It's a jungle out there!

Yippeee! I finally got my regular lens back from the camera repair shop! For over a month I have only been able to use the zoom lens.

Honestly, I wasn't kidding when I said the front yard is overgrow. Notice how lush the right side of the house is compared the left (drier bed due to a tree near the street). I meant to replace a soaker hose in that bed but never got around to it this year. I started to thin out everything but then Paddie had her surgery so now I am in the house with her until she is well.


Notice the larkspur? It's a testiment to how unusual and wonderful this summer has been. Normally it has gone to seed by mid-June and been yanked out of the garden by the 4th of July. It is still lingering.

Another example of our cool summer (with evenings in the 40s or 50s!) is the bugs. The Japanese beetles who usually greet the first of June are finally here. I have to wonder if we get cool weather again if they will fade off. For now, they are feasting on my roses......

crafting in the garden

Helena and Katie were crafting in the garden yesterday! Making some awesome birdhouses for little birds.

They did a great job too! But they are little birdhouses---one of the funniest things I heard was Katie's big brother suggested her birdhouse hang aside of the bigger one he made a year or two ago. He said: "it could be the garage for mine" :D

The girls did a great job......

And as usual our little magpie, Helena, chatted the whole time !!!

Going to the dogs.....

We love our dogs. That is all there is to it. So when we spend a small fortune on keeping them healthy, it is worth it. This month was a triple whammy month with one procedure for Paddie, Teddy's hip pain surfacing (he was born with hip problems), and another major surgery for Paddie.

Paddie appears to be recovering from her bladder surgery. She only gets me up once a night now (in comparison to every two hours). I am looking forward to her follow-up appointment next week. Paddie's wound is still seeping a bit and she has to be monitored all the time to make sure she isn't picking at her staples (although she has been AMAZING about that so far).

There is always something to be grateful for and for the 10-14 days she is infirmed, I am grateful that I can't really go anywhere or do much in the garden. I'M TIRED! My knee and hands ache from all the garden work I've done and I can use this break. Because I knew I would have to be in the house with her, I had Brad bring my sewing machine down. It looks good on this old singer sewing table that my friend Linda gave me, doesn't it?
Before Brad fell, I used to begin my Christmas present sewing in May. I've learned to start earlier, mostly because I never know what to expect and once the garden is open, the yard sales and auctions are in swing, I might not get much done in the summer. So I am glad for this time to catch up on some projects. Like the dogs---24 of em (two sets) I am making using Ami Simms "Dog Yeared" pattern. I love this pattern, it is VERY forgiving for me (I'm not the greatest quilter, I just enjoy doing it) and easy to embellish it and personalize the dogs.

Over the weekend, I got the machine applique stitching done (they have been fused for months!!). Now I just need to decide. Do I want to do one big quilt or make them individual wall hangings?

The reason I am debating this is because this is our present is for Brad's brother and his wife who have two labs. One lab--Jay--is just fine and dandy, typical lab. The other, Hank, makes Marley look like a saint. Not sure how to describe him other than the numerous eyeglasses he has eaten, the deer head he dragged home (imagine how mad that hunter is!!!), or when he got his head stuck in the closet kitty door trying to eat the litter box findings (ewwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

I tell you all this because I am worried about making just a quilt because what if Hank smells our dogs on it and well, that could be bad. So I am thinking of doing individual wall hangings for each month for them. Here are the blocks so far:
I also (finally) got moving on Anne Sutton's bunny hill BOM. Iam debating these too, should I do individual wall hangings for Nana's nursing home room or make her one nice quilt? I love Anne's quilt patterns and bought a bunch of them lately to make the baby's quilt. Also fused an bib for the little one coming in November....

Finally I got the ladybugs machine appliqued! I have to embroider the antennas on them this week and add a yo-yo to the center of the yellow tulip block. This will be a quilt for sure, although just a lap one. I just love the ladybug fabric and made the patterns a variation from the Piece O'cake book I have.

Well I am off to finishe cleaning up the house! Have a great day!

Recipe for Christina......

This recipe is at the request of my niece Christina who writes that she is very hungry for an oven pancake. This is one of our famiy's favorite breakfast/brunch treats. It isn't unusual to make 6-7 of these when our whole family gets together for lunch. What makes them wonderful is that that they are easy to make and taste wonderful with Nana's (mine) homemade strawberry jam. If memory serves me right, the family got the recipe from the Mike Douglas Show (remember him kids?) when Craig Claiborne was a guest. We have always called it Craig Claiborne Pancakes but the kids just refer to it as Oven Pancakes.

So here goes:

Oven Pancakes:

It is important to have a frying pan without handles or you can use a cast iron frying pan; you are going to bake the pan so you want to make sure there is no plastic that can melt.

