Officially Retired! My first day ...

Started out with me getting up at 6:30a, stretching for 20 minutes, then going for a 1 mile mini walk.

As I was leaving I decided to grab my house key which detaches from my car key. Locked door, put garage door down & realized I had grabbed my car key instead of the house key. Locked out! Oh well, I'll grab the hidden house key to let myself in when I get back. Walked .5 miles & then turned around to come home.

About 1/2 way home one of the neighbors door opens & out rushes their very unfriendly dog which came right at me. It's a medium sized dog & just stood their growling & barking at me but never lunged. Neighbor comes out to road to get dog which is sniffing me & decided I wasn't such a threat after all. Gave him a pat & continued on home.

The next house down, another very large black dog comes out barking but never left their driveway. I knew about the 1st house & their dog but the dog at the 2nd house is new. Will have to investigate if he is a permanent resident or just visiting.

Made it home, retrieved key & tried unlocking the door. It wouldn't work in the door I had left from. Go around to back patio to see if it will work on that door. Yep it did but because I came in a different door than I had left from the alarm goes off. Jeez, what a way to start the first day of the rest of my life.

Now it's on to technology world. New laptop wouldn't connect to internet. Tried a couple of things & it finally connects. Sign in to email to thank all my wonderful friends for the retirement presents & keep getting kicked offline. The connection is hit or miss.  It's disconnected twice while I'm typing this post. Will have to get on the phone with HP. My old laptop doesn't have this problem.

Now on to the new TVs we had to buy because we got hit by lightening a couple of weeks ago. Note: Several neighbors also lost TVs in the same storm - 10 in all. Got both connected but they aren't even half as clear as they were in the store. Called carrier & they said that my eqipment is old & they will have to send new boxes in order to get HD service. At least it wasn't something we did when installing them.

All in all a pretty rough start but I think it will only go uphill from here. Gotta go, I've got boxes to unpack.

I have Passion ... Updated

Fruit ....

I had to come to the Country House for a funeral for a family member that had been sick for quite some time. I drove up for the viewing last night & decided to get a head start on the grass cutting this morning before the funeral in the afternoon.

As I was cutting the lower east side by the branch, I first noticed the passion flowers scattered throughout the heavy brush.

 As I was cutting as close as I dared, something boinked me up against my head. It was this:

About the size of a large lemon.

I then noticed a whole bunch of them scattered around as well. Most are the size of oblong walnuts but many are the size of a large lemon. All are green.

After the funeral, I went down to get pics & to pick one of the smaller ones. There must be about 30 or 40 of them! I didn't dare go into the brush because I had flip flops on, it was hovering around 98 degrees so no boots this time of day.

Anyway, I picked a small one & brought it back to the house to cut into. Here is what I found. No fruit, just a bunch of seeds. Touched my tongue to one, they have a sweet taste.

Has anyone ever grown passion fruit? Will these eventually ripen & firm up to look like the passion star fruit I have purchased at the grocery store? I haven't had time to Google it yet but will definitely put it on my list.

And, I'll be picking Scuppernongs sometime this weekend as well. This pic was taken 2 weeks ago. Almost all are ripe now. I guess the birds left some for me after all.

Blurry, wind was blowing that day.

Update: Boy did I have my fruits wrong. I was thinking about star fruit. From the looks of things it appears as though I do indeed have passion fruit pods. They should turn yellow or purple when ripe. I think this the yellow variety which are a bit more acidic than the purple but still sweet

The next question, will I have enough nerve to actually extract the juice to eat, once ripe? Maybe.

