The Empty Chair

It has taken me almost 2 months to be able to post about the passing of our beloved bratty bichon Sparky.  On the morning of July 9th I dug his grave, and that was probably the only thing I've done in the last 11 years that he didn't help me with.  He was in the house barely able to walk suffering from kidney failure.  Despite our efforts, IV's, trips to the vet his kidneys shut down and we had no choice but put our buddy ot of his agony.  He took his last ride in our SUV just like his first.  On my lap.  I stayed with him till the end.  Wrapped him in a blanket with the 2 toys he loved the most and brought him home and laid him to rest in the shade under our river birch next to the boat that he loved so  much.  Peggy is trying to write the story of his life, but being a man of fewer words I think what I will miss the most is his company.  The brat was always my constant companion.

Just sitting by the fire pit. 

The porch swing.

Napping in my recliner after a Saints game.

From planting our garden boxes.

To harvesting them he was there.

Picking fruit

Wiring the computer

Riding around in my jeep.

Having a few glasses of homemade wine, or

Begging for BBQed asparagus (go figure)

 

The thing I will miss the most is my fishing buddy.  Soon as the cork would bounce he was woofing some times even before I saw it.

As long as I live I will never look at an empty chair with out wishing he was in it.  I pray that in heaven there is a shady bayou bank with a couple chairs by it.  I will be there some day sitting with the brat while Peggy tries to get him outa her chair.

  

Wasp Stings

I go years between wasp stings. I aint afraid of ém, and we do not disturb them when they nest in our yard. Since honey bees are very scarse these days the wasp take up the slack and help with pollination. If ya don't freak out and go to swatting at them they don't bother ya. Every once and a while though while working in the yard I'll get stung. Usually because I trap a wasp in a fold of clothes or accidently pinch one in my hand while weeding or mucking out the jungle that is our yard. That's what happened yesterday while I was trimming back the wisteria that covers our door. A big red wasp landed on my back and got mashed between my shirt and overall strap. he stung me good before I could reach back and get him out from under the strap. It stung like fire so I immediately went to my favorite home remedy, while hollering for peg I dug in my pocket and found a old tarnished penny. walked in the house took off my shirt exposing an already angry red swelling sting. Peg pressed the penny over the sting and stuck it in place with a piece of tape, A bandaid works too. in a few minutes the stinging was gone and a couple hours later se removed the peny for me and there was no swelling and no discomfort. I don't know why this works and neither did my grandpa who taught this trick to me(he usta keep bees) but it does and das all I need to know.

The Cycle of Life

As yall know from previous posts, our li'l row of citrus trees bless our family, friends, neighbors, and us with their bounty.  By far, the favorite fruit of our li'l citrus grove is the Satsuma oranges.  They are small, incredibly sweet, easy peeling and almost seedless, kinda like tangerines.  They are so popular we have 2 trees that produce them.  Sadly, one of them died.  The life expectancy of the trees ia 15-20 years.  They are such heavy producers they have a short life.  This li'l tree made it 10 years before dying; we aren't sure but we think since it is planted in a low spot it may have drowned in the heavy winter rains.

Well, I got up early, sharpened my ole shovel and went to work on the dead tree.  The first task was unearthing the bricks which were covered with grass and barely showing after sinking in the soil for over 10 years.

The next step was sawing all the branches off, turning the tree into a stump.  The green in the brush is some other tree that a squirrel planted next to the satsuma tree, most likely an oak.

Next, I clipped all the branches into sticks and got them into the wheelbarrow.  This makes the brush easy to manage, which will be demonstrated later.

Digging the stump up, cutting the roots with the shovel and getting it outa the hole was hot sweaty work but I took a couple water and fresh strawberry breaks and had it done by noon.

Well, call me a sentimental old fool, but the tree had given us such joy over the last 10 years and provided hundreds of pounds of delicous fruit that I couldn't just throw it away, so I created a funeral pyre for it in my old fire pit and gave it a rousing send off.

The fire burned on into the night and it smelled wonderful.  Later after a shower I slipped into bed and Peggy said, "OOOOHH you smell great; kinda smokey, old spicey, citrusy."  Alls I can say is, girl's got a nose on her.

I couldn't hardly end this post with a funeral, so allow me to introduce yall to the replacement Satsuma.  With the cycle complete and a young tree in place we look forwards to future fruity up-dates on this cycle of fruity life.

Playing in the Yard

While home this hitch, we have been playing in our yard, just really enjoying the weather and the park-like feel of our li'l slice of heaven.  Here is a report on whas goin' on this week.

The strawberries are doing great producing a double handful of berries every day.  Seldom do any of them make it into the house though.  Peggy and I usually slurp them up fresh off'n the bush.

When we started picking the snap beans they made a small colander full, then 2 days later they produced this dishpan full, the next time we picked it made this dish pan crowned over, but this time its only a third full and tomorrow should be the last picking.  It was a good year and we now have plenty in the freezer for the summer plus we shared our bounty with our neighbor, Miss Annie.

As the green beans finish up, the cucumbers are starting their cycle, and soon 'pretty Pegody will be picking pickles by the panful'. She likes when I say dat.

While playing, we stopped to give the Wisteria that guards the front door a trim.  If we don't do this every month or so ya hafta crawl in through a tunnel to get to the door. This photo is while we were in the process of the trim job.

The Asparagus ferns have grown to be a big ferny lush forest which is a beautiful sight especially in the morning as the sun shines on the dew giving the whole shrub of greenery a silvery glow as they sway in the breeze.  Were it not for the pink survey support ribbon, they would spread out in a big circle over the yard looking like a bog oval cap. 

