There's a lot of Canning going on.

Awww Finally got my Nails done. They were looking pretty rough. I was able to trim and file the finger nails with little problem but the toe nails was a different story. It wasn't pretty getting to those little piggies. But they are purdy now. Yahoo and they feel good.

Also got an appointment to get my hair done. 

This was a few weeks ago. Hair has pretty much grown out on top and was white.  You can see the ponytail was  darker than the hair on top.  But Friday (6/12) I got an appointment with my new stylist not far from the Rock'n K.  I went to The Talk of the Town in Rockdale. Told Gene (stylist) that I'm gonna try to embrace my grey white hair what can he do.  I'm not ready to go all white yet but let's do something gradual until I'm ready.

A few low and a few highlights, along with a cut to shape up my mop. It felt good and I think it looks good. Next time he'll only do I think he said highlights only to blend with the white. As long as he make my hair look good and he has..  Thanks Gene!

  
Can you see the difference or only me?  Either way I'm very happy. And Gene quilts. I can kill 2 birds with one stone. 

That evening we picked tomatoes. Lots of tomatoes!  Big tomatoes, roma tomatoes and cherry tomatoes along with 1 squash and a few jalapeno and poblano peppers.

   

More cherry tomatoes that I was washing off.

  This batch of Roma's made Rotel. That's about 4#'s

I have counted and separated batches of tomatoes to start canning salsa, pasta sauce and Tomato paste.

We have more to pick. These plants are producing like crazy. Last year we had a fair crop but this crop is crazy.

I have now canned some homemade Rotel, Salsa and spaghetti sauce. Haven't tested the Rotel but we did test the salsa. Yum. Just spicy enough and fresh. Plan to make more and tried the homemade spaghetti sauce. Tasted pretty good. Can't wait until I use it on Spaghetti. It does take time and it gets hot in the kitchen but we gotta use up these tomatoes and not let them go to waste.

My stew pot was full of veggies making the 5 quarts of spaghetti sauce. Just took it out of the water and waiting to for jars to seal.

    This batch and the 2 other batches are ready to be turned into something. And there's more to pick.      

So far here's the rotel (1st row) and Salsa (2nd & 3rd row).   

In between the canning Pamela and I took a field trip to Cypress to have lunch with my Godchild Michelle and her mom Gigi. Gigi is my sorority sister from college. Michelle got married in October and moved to Indiana and was home for a visit. We met up at the Urban Kitchen in Town Lakes. 

It was great seeing them. We had a nice lunch but once we finished we had to leave. The restaurant started sitting people all around us.  There was no social distancing. People in booths were back to back. As Gigi said it was getting a little crowded.

After lunch we headed to Chappel Hill to see a quilting friend to drop off a wool ironing mat that I had ordered for several of us.  Connie has a beautiful place just off 290 down in the wooded area. It was so hot that when we finished visiting with her and went out to the car we didn't take pictures. Connie invited us back to visit and hang by the pool so I'll take pictures next time. Maybe.  LOL

Not much happening except picking, canning and a couple of quick visits. It's a new world these days. Next post I'll have some quilting down and adventures for Father's Day to share.

Until next post....Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact. ~ William James

The Quiet Life ? Sorta...

So after almost 2 months of no rehab it opened up again mid May. Mask of course required except while I'm on the treadmil. The day back they left all my settings alone. At this point I have 17 rehab sessions left. On Thursday they decided it was time to up my times and resistance. Whew. Talk about a shock. But at least the ole BP didn't bottom out like it had been. Final number was 90/50.  Any lower and I feel dizzy and nauseous.  I was tired but I felt okay.
I decided today was a good day to stop at the Clinic snack booth called Freshen UP and let Rebecca save my day with a Cold Brew with caramel. Didn't even know it was there until Pamela took me down the hall and around a corner.  Ahhhhh.

After the work out I stop at Pamela's to let her girls out for a potty break since you never now if she'll have a normal 12 hour day or 14 hour day. Besides these 2 little fur balls need some furless Granny loves.  Aren't they cute. Not sure what they thought I had because they were very attentive when they came inside  and I sat down. LOL

 

We had another harvest of squash, zucchini and poblano peppers. We also found a bunch green beans and George Washington Cherry tomatoes hiding that I didn't get a picture of.  We later found some okra but not many. Cooked them up that night with onion, peppers and threw in some carrots too.

Something else I got for Mother's day was a new mouse pad. I love it and it sew suits me. LOL

Beauty salons are opening up but with rules and Pamela was able to get an appointment with our girl Brittany. Last time She cut and colored Pamela's hair was in February. I wasn't allowed in the shop like usual to keep Pamela company so I ran errands but even that wasn't easy because 2 of my stops were closed. One due to the pandemic and the other closed for the Memorial Day weekend. I must have missed the announcement on that. Oops. I called my friend and former co-worker Samara and told her we were going to make reservations at Gringos on Muschke if she'd like to meet up and catch up.  She said absolutely. It was so fun catching up and seeing our friend. We had lots of laughs and before we knew it our time was up. The restaurant only allows you to stay a certain amount of time since tables are limited due to the social distancing. 

