moving right along

Despite the summer storms, progress is being made on the homestead addition. 

good day

It was a good day for pizza at Subway after church. 

It was a great day for clouds. 

It was an excellent day for eating Klondike bars on the porch

It was a fine day for garden produce.

It was a terrific day to make pickles. 

But it may take more than one day to teach P-pa to play Zombie Lane!

blueberries and zucchini

We have an abundance of blueberries and zucchini squash in the Ponderosa garden right now. Unlike yesterday, it's a quite day with no construction here so I decided to try a new recipe! It was quite delicious and easy to prepare.

 

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

INGREDIENTS:
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries

DIRECTIONS:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.

2.In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon.
Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.

3.Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

41

Forty-one years ago today two kids stood in the First Christian Church and got married.  They had NO idea.  They had NO money.  They were both in college. They thought all you need is love!  

Turns out they were right. . . 

day 3-construction

Current Condtion of the Ponderosa
Day 3 of Construction

More digging later today

produce

I've been fighting the weeds every morning trying to keep them out of the Ponderosa gardens.  Here's some of the produce we are harvesting right now.

Squash pickles will be the first thing to go in the cans!

fish fry

I had lunch with all these crazy people!  It was a fish fry at our church.  We had a delicious meal of fish, hush puppies, mashed potatoes, peas, and coleslaw.  Our desserts were banana pudding, southern pie, coconut cake and chocolate cake, all made from a cookbook that our church published in 1984!  After lunch we enjoyed a couple of games with one ending in some dress up fun!  This bunch makes being a senior citizen fun!

what a difference a day makes

This morning the back yard looked like this. . .

Tonight it looks like this. . .

It only took a couple of hours to dig them up, push them over, cut the limbs and carry away the log!

 Lots of change coming to the Ponderosa this summer!

tilling

Parker came to visit for a couple of days last week and we put him to work in the garden.

Tilling the strawberries and sticking the beans. 

Parker is running a tiller that my dad bought about 30 years ago.   He passed it on to us when he stopped planting a large garden and its still running great.

a groundhog tale

For the last year, there was a groundhog living under the Visitor House.  It was BIG.  The neighbors had seen it.  People staying at the house had seen it.  We saw it, but it always ran away when we drove up.
 Recently we walked to the Visitor House and on the way I said, "You should have brought your rifle, we may see that groundhog." 
To which Peanut replied, "We will since I don't have it."
I was carrying my camera trying to practice with my zoom lens. 

I had stopped several times along the way, checked the garden and had forgotten about the groundhog.  As I was looking over the grape vine, Peanut said, "Oh look, the mulberries are ripe."
When I looked up this is what I saw. . .

It was right over my head and I may have made a screaming/squealing noise.  Piper and I stayed  and kept it treed while Peanut hurried back to the house for the rifle. 

The rest of the story. . . 

The groundhog is no longer a problem at the Visitor House.  He will not be digging under the house or eating our garden.  One less varmint on the Ponderosa!

coming soon. . .

This was delivered to our backyard on Saturday.  We had just finished relocating all the hostas, lilies and iris plants when it arrived.  It means that we are about to expand the Ponderosa homestead.  A new kitchen, sun porch, bedroom and garage are being added.  I am very nervous about the whole thing!

4th birthday bash

(I have become woefully neglectful of the blog,  but this big event deserves a post )
The Ponderosa Stinkbugs, Brooks and Brynn celebrated their 4th birthday on May 25.  There was a beach party at their house with family and friends.  Excitement was extreme.  It was everything a birthday should be with decorations, cupcakes, ice cream cake, games and presents!

Special birthday calls from Paw Patrol and Dora the Explorer.

Happy 4th Birthday!