cinnamon Rolls
  • Cream Puffs
  • Filled Savory Puffs
  • Salmon Chowder
  • Shrimp Gumbo
  • Red Beans and Rice

Tredessa has been after me for years now to recipe-ize these things, and many others, for very few of them have a written “recipe.”  So I am trying to do that, including the story of where and from whom I got the recipe and variations she could try.  And it stretches me.  I cook by “sense,” what seems or feels like it will work?  The door is always open for disaster.  Tredessa is meticulous and follows known, tried-and-true procedure with a guarantee of a perfect product.  So in this  particular arena, I guess I am pretty brave.  Haha.  But it all goes with my philosophy about food in general:

If you use ingredients you adore, in almost any combination, they will be scrumptious!

Tell me your best recipe that should become a favorite of mine!!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Get three recipes to Dessa this week!

google images shown

Full Moon over Montana

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons

Darkness covers slowly.  51-degrees and dropping.  The leaves are just beginning to blush their autumn shades.  The air is fresh and the sky?  Big.  Very big and beautiful.

Montana Woman Fends Off Bear Attack With Zucchini

MATT VOLZ | 09/23/10 09:20 PM AP

It wasn’t me.  I am OK.  Fear not. (I am in Montana for the week, Butte now; the wild mountainous region for the weekend…not that wild, though ;p )

HELENA, Mont. — A Montana woman fended off a bear trying to muscle its way into her home Thursday by pelting the animal with a large piece of zucchini from her garden.

My question is: WHY would she let the zucchini get that big?  People, I implore you!

I have written about this issue before:

here…here….and here!

Oh yes, I have!