Okay I'm not sure I like the new blogger situation. It wasn't always perfect before but now it won't let me align the pictures in a paragraph without wrapping text if it lets me align it at all. Grrrr. I sent in my feedback on this issue so hopefully I'll hear back with a solution. 

The weather has been very pleasant and rather cool in the evenings so for our evening happy hour David built a fire in the pit. Nice and toasty.

 

Wednesday the 27th I went back to the cardiac doctor for the first time since the stent. He was happy to hear that I wasn't having issues heart related. So I am. LOL He did tell us (David went with me) that I did have a couple other arteries that had 30-40% blockage but they just monitor these and only fix 70% or greater. I go back in 6 months will probably have another stress test. Can't wait. After our visit David and I headed to a Plant nursery I saw in downtown Navasota. It was pretty nice. Not very big but had some great plants and prices. We left there with some Peach drift roses, purple fringe bushes and some abelia's. David is working on the front landscaping. It's already looking great with the plants he has already and especially with some mulch down. He's going to make a dry stream bed where the water has a natural run. 

From downtown Navasota we drove out to Martha's Bloomers on Hwy 6 to see what they had. They didn't have a bunch of stock yet since they had been closed for the last 2 months. It was getting about lunch time so we headed back into Bryan/College Station to the Chicken Oil for burgers. Yum! We've been craving some good juicy hamburgers that we didn't have to cook. We were happy and satisfied.

We then went across the street to the farm patch to see what they had that we couldn't live without. We found one more peach drift rose that we need since the other nursery didn't have enough plus some other small 4" plants.  This is David's 3 or 4th trailer of mulch. Setting out our new plants.  The peach drift roses are at the curve of the sidewalk. Now David is think he wants to get 4 more for a fuller look.

 

David is always thinking on ways to landscape. And the purple fringe bush will go between the purple butterfly bush to the left of the porch and one will go to the right in the center.

In front of the wine barrels on both sides of the porch we placed the abelia bush. It has small pick flowers but they won't get tall enough obscure the views.

David was watching the sky and said we better head on over to Pamela's and let the girls out before it starts storming.  The girls were so happy to see their furless Grampy. I was chopped liver. LOL We were watching the radar on TV and thought we'd hang out at Pamela's for a while. Good thing. It got a little rough outside. High winds, rain and hails. In the meantime Brianna wouldn't leave David alone.

Weather moved through and we hugs the girls and headed home to our own baby. We were hoping for some good rain at the Rock'n K but nope. The clouds parted like the Red Sea I guess. We apparently got some wind since things were thrown about and down but only got an inch of rain. Really.  We go some more later but not much. The evening sky was beautiful.  I need to learn how to capture the colors that I see with the naked eye because they don't show up in my pictures below. There was vivid blue with light pinks and yellows off to the Northwest...

But when I looked to the Southeast I treated with a rainbow. The colors were gorgeous. And then the second one appeared. So pretty.
In my last post I talked about the bird that laid her eggs in our driveway just out of the way where we wouldn't drive over them. Well Thanks to my nature loving and photographer friend Kathy Maxwell I realized I called it by the wrong species. This is a Killdeer Bird.  They pretend to have a broken wing to draw you away from her eggs. Not sure how I came up with the idea it was called an Ibis because they look totally different. After I took the video I left Momma and her babies along but I was worried about predators and with good reason.

Wednesday evening when we were unloading the plants we bought I saw Momma bird out by her 4 eggs all happy and safe. Next morning David went out and found all the eggs missing. No shells. Nothing. How sad. Who knows what got them.... Skunk, armadillo or raccoon. Who knows. 

We have another bird nest now. David told me that when he walked up to the cabin he got startled by a bird that flew out of a nest built in a quart size cup.  LOL I went outside today to see what kind of bird it might be. At first I didn't see anything then it flew out of the hole quickly.  I think the blur was a sparrow of some type but not sure. 

While on my walk to check on the bird nest and get the mail I saw this poor guy. I think he miscalculated his path and flew into the barb on the barbed wire fence. Guess He should have worn his glasses.

Do you see the barn swallow next at the peak? That grey blob looking thing.  Grrr and today they started making poop messes. This is directly over the front steps.  It's gonna take tall ladder to knock this one down and a power washer to clean it up. UGH

Pamela came up for Sunday dinner and she caught some good pictures of the girls out by East pasture that's full of flowers. We got Sophie (L) and Lilley (R) to sit long enough for a picture but Bri had to many noises and things to check out to sit still for a family picture. LOL  Lilley was ready to take off but hung out for a quickie.

       

We finally got Bri to sit for a very quick shot. The next snap was of a blur as Bri was ready to run like the wind. Sophie was the best at sitting still for her photo.

           

Tomorrow is rehab day but afterwards I finally get to get a Mani and a Pedi.

I do okay on the hands but not so great on the toes and they can't wait.

Well until next blog....A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be. ~ Douglas Pagels