Wasp Trap!

Wasps and summertime are synonymous. They are everywhere out here in the country! I found a cheap and easy way to deal with the situation around our house and all you need is a few items you probably already have laying around:

plastic bottle
box cutter
string
duct tape

First, cut the top off of your bottle with the box cutter:

Make a hole in both sides of the bottle top and thread with string to make a hanger:

Invert the top and place inside the bottle.
Run a piece of tape around the cut edge to secure.

Fill (not all the way to the bottle opening) with a strong sugar solution or crushed fruit. Apparently, the wasps go in to eat but they are not quite smart enough to fly out! They fly around frantically, get tired, fall into the water and drown.

We didn't catch any wasps today, but it might take a while for them to figure out where the yummy stuff is....or as John Paul likes to call it, the sugar water of death!!!!
Muah-ha-haaaaa!

My latest obsession

I decided to use up my vintage sheet stash to make a new quilt for our bed. The one we currently have is on it's last leg! It's old, worn, torn, and half the batting is wadded up from years of washings.

I wanted to make something special just for us. For years we've had to share our bed with little ones and now those little ones have grown up. They're far too busy and way too cool to snuggle up with mommy and daddy anymore. This quilt will mark that new era.
Our bed is ours again and we don't have to share with anyone...

...well, except for this baby!

Meatless Fridays

It's been raining here for WEEKS! It makes a girl just want to stay inside dressed in her jammies and curl up with a good book and cup of hot tea. Who wouldn't love to eat a big stack of these beauties on a gloomy, rainy Friday night?
This week's Meatless Friday meal is:

Breakfast for Dinner

(or as John Paul calls it...BRINNER!)

Blueberry Pancakes:

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup milk (plus an extra tablespoon or so if batter is too thick)
1 large egg , separated
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup blueberries

vegetable oil (for brushing griddle)

1. Mix dry ingredients in medium bowl. Pour buttermilk and milk into 2-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Mix yolk with melted butter, then stir into milk mixture. Whisk egg white in large bowl to stiff peaks. Dump wet ingredients into dry ingredients all at once; whisk until just mixed. Quickly fold egg white into batter. Fold blueberries into batter.

2. Meanwhile, heat griddle or large skillet over strong medium-high heat. Brush griddle generously with oil. When water splashed on surface confidently sizzles, spoon batter, about 1/4 cup at a time, onto griddle, making sure not to overcrowd. When pancake bottoms are brown and top surface starts to bubble, 2 to 3 minutes, flip cakes and cook until remaining side has browned, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Re-oil the skillet and repeat for the next batch of pancakes.

Making tinctures

Many herbs contain active ingredients which are not easily extracted by water, or are destroyed by heat, and a tincture solves these problems. A tincture is an herbal preparation made with alcohol and dried or fresh herbs. The alcohol preserves the medicine for 3 years or more. The alcohol used commercially is ethyl alcohol, but a spirit such as brandy or vodka is usually used for making tinctures at home. Do not use industrial alcohol and isopropyl alcohol, as they are poisonous.

I like using dried herbs in my tinctures, but you can use fresh as well. Make sure you do your homework and know the medicinal value of the herb you are using...check several resources!
Here I am making a cayenne tincture.
Take your herbs (dried or fresh) and chop.
A food processor is a great time saver for this step!

Next, put your dried herbs in a one quart sized mason jar about 1/3 full. For fresh herbs fill about half full and compact tightly. Pour your alcohol over the herbs and fill up the jar. Secure your lid well and shake. Store in your cupboard for three months and be sure to give it a shake every now and then. When time is up, strain the tincture into a clean glass bottle or jar.

Be sure to label your concoctions with the date of preparation.
To use your tincture, pour one teaspoon full of tincture into a glass of juice or tea and drink up to three times daily. If you are concerned about the alcohol, you can place your finished tincture jar into a pan of boiling water for about five minutes. This will burn off about half of the alcohol or you can make your tincture using glycerin (but you'll have to Google that process as I've never done it!)

I have to say that I am completely SOLD on the idea of homemade tinctures as herbal remedies! We made several batches of elderberry tincture last year during the big H1N1 outbreak and not one of us got so much as a sniffle! We had a daily glass of OJ with tincture and supplemented with 2000 IU of vitamin D3 and I truly, truly believe that is what kept us well. We'll be doing the same this year!

Here is our elderberry tincture made right in the vodka bottle! Just make sure none of your neighbors looks in your cupboard....you might have some 'splainin to do!

Check out the Tuesday Garden Party
at An Oregon Cottage
for more tips and tricks from the garden!

Independence Day!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, we sure did!

Although, our red, white, and blue cookies turned out to be
pink, yellow, and aqua!

Psychedelic but tasty!

Doug's parents made some awesome BBQ
and then we enjoyed the spectacular fireworks show in Rosenberg.

Happy Birthday America!

Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans!

I was all packed and ready for another adventure in Minnesota...a three week long adventure! But the agency called today to say that for the time being that the Minnesota Nurses Association and the hospital systems had reached a tentative agreement.
That means the strike is off!

Good for them, sucks for me!

After a little hissy fit I realized that it's all good, I mean I thoroughly believe that God is in control and I need to just calm down and trust in His plans (something my dear husband has known all along!) So I called the local nursing agency here in town to tell them I'd be available the next two weeks and during that time I'm going to contemplate a travel assignment to either California or Washington, D.C.


Yes, a prayerful discernment is what's in order here!
That, and LOTS of unpacking!