Health benefits of passion fruit

• Delicious, passion fruit is rich source of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and fiber. 100 g fruit contains about 97 calories.
• The fruit is a very good source of dietary fiber. 100 g fruit pulp contains 10.4 g or 27% of fiber. Good fiber in the diet helps remove cholesterol from the body. Being a good bulk laxative, it also helps protect the colon mucous membrane by decreasing exposure time to toxic substances in the colon and wiping off cancer-causing toxic substances from the colon.
• Passion fruit is good in vitamin C, providing about 30 mg per 100 g. Vitamin-C (ascorbic acid) is a powerful water soluble anti-oxidant. Consumption of fruits rich in vitamin C helps the body develop resistance against flu-like infectious agents and scavenge harmful, pro-inflammatory free radicals.
• The fruit carry very good levels of vitamin-A (provides about 1274 IU per 100 g), and flavonoid antioxidants such as ß-carotene and cryptoxanthin-ß. Current research studies suggest that these compounds have antioxidant properties, and along with vitamin A are essential for good eye-sight.
• Vitamin A is also required for maintaining healthy mucus membranes and skin. Consumption of natural fruits rich in vitamin-A, and flavonoids may helps to protect from lung and oral cavity cancers.
• Fresh granadilla is very rich in potassium. 100 g fruit pulp has about 348 mg of potassium. Potassium is an important component of cells and body fluids, and helps regulate heart rate and blood pressure.
• Furthermore, granadilla is a very good source of minerals. Iron, copper, magnesium and phosphorus are present in adequate amounts in the fruit.

Preparation and serving method

Cut section of passion-granadilla fruit. (Photo by geishaboy500)

Wash fruit in cold water, and pat-dry them using a soft cloth or paper. Cut the fruit lengthwise into two equal halves. Then, scoop out the juicy pulp with a spoon. Discard the tough shell.

Passion fruits have unique tart, and sweet-flavor and sweet taste. Purple passion fruits are generally smaller but more flavorful than yellow-golden passions.

Here are some serving tips:

• Passion fruit can be enjoyed fresh, especially when the fruit is well ripe. Just scoop out its juicy pulp using a spoon. Its tough shell, anyhow, is inedible.

• Their juicy pulp can also be enjoyed as a refreshing intra-day drink.
• Passions add distinct flavor to fruit salads.
• Passions are used in the preparation of sauce, jellies, and syrups.

• It is employed in various recipes like passion fruit mousse, ice-cream, pizza, desserts, cakes, mousse…etc.

My Zen Machine & July 4th Weekend

I've been busy with very little time to post. I'm off work today as tomorrow is my Birthday & I always treat myself to a day off at this time of the year.

Here's my Zen Machine. It's a 60" rear discharge mower. It's still new & a bit squirrelly but I think straight line are overrated anyway. And like 1st Man over at Two Men and a Little Farm I actually enjoy mowing & find it very calming. Greg was on his 72" machine & we got the whole place mowed in about 3 1/2 hours.

We had a long weekend in the Country over the July 4th weekend. The first day was spent getting the 9 acres mowed & trimmed & watering the new trees (I need to take pics for comparison, in case these actually live). The crepe myrtles are doing great. They were almost all flowering & should be in top form this weekend, but we won't be there. Hopefully they will hang on another week & I'll take a pic then. I did snap a pic of the wild gladiolas along the driveway. There are a bunch of them but only 1 or 2 flower at the same time. I'm going to put some fertilizer on them & hope we are there when more are in bloom next year.

The rest of the weekend was spent fishing, in the boat! IF we ever find time to fish it's usually just a few casts from the dock or the bank but we actually put the boat in the water on Thursday night & fished Friday afternoon & much of the day on Saturday.

The pond is filled with bass, bream & catfish. We mostly fish for bass because they are so much fun to catch. We like bass to eat as well. But it was all catch & release that weekend. Late afternoon fishing was the best, after supper it would cool down with a very light breeze & we would fish until almost dark. In laws were up as well & FIL got his fair share of fishing from the dock. All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend which was much needed by all.

I have some very exciting news to share in the next few weeks ......

Camping & Reading

Or rather, RVing. My sister & BIL took their new RV 5th wheel to a nearby lake for 3 weeks of living the lake life. I invited myself down last weekend for a 4 night stay. It's a very nice RV with 2 bedrooms & 2 baths, living, dining & kitchen. It even has an outdoor kitchen with small gas grill, sink & small fridge.

The lake is one from my childhood. At one point it housed 2 separate swim/camp parks, long gone now. My parents, aunts, uncles, cousins & myself spent many summer days at 1 of the parks. As a teenager I had a friend that had use of a family home on the lake. It was owned by her grandparents & each of the kids families had use of it for 2 weeks each summer. I learned to water ski on the lake. It took a full day of me trying over & over again but I finally got it. I remember the yelps from the end of the dock when I finally stayed up to ski around the lake. My 1st roomate's family used to camp at the same park & she & I would go down for the weekend for days of lounging around on the large dock & more water skiing.

