Sunday, July 8, 2012

Say bye-bye!

To avoid the heat of the day, we headed to Wal-mart late Thursday evening. We drove through the strip pits on the way...the sun was already gone by the time we got there. We had to struggle to see anything. And believe me, there was not much to see. We saw about half a dozen deer....normally at that time of day it is not uncommon to see 20 or 30.

We did see on Great Blue Heron in flight...and Roger spotten a pheasant out in a field. Or we assume it was one. It was too dark to see any color, but going by the profile that is what we thought it was.

I am wanting to go out there sometime late and just drive around after dark....would just love to go and sit and see what I could hear and see. A lot of the fields had been mowed....just wish they would mow them all for a change. This one field has not been mowed in years and it is a mess of weeds, but I suppose that is good for the wildlife.
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Yesterday, our thermometer read 111º at one point. I know that seems extreme but I really believe that our thermometer is right. On a positive note, today was supposed to be another hot one, but instead the break in the extreme heat has come. It is only 87º right now!

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Want to go for a spin?

This is another shot from Patton's Corner. Notice the flower box on the handle bars. I suppose it is supposed to be the basket but it sure would look cute to plant flowers in it.
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The other day I read this Survivors post by Sandra..it reminded me to do this post about food.

When I was a kid, to get a can of Vienna sausages was such a treat, or a can of Campbell's soup. Bologna sandwiches were few and far between for the most part, and to have a fried bologna sandwich---well, now I still love fried bologna sandwiches. The round steak of the south--who can beat it.

Every now and then I just have to get a can of those vienna sausages, but they are just not near as good as I remember them. I always cut one in half an then break a cracker in half and that is my sandwich. You do know that there is a grain to crackers...usually you break it with the grain and it breaks without much mess but if you break it across the grain--well, if I break it across the grain I have a pile of crumbs and it is in pieces.

And then there is crackers....I LOVED crackers as a kid...still do in fact. But again, we did not always have crackers back then. Most of the time we did, but at times they were scarce. Do you remember they used to not come in tubes of the squares. Instead they were left 4 squares together? They were easily broken into 4 individual squares. Anyway, I can remember taking a package of them every now and then and hiding them! I didn't want to share I guess! I don't know why...no one else ate them like I did.

I loved to just sit and spread butter on them and eat them that way...and still do that once in a blue moon. And I loved crackers with jelly. Now Roger still has crackers with butter and jelly every time we have chili. He says that is what they always served together when he was a kid...I think at school. And I still like crackers with butter and jelly, but I don't think about having them but once or twice a year.
Then there is Campbell's soup...I never had tomato soup that I remember as a kid. Actually we had very little of it, but the only two I remember for sure having was vegetable beef and cream of mushroom. Every now and then when mom went to pick up a few groceries, she knew she would be getting home with no time to fix much dinner so she would bring home two or three cans of vegetable beef soup.

Oh, how I loved it back then. I would love to know if my brothers liked it as much as I did or if it was just something to fill their stomach. Such a treat it was. Now, I actually dislike the 'Healthy Request' version of it--I don't know what the did to it but it is some nasty stuff in my opinion. Not that I still love the original...but every now and then would get a can and have it for old time's sake.

And do they still make the little pizza kits? I think they cost a dollar...or maybe a few cents over. It came with the mixture for making the crust...I think all I had to do was add water. And it had this little can of sauce....I don't remember what or if it had some kind of meat in it. Then there was the cheese to spread on top. We thought we were in heaven if mom got one of those for me to make.

And almost ever night we popped a BIG pan of popcorn...we used a metal dishpan and it would be about half full...it was probably 18 or 20 inches in diameter and 6 inches deep. Mom would have her own little bowl, and I think one of my brothers would sometimes have one cause he laid in the floor to watch TV. We would eat it all...none left except the grains that did not even begin to pop.

Just every so often, we would make french fries for a snack...or if it was winter, before we got the furnace, we would put a potato in the heating stove...but I don't remember just how we done that. I just remember that being real treat.
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Then there is the food that instantly transports you back to another time and place. One of those for me is actual round steak breaded and fried, white rice with butter and salt and pepper, and green beans. I only fix that once in a blue moon now, but that instantly takes me back to when Roger and I lived in Tennessee. It was a favorite meal back then. And I still love it for the memories associated with it.

If we go to pizza hut and get the chocolate dunking sticks, the chocolate syrup they give us to dip them in reminds me so much of the chocolate syrup my mom made for us to dip our biscuits in.

Well, this is getting way too long...will close with telling you that it was 108ºF here yesterday afternoon, and it is expected to be almost that hot again today...one weather station predicts 105 and the other 107.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Fallen...

With the dry weather, we see a few pretty leaves that have fallen. I think we won't have a pretty fall this year. I was so hoping to have long, glorious days of color.

I have started free-motion quilting my little quilt. It is going to take me a while if yesterday is anything to go by. Plus, I am trying not to sit down there for too long of a time. Anyway, I am sort of preoccupied with that and will just be on the computer here and there through the day.

It was 107º here yesterday...we did have two rumbles of thunder that I heard but not a single drop of rain. We drove to Terre Haute yesterday and whole cornfields seem to just be drying and turning brown...and most of it not even as tall as me and I am only 5'3". Also seen a field of soy beans that we felt were dying. We have a chance of isolated thundershowers this weekend so am hoping and praying that we get some of it.