The perfect zipper pouch!

Last time I traveled to Minnesota I carried all my toiletries and make up in ziplock baggies...not very chic, for sure! Since it would cost a small fortune to buy pretty little zippered pouches from the boutique, so I decided to search for an easy pattern online.

I found the cutest and easiest pattern at
'Skip To My Lou'
(complete with fabulous photo tutorial!)

Custom made zipper pouches made to the perfect size to hold all my lotions and potions! I'm even thinking about making bags to hold my shoes and lingerie.

These would also make perfect pencil pouches for the boy's school supplies....
in a little more masculine fabric, of course!

Family day out!

Since I'm heading back to Minnesota this weekend I thought we needed a family fun day out. About 45 minutes from our home is a water park literally in the middle of nowhere, Splashway Water Park. They have BOGO on Tuesdays so we packed our cooler with goodies, slathered on the sunscreen, and headed out for a really great day together:

We're all sunburned and exhausted but we had a blast!
I even promised the little ones we'd go back when mommy gets back from work in Minnesota!

Preserving your harvest

When you've eaten all the tomatoes and zucchini you can stomach and your neighbors run at the site of you because they don't want anymore either, what's a girl to do?

It is simply too hot here to can foods and I don't trust the process completely either! If it can't be lactofermented then I like to use the dehydrator and dry our vegetable harvests. Drying food has been around for centuries and it is a very convenient and healthy way to preserve food. Add your dried veggies to soups and casseroles for a nutritional boost, or just snack on them like veggie chips!
Why pay $$$ for those fancy sun dried tomatoes when you can make them yourself for next to nothing?
Slice your ripe tomatoes very thinly on a mandolin or food processor and add garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt & pepper, and a dash of olive oil. Mix gently with your hands until the slices are coated.

Place slices on your dehydrator and leave for about 12 hours. If you don't have a dehydrator you can place slices on a parchment linned baking sheet and put in a 150 degree oven overnight. Be prepared...your house is going to smell AMAZING!

To store you can put them in a jar covered with olive oil or simply seal in a ziplock baggie! They add such great flavor to salads, pasta dishes, and homemade pizza.

Or even just straight out of the jar!


For more gardening ideas check out:
An Oregon Cottage
Tuesday Garden Party

The student becomes the master...

Oh, young Padiwan, I have taught you everything I know.
You are now ready to venture out and make salsa on your own.

Your knife skills are excellent.

Your sense of taste and balance of seasonings are outstanding.

Your dipping technique is like no other.

And you leave mayhem, chaos, and disaster in your wake...

Happy Birthday Doug!

Last Thursday Doug turned another year older!
I asked and asked if he wanted to do something special for his birthday but all he wanted was a quiet day at home. He ended up cooking his own dinner (with the smoker he got for Father's Day) which was really delicious! And his parents came over for the evening as well. Mrs. C brought a wonderful spice cake that was devoured VERY quickly!

Happy Birthday to my Doug E. Poo!

Meatless Fridays

I have been reading Ina Garten's book, 'Back to Basics'. It's a wonderful book of simple meals with simple ingredients and lots of flavor. I like to grow basil but am often amiss at what to do with it, so I thought I'd make a big batch of Ina's pesto sauce to use over pasta and on homemade pizza Margarhita. The sauce came out very good, but there was a small little problem....my husband almost went into anaphylactic shock!

We had dinner and then Doug went out for his nightly walk. When he came home he was red as a beet and complaining that his arms and hands were "on fire!" I shuffled him off to the shower and when he took off his shirt I saw that he was covered in huge red welts! Two benadryl and a cool shower later he is still as red as a cooked lobster and bumpy and itchy from head to toe...and his eyes had begun to swell! The only thing that it could have been was the pesto sauce we had for dinner. We still don't know for sure if it was the basil or the walnuts (I'm thinking it was the nuts!)
But we won't be having this meal again....EVER!
But that doesn't mean that your family can't enjoy it!
It was really good, even the kids ate it up!
This week's Meatless Friday meal is:

Ina Garten's Homemade Pesto

1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup pignolis
(pine nuts are too expensive on our budget so I doubled the walnuts and toasted them first)
3 tablespoons chopped garlic (9 cloves) ~ (I only used 6!)
5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good olive oil
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese


Place the walnuts, pignolis, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 30 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is finely pureed. Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Serve, or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.

Gardening on the cheap!

Most garden departments have a "clearance rack" of dying plants. Most of the time the plants are out of season or diseased, but every once in a while you can score a GREAT bargain!

I checked out the Walmart garden center's clearance plants (usually tucked waaay in the back corner) and found some Knock Out Roses marked half off and some canna tubers for 75% off!

These plants are a REAL bargain because they grow year round here in Texas. Knock Out Roses are virtually disease free and they're pretty hard to kill (not temperamental at all like traditional roses!) and after a good pruning they'll bloom back beautifully. Cannas grow anywhere that is hot and sunny and they are beautiful tropical plants. They are perennial and will grow back and multiply year after year. After a good 12 hour soak, these tubers will be ready to plant.

Look for plants that are perennial or grow year round in your area. Most of the time you can nurse these sicklings back to health. Over watering, not enough sunlight, or simply being "pot bound" are reasons these plants get tossed aside. Don't waste time with annuals, they don't bloom year after year and you'll be wasting your money.
So check out the clearance rack next time you visit your local nursery, you might find some real treasures in the rough!