Zucchini Success

Five, or maybe more, years ago I tried to grow zucchini. I had a beautiful, robust looking plant that bloomed well and developed some fruit. However, the little zucchinis all suffered blossom end rot, beginning when they were about four inches long. I never got to harvest even one.

That was depressing. I gave up on zucchinis for a while. Then the deer discovered my kitchen garden and I gave up on almost everything else for a few years. Although I was not planting anything but lettuces, I still added calcium, compost and other nutrients to the soil in hopes of having a nice garden again some day in the future.

Today is the day I'm cooking the first garden zucchini. As I write this it is sauteing in olive oil and garlic, soon to be joined by a light blanket of Parmesan cheese.

Happily, there are more healthy fruits on there and the plant continues copiously blooming. I dream of stuffed zucchini and zucchini bread!

Salad Days Again

We planted more than just lettuce in the garden this year, but we got off to a late start. So far we have beans, peas and zucchini that looks like they will be good producers.The kohlrabi looks good but the leaves are being eaten by caterpillars and the Artist (she planted the kohlrabi in her rows) is not too interested in picking worms. She planted some banana peppers too, and they took more than a month to sprout, so they are now making an appearance mixed among some kohlrabi plants in one of her rows.

The Engineer's spinach never came up at all, and the beets he planted have given poor showing, with only four plants sprouting and they are still too small to tell whether they will survive or not.

The best producer, though is the lettuce. The Engineer planted one row, and I planted three rows. Next year, I think I can have a total of three rows, rather than four, or delay the planting of a couple of rows until late July so we can enjoy it longer into the autumn. Here one morning's harvest filled the smaller basin in my sink. After washing it would fill three gallon-size ziplock bags. I'm glad we all enjoy it, and our nearby relatives have shared in the salad too.

Borders Book Update

The Artist received her pre-order of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Wednesday. She was feeling quite poorly on Wednesday, but the book still brought a smile.

She lamented that she waited so very long for it, and when it finally came she was too sick to enjoy it, but I saw that she read a good hundred fifty pages on Wednesday anyway.

Imagine my surprise when the postman brought a package from Borders on Thursday. "This must be the refund/gift card that they told me was coming when they accidentally canceled the Artist's order and were unable to reinstate the order without me paying for the book again,"I thought.

Nope. It was a book. Specifically, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now we had two. A call to Borders customer service informed me that all the accidentally canceled orders were reinstated.

This, remember, is what I originally requested of Borders. But I was told that was not possible without placing a new order and paying for the book again. The impossible happened, it seems.

Now I wanted to be sure I could get this book back to the store and not pay shipping for their error, and make sure the gift card reimbursement they told me was impossible to stop from coming, was indeed coming. That is probably as confusing for you to read as it was for me to type.

I learned that nobody knows whether my reimbursement gift card was actually sent out or not (not sure I believe that). For my trouble, the customer service rep would reimburse my credit card for the price of the book and I could keep the duplicate book. What a novel idea! Pity they could not do that last week.

As for the reimbursement gift card, still, no one knows if it is on its way to me or if it is only an incommunicado electrical impulse in a microchip in a Borders server room somewhere. If it comes, Stephanie the Customer Service Rep said I can keep it.

Thwump!

This makes for a loud and surprising sound when I'm working on the flower bed behind the garage and I don't know what the kids are doing! They enjoyed their simultaneous solo games of pitch and catch.

July 3rd Tea Party

We began our celebration of Independence Day a little early with a tea party. We went to the Cleveland Tea Party at Willard Park in downtown Cleveland. That's the park, ironically, that has the somewhat ridiculous sculpture of a giant "Free" stamp.
We heard several speakers on the stage and lots of vocal tax protesters in the crowd. Ben Franklin spoke first! Here he is making his way to the stage.That was kind of fun, especially for the kids because we happen to be listening to his autobiography as a book on tape at home this week.

One media outlet announced there were about 2500 people there. I think that was about right. It was definitely smaller than the April 15th Cleveland Tea Party. Today, there are several area suburbs that have local tea parties going. I have a feeling they will be better attended, as they are on the fourth of July.

Tom Ganley, candidate for senate, spoke to the group too. I very much enjoyed hearing him! It is a shame he is running as a Republican. The Ohio Republican party will not support him because he did not lick their boots. The crowd, full of all political parties who are angry at the taxation and socialism coming from Washington DC were eager to hear him and received his message very well.

As always, there were many poignant signs from a variety of protesters. Here are just a few. Both parties are being broomed in this one.

Lilies

The tiger lilies showed their full colors last week, a full three weeks behind their normal appearance.

This morning the first of the Easter lilies have opened their buds to greet a dismal morning.
This picture was taken on a warm T-ball day, but today the Engineer's T-ball team will be shivering in the outfield and on the bench.
They may be using one of their rain dates, or everyone will be quite damp when today's session is over. And the moms and siblings will be waiting in their cars or huddled in sweaters and blankets. Does anyone in northeast Ohio remember July temps in the low 60ºs before?

Breads

I've had a sourdough starter going for about a year now, but the frequency with which I use it has dropped off.

Recently I got a book from the library (Thanks for recommending it, Barb!) called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. The initial time is more like 15 minutes, but that happens once a week -- or every other week if you have a larger dough container than I have.

The daily prep on baking day is just five minutes, and I'm busy doing other things during rise time and bake time.
To eliminate one of these containers in my fridge, I plan to slowly incorporate the sourdough starter into future batches of the yeast dough until it is all gone. Perhaps a table spoon at a time.

Old techniques (to bakers) that are new to me (in practice) helped make this the best loaf of bread I've made in a long while. Baking on a stone, and using steam in the oven help give the perfect texture to the crust and protect the soft inside.

The bread machine I received for Christmas will not be unemployed, however. That will allow me to have bread baking while I'm out and about!