About 1/3 of the lake has vacation homes scattered along the shore. The other 2/3 is owned by the military & is used as a training facility. They have cabins that military personnel can rent. They also have 2 full service camp grounds with concrete pads with water, electric & sewer hookups. However, you have to be a member to be able to camp there. And you have to be military or sponsored by someone that is or was military to become a member. My sister & BIL are sponsored by my BIL's uncle. They pay a small annual fee for the privilege.

The 2 public parks are long gone, bought by a developer, so the general public doesn't come anymore. There are several families of friends that all go at the same time. Their kids are all grown but they come & go while their parents are there. My BIL has 2 jet skis & one of their friends brings his motor boat & paddle boat. They anchor them just past the end of the dock so they are easily available. All the girlfriends bring various floats & tie them all together. They spend the days just floating, talking & gossiping.

Each family eats breakfast & lunch on their own but they all get together for dinner. My BIL brings his big charcoal grill & usually cooks the meat & the other families contribute sides & desserts. After dinner we either rode the golf carts around or went for a slow sunset boat ride.

I got up each morning around 6:00a & went for a brisk 1, 2 or 3 mile walk. I then sat down under the awning or went out to the end of the dock to read. After breakfast we usually went down to the floats to soak up some sunshine. I would then read some more usually while sitting in the shade on the dock. After lunch I read some more, floated some, went for paddle boat rides, jet ski rides or boat rides. As the afternoons turned hot I usually napped for about an hour. I'd then get up & read some more & then help prepare supper. Then just before bed, I'd read some more. I made it through 2 books! It was a wonderful way to spend a few days with people I love.

They Got Tied at the Hitchin Post (& a couple other things)

The past weekend another favorite cousin of mine got married. Z married the girl of his dreams P.

The ceremony was held in their back yard. The alter represents a hitching post, with hay bales for seating the wedding guests.

P & her Dad rode up to the ceremonial area on horseback. Yes, horseback.

It was a very simple but beautiful ceremony with the guys wearing khakis, white shirts & suspenders & the girls in simple dresses in various colors. P's little 3 year old daughter & Z's 7 year old step son also participated. Brother Jimmy married them. He performs most weddings & funerals for my family so he repeats himself a bit, which is ok. After announcing the couple husband & wife he always states "Now you can kiss your bride like your mama ain't watching".

At the end of the service the bride & groom rode off on horseback, into the sunset.

It was a lovely weekend with this obviously being the highlight.

In other news, the property got mowed & we actually fished from the boat on Sunday, catching our dinner for the night. Fried bass, coleslaw & broccoli salad, along with hush puppies made for a fine meal that the in-laws came over & shared.

I caught the big one & the little one!

And lastly, my niece got a new puppy. A silver lab. Isn't she precious?

Sadie

Snap Beans and an Adoption Story

I have a lot of cousins. And, I think like most families I have some favorites. One cousin in particular is one of those favorites, we'll call him E. E & his brother, through some unfortunate circumstances, were brought to live & be raised by my Grandma when they were little boys. My mother & her younger sister were still living at home at the time & so the 4 of them were raised together in an old farm house without electricity or plumbing. E is just a few years younger that my mama.

He worked for one of the local farmers, Mr. V, all thoughout the growing seasons for many years. He eventually joined the service & moved away. He met a very lovely woman, M, who became his wife & they had a son. After the service he got a job as an iron worker building skyscrapers. His job took him from city to city where ever the company he worked for needed him. There were a couple of summers that they lived close enough that they would come get me & I would spend the summer with them baby sitting their son.

He eventually was able to settle down & not move around anymore. They moved to a rural suburb just outside Atlanta (bet it's not so rural anymore!). At that time Atlanta was a very fast growing metropolis. Then they added a daughter to their family, P.

His dream was always to retire & come back south which he eventually did. His children were grown by the time that happened but his son & wife decided to also move south. His daughter & her husband moved to the Carolinas.

He & his wife actually live only 2 short miles from the property where he grew up, although the old house isn't there anymore.

