Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Happy 4th!

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! ~Daniel Webster

Well, the 4th of July means good food to me. I don't particularly like fireworks-sounds like guns or something. It is probably one of those cellular memories that one never quite gets a handle on. But corn on the cob and watermelon! Yum, Yum, Yum!

I had never had roasted corn at a carnival until I moved to Kansas. Well, I was hooked. I love corn on the cob, just the old fashioned boiled- in-the-pot kind. I like to slather melted pretend- butter on it and sprinkle different seasoning mixes on it. But now I like roasted corn too. But I am not going out of my way to roast it. So boiled and eaten is okay with me.

I also picked two little poblano peppers out of my garden. While the corn was cooking, I split the peppers, emptied the seeds, filled them with that white cheese in the Mexican section of the grocery, and baked them. Oh, man, were they ever good! I do not like green peppers-the generic kind in the store. But chilis-oh, boy!

I burned the crap out of my hands once upon a time with habaneros. I even used gloves to de-seed them, and I was making garlic, pepper, and onion salsa. The cooked kind. Well, the oil ate through the rubber gloves, and I had HUGE! blisters on my hands. I cried while I ran cold water on it, and my husband made ice packs. The doctors weren't impressed, and they didn't want to eat any of my salsa either.

I am trying to keep from getting the summer knitting doldrums. I am sick to death of that sock. It is an albatross right now! The scarf is okay, since it is light weight. But I am HOT! I do not want to knit wool right now. Much less spin any right now. So I am trying to get going by looking in my files of Projects I Want to Do! Then I remembered I wanted to start a mitered afghan with left-over sock yarns. Perfect! I dug out the stash of left-overs, and started a mitered square. Perfect! It only takes a little while and I have a 2" square. Perfect, Perfect, Perfect! I will show pictures when I get along on it. It is an ongoing project since I am only using left-overs. So it is a project to just knit a little square, attach it to the others, and just keep on building as I want to. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe!

On the animal front, I have to admit that I am waiting for the baby foxes to appear again so I can get more photos for y'all. I also saw a road runner cock fight for the first time ever! They run at each other like road runners run-head forward and level with the back. They jump and hit their chests together and kick with their feet. I have asked other people about it, and no one else has ever seen this behavior before either. I opened the back door facing the woods this morning, and three does were grazing. They looked up, and continued working down the treeline, grazing and switching their tails and ears. No one is too concerned about me. I guess I am just part of the wildlife here, and no one is too concerned. I just live in a funny den.

I haven't pulled all my potatoes out of the ground yet. But the only things I have left are peppers and gourds. My gourds are ecstatic with the rain we've had. But I cussed them out the other day about making fruit. Now I have two gourds making, and I think I spotted another one today. I only have three onions left of my little onion patch. I need to pull some of the garlic, but haven't done that. It is getting to be the lazy summer days. I usually do everything at the early and late time of the day. The heat of the day is not so wonderful. It is a time to rest.

John Lubbock--Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.

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