 

They are still puting out wonderful shoots of asparagus and we love them raw, chopped in salads, ligtly steamed or as ya have seen before, BBQ'd on the pit. 
Now for the bad news, The Birds got all of the pawpaws and cherries before they had a chance to grow.  Peggy plans to be ready with netting next year.  One of our citrus trees died so we plan to replant this week.

The figs should be ripe in a week or so.

The Yum Yum nectarines have turned a wonderful kinda purple color so we watching them closely. They are still hard to the touch, but we can't wait to try them on accounta this is the first year it bears.

Thanks to Bwacky, our adopted yard cat who stands guard in our grape arbor, we have several nice bunches of grapes ripening.  There aint enough to preserve or anything, but its very nice to sit under the arbor in the cool shade of the vines and snack on those wonderful lil purple seedless Concord grapes.

The pecans (top picture) and ping pong ball sized citrus (rain drops on them) are already getting ready for the big fall crop.  OH yea....and I almost forgot the Bananas.

I left more stuff out I'm sure.  The several varieties of mint growing around stuff like weeds, the small olive tree and pomegranate tree we added last Fall, but this post is the results of my morning stroll through the yard just now with a camera and cup of coffee.

Crawfishin' for Supper

Nowadays the Web is full of commercial Crawfishin' posts.  Ya can see folks fishing for a living, anywhere from reality TV shows, to the Food Channel.  But what ya aint seeing is how regular folks turn a $1.25 pack of chicken necks into a $40 boiled dinner for 2.  Sure, crawfishin' is a huge industry down here in bayou country, but us Cajuns have a way to have a ball crawfishing for supper.  If ya wanna throw a big party, buy crawfish by the sackful and boil them up in a huge pot in the yard.  It's lots of fun and for special occasions, we do that too.  But if ya only want 5 or 10 lbs for a supper boil or a sauce here's a fun way to do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7S5Um_WuH4&list=UUe6CkaSkPG0EXROyp-xQkjw&index=1

Lemon Shine Revisited

Back in January we created our Lemon Shine, or thats what I called it that night.  It is julliened lemon rind soaking in Vodka.  Well, this week we opened a few jars and made lemon rind candy by drying the rinds in granulated sugar for a couple days.  The vodka went into a drink yet to be named and we are open to suggestions. The drink consists of 1 oz. of the now pale yellow lemon vodka, 1 oz. lemon juice, 1 Tablespoon of cane sugar syrup.  Stir that up, add ice, top it off with 7 Up and garnish it with the lemon candy, and it sure is tasty.

If like us, ya ocasionally find yourself with a bunch of lemon peelings. This is the best thing we have found to do with them.  So far.

Spring 2013 BBQ

Our good friends, the Radigans stopped by to spend some time with us on their way back to their upstate home in NYS, from their "snowbird" home in Florida.  We had a couple slabs of spare ribs we had got on sale and were looking for an excuse like this to fire up the pit, so that's just what we did.

Here they are with a tray of appetizers that we make to fool folks into thinking we have a li'l class.  It's rice crackers with brie cheese and a tiny dot of our potent homemade lemon-pepper jelly.

Mrs. Jean plated up some strawberries, Cool Whip and powder sugar, while I plated up some of our oft requested BBQ'd asparagus'. Taking away any class points the brie woulda won us, I used fine paper Chinets for the plates, and ya can't exactly wipe the butter stains off paper platters.

The guys outside didn't seem to mind the unsightly presentation and slurped up all but 1 asparagus, washing them down with assorted adult beverages.  Us guys had a ball minding the pit while the women folks had a nice visit in the kitchen while they fixed the side dishes.

We also had some of Sam's green onion sausage on the grill. Man! They didn't last long!

Peggy whipped up a pot of beans that we set on the grill to absorb some good smokey flavor while they bubbled away.

The ribs were rubbed with our spice and light brown sugar and slowly "Q'd" for 4 hours.  We then took them out, separated them, and slathered them with Peggy's BBQ Sauce, then parked them back on the pit for an hour.  The sauce became a sticky, sweet glaze and the feast was so good that I plum forgot to take a picture of a plate as it looked before we said "Grace" and tore into the meal.

Our new BBQ mascot, "Allie Gator" (given to us for Christmas from Mr. Ed and Mrs. Jean) wore my hat for me while we ate.  Also, Peg's luscious macaroni salad didn't find its way to a picture, but it sure found its way to our plates, and like every thing else, it was wonderful.  I'll try to remember to take pictures of the plated feast next time, but if it's this good again, no promises.

Strawberry Festival

On a whim Peggy and I decided to check out the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. It was a nice sunny day, so we set sail across the swamp, singing along to some Bluegrass Gospel.

As we mosied into town we were greeted by this weird Cyclops blimp.  Sponge Bob pointy head???  We couldn't decide.
   The traffic was moving at a slow crawl as we approached town.  Most folks would be upset at this, but for us fun lovin' Cajuns, it was a great opportunity to gawk and 'people watch'.

We had a wonderful time people watching and since we are "foodies", we had to show yall some Cajun-style food booths.

We got some strawberry wine and strawberry jam, but decided not to buy any of the beautiful berries on accounta we have some already growing in the yard.  We hadda wonderful time and were home before dark in time to fire up the fire pit and do some wine tasting.  An oft said quote is actually the motto of one town down here; it's, "So many festivals so little time"

We sure aint complaning.