About 5 years ago his daughter & her husband also decided to move south. They lived with my cousin for about a year before they were able to get some property of their own. E's son had married a woman with a son & they eventually had another son but E's daughter, who wanted to have a baby very badly wasn't able to conceive. So they started looking into adoption but that wasn't going very well either. She is a nurse at a local hospital & one day one of the other nurses, an older black lady, asked P what was the matter. Well, P had not shared any of her worries with any co-workers but she broke down & confided that she was just so sad about not being able to have children & it didn't look like adoption was going to work for them either. The co-worker told her not to worry that she would go home & pray & she just knew things would work out. That was on Friday.

Well that co-worker came in on Monday & shouted I HAVE FOUND YOU A BABY GIRL! P didn't believe her but when she told her what happened she broke down & cried. You see, the co-worker realized that she hadn't been to her church for over a year & decided if she was going to pray for P to get a baby then she wanted to do it the the Lord's house. When she got to church one of the other church ladies was holding a beautiful 8 month old little white girl. The other lady was a Foster parent & for some reason or another the mother of the baby had abandoned her & no adopters had worked out. The lady was thinking about adopting her herself but she already had several other kids & didn't know if that was the right thing to do. Well, long story long, P & her husband met this precious child & got started on the adoption right away. The adoption was final on the baby's 1st birthday.

My cousin E called this last Saturday & told me he had some snap beans for me & to come by & pick them up on our way home Sunday. P & that precious little girl, now 4 years old, were at E's house visiting. She is such a cute little one with the personality to match. Very inquisitive & silly but minds her manners as her grandparents & parents are teaching her to do. When is the last time you heard a parent say, "Don't interupt them, they are talking, that's very rude." The little one shrugged her shoulders & said oh, I'm sorry then went on to play with whatever she was playing with. So happy when situations have a happy ending.

Oh, and that little boy that I used to baby sit ... turned 48 on Sunday! Wow, where did the time go?

I brought those 2 huge bags of snap beans home & processed 1 batch last night & decided to stay home from work to process the next batch. 16 qts. total, yeah!

14 of the 16 qts

Oh and on a totally unrelated note. Here's a pics of the deer family that is living in our branch. Greg puts out feed corn for them, in front of the game cam. They have been living on our property since early March. This is the first day time pic of all of them together. There is also a buck but he's wasn't dining with the girls on this day.

I can't wait to be able to spend more time up there!

Mother's Day & Wild Roses

Wishing all the Mother's out there in Blog land a happy day. A special thanks goes to my Mama. She was pregnant w/me in this pic almost 56 years ago.

Last weekend at the country house we watered all the trees with a new set-up. I'll post about that later. While driving along the driveway we noticed some really vibrant pink flowers low to the ground. Upon further examination we realized it was one of the wild roses that grow along fence lines up there. The picture doesn't do the color justice.

There's no telling how many times it's been mowed down. We dug up part of it & brought it back to the city house with some of the clay dirt that it grows in. If it survives the shock I hope to plant it in the back yard. Crossing fingers once again.

Plant Experiment - 50% Success Rate

My FIL started all our Crepe Myrtles using a grafting method off of his existing plants. Click to see posts where we planted them at the Country House In-laws Crepe Myrtles & Our Crepes.

In theory, this method should work with any 'hard wood' shrub. We decided to try it on some Loropetalum & Camellia. 

Loropetalum - much more purple than this pic shows.

I don't have a pics of each step but here is how we did it:

1. Select a strong straight stem.

2. Scrape the bark off all around about 2" long.

3. Put wet moss all around scraped area.

4. Wrap tin foil around it, leaving the foil open at the top so it can get water. Make sure bottom is squeezed tight to hold water.

5. Let sit for about a year.

6. Cut just below the foil.

7. Plant in pots.

8. Trim tops back.

9. Give a good drink of water.

10. Once well established (hopefully), plant in yard.

Camellia ready to be cut from mother plant.

Close up of Loropetalum packet.

See how it's open at the top & closed tight at the bottom? It's leaning because the top of the plant had gotten really long & heavy. We did 16 Loropetalum & 4 Camellia.

Ready to be put in pots & trimmed.

None of the first Loropetalum we unwrapped had any roots. We thought it was going to be a dismal failure but we wound up getting 6 with roots, whew. All 4 of the Camellia had roots.

Loropetalum

Camellia

10 plants plus 1 azalea that I had cut off last year & stuck in the pot.

We wound up with 10 free plants. Of the ones that didn't root out, we think we must not have scraped enough bark away. Oh well, the experiment wasn't a complete bust.

Cross your fingers they live.....

Not a Dry Eye in The House

Yes, we had another death in the family. This time it was one of my first cousin's only son. He was 19 & had been fishing where he shouldn't have been. Although it's kind of a right of passage to fish in the Cobb Pond for all who love to fish. My Dad's crazy cousin owns the property that the pond is on & he doesn't allow anyone but his immediate family to fish on that pond! None of his family even wants to fish it & those that do don't even keep the fish they catch. Oh well, he's an A-hole.

Regardless, Evan & his buddy decided to fish by the light of the moon which they did until around midnight. When they went to get the boat out, it got stuck & he wasn't able to get it out w/the Ranger they had towed it in with. He went back home to get his truck & to drop his buddy off. He didn't want the crazy A-hole to confiscate his boat so he went back to get his boat defore morning rolled around. After he dropped his friend off he had an accident on one of the many back roads. The truck rolled & he was partially ejected, dying instantly. His buddy texted to see if he had gotten the boat & when he didn't hear from him went looking & came upon the accident. They think that maybe a deer had run out in front of him (that road is notorious for deer) & he swerved to miss it & had the accident. All speculation at this point but plausible nonetheless.

He was only 19, had graduated high school last year & had his whole life ahead of him. He was one of 9 who has died from last year's graduating class (can a class be cursed?). He will be sorely missed as he was a very kind, quiet & respectful person. The viewing & funeral were very difficult. But with the faith of the family & community we will all go on with our lives. His Dad is taking it very hard but has a strong faith as well.

Evan was the surpise child of my cousin who thought she couldn't have children. She is the youngest of 4 & her parents (my aunt & uncle) were thrilled, to say the least, when she conceived. He was very close to his grandpa who passed about 4 years ago.

During the funeral one of the songs selected was "When I Get Where I'm Going" by Brad Paisley:

When I get where I'm going, on the far side of the sky
The first thing that I'm gonna do, is spread my wings and fly

I'm gonna land beside a lion and run my fingers through his mane
Or I might find out what it's like to ride a drop of rain

Yeah when I get where I'm going  there'll be only happy tears
I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years
And I'll leave my heart wide open I will love and have no fear
Yeah when I get where I'm going don't cry for me down here

When the following verse was played it made every single person in the congregation weep.

I'm gonna walk with my grandaddy

And he'll match me step for step
And I'll tell him how I missed him
Every minute since he left

All so true. I do hope he is sitting on a dock with Uncle Therman & fishing to their hearts desire.

Mama's New Home

We had been collecting plants for a few weeks & this weekend was the time to get her landscaping done. She never had many plants around the old home & it always looked a bit barren. We had some plants that we started & several we bought. The only thing she requested was azaleas. Here's what we installed today:

Purchased:

10 azaleas
1 plant with purple flowers that I can't recall the name, but is supposed to get large.
2 blueberry
2 crepe myrtle
12 aztec grass
8 daylillies (sister's)
4 lavendar
4 lorapetalum

Grown from starts:

1 camelia (sister's)
1 gardenia
3 hydranga's
2 sago palms
5 pine trees (sprigs received from Greenscape)

What a beautiful day to work. High in the 60s with bright sunshine. She & my Sister live in a small town about an hours drive from our city house. We got started around 11:00 & it took 4 of us about 6 hours to complete it all.

In addition to the plants, leaves & mulch, hubby put down 3 landing pads in pavers (leftover from front walkway in city). 2 for the stairs into the house (front & back) & 1 for the trashcan which her young neighbors kindly take to the curb for her.

We are most worried about her being able to take the 50' hoses off the hose racks & get them rolled back up. They are not the most expensive hoses & not very cooperative. We will see how she does w/those.

We are back at the city house & will be working with plants once again today. We grafted some lorapetalum & camelia's last summer. We'll be cutting them & putting in pots today & hopefully get those planted at the country house this fall. It's going to be another beautiful day with highs in the mid 60s. Got to get out there & get yard work done before we hit our normal hot & humid days in the 90s. Miserable conditions to work in for sure.