1/2 C flour

1/2 C Milk

2 beaten eggs

dash of grated nutmeg

1/2 C of butter melted in a large (handle-less) frying pan

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Powdered Sugar

Jam or filling of your choice (we have also used a cinnamon/sugar mix too)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix milk and flour. Add beaten eggs. Mix but do not get out all the lumps. Pour into handleless frying pan that has melted butter in it. Bake for 15-25 minutes. Pancake will rise and be odd looking but golden.

Add juice of 1/2 of lemon to the pancake after it is baked. It will make the pancake fall. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Spread marmalade or jam/jelly onto it and roll it up. Cut the roll into slices and serve!

Tomatoe, Tomaato...

This post is for my friend Molly who has been asking me about our Topsy Turvy tomatoes. (note garage where I have been ripping the ivy off). Brad hung them off the garage because there is literally no place else to hang them. I was not keen on doing this because our last batch of tomatoes (2 years ago) encountered squirrel challenges. Every time a tomato would ripen, the squirrels would pull it off the vine and take bites out of it.

I became so disgusted that I pulled all the mater plants. To add insult to injury, the squirrels then attacked our neighbors' tomatoes and brought the stolen contraband to our garden. So I was intent to not grow them again. But Brad longed for tomatoes so this is the 2009 experiment.......
The only challenge we have had is that we had so much rain in the beginning of the summer that we lost a lot of soil in the bags. We just replaced the soil yesterday.

The good thing is we have tomatoes already. I will post which maters turn out the best. This year we are experimenting with traditional, roma and

CHERRY!!! The first mater :)

Paddie update

Paddie had her surgery yesterday and she is home resting. The vet said there was one big stone (which even inhibited her catheter!) and various smaller ones but their was some bruising to the inside of her bladder. She is on pain pills and holding her own, mostly resting. We'll be home with her for the next week or two until her staples are removed. Thanks everyone for your prayers and warm thoughts. It is hard for a 12 year old girl like her to have surgery but so far, she is holding her own!

20 minutes on, 20 minutes off.....

Dang. Sometimes you just can't win. I spent 5 hours working in the garden yesterday and today my knee is acting up. So I am on ice duty.

This is the year that we didn't get the garden mulched until after the Fourth of July. This has been such a transition year for the yard and I still don't have grass started in the backyard. No use lamenting about it, its just the way the summer is going.......

Paddie is having surgery tomorrow. She has stones in her bladder and they will be removed. Say a prayer she will be okay.....

Jack and Elsie

I've been a bit under the weather and maybe even a bit blue this past week which is why I haven't posted lately. One thing about getting old(er) is that you are repeatedly reminded of how few people are left that share the same memories as you do.

I've been spending a lot of time with my only remaining grandmother, Nana Betty, and thinking of my paternal grandparents, Jack and Elsie. Nana is doing fairly well now; whenever she gets any kind of infection it affects her brain and she becomes very confused and bewildered, not unlike an abandoned child. As soon as the antibiotics kick in, she becomes herself again until she is ill (or overtired). Yesterday she asked me to bring her some pretzels on Tuesday and things are going back to normal...

During the July 4th holiday, I thought a lot about Pop-Pop and Nana Elsie. July 4th is Pop's birthday; he would be 105 this year. Nana and he were married on his 21st birthday (1925).

Theirs was the only anniversary that I remember being celebrated as a child. Each year we would go to Willow Park for a family reunion picnic. It was a magical day for my brother, cousins and I. Nana would buy us each a present of our choice and Pop would hand us a fistful of tickets for the rides. There was plenty of food, (I remember watermelon in particular and spitting our seeds the furtherest distance) and an unusual amount of freedom for we children. Somewhere in the park there was a large pool but I only remember one year when we actually went swimming there. The park is gone now and my grandparents have been gone for a long time but I still feel them around me, especially this time of year and I am filled with such a yearning to see photos and share memories with others that remember.

In my father's family--besides my brothers--I have only one Aunt and a few cousins. My aunt is going to let me pillage through her scrapbooks and memory boxes to photograph and record what I can before all the history is gone. It's important. It's who were are as a people. My family--both paternal and maternal--was built by strong self-made individuals and all of them were storytellers. A story, told well, was valued in our tradition. So I'll be starting a blog for all these memories and hope to hear from you family members who read the blog on a regular basis....let's post all our memories and give a gift to the future generations. I will share what stories I hear from Aunt Carole and what I can remember. Also as I scan photos, let me know if you want me to make you a CD of the photos. I'm going to do both the Wilson and McLaughlin family on the one blog but I'll always post which side I'm writing about, both are such colorful families it should be fun. The blog will be at http://www.toadjuggyhill.blogspot.com/ and I will do some work on it later this week. In the meantime enjoy Nana Elsie and Pop, this pic says on the back, "LVRR (Lehigh Valley Railroad?) Bethlehem 24977 for (illegible)"

Nana Elsie and Pop-Pop. I'm not sure which son this is, possibly my father (he has curls)?

Strawberry Lemonade

My husband and I are always on the look out for fun and different recipes. This past Sunday the Parade magazine featured this Strawberry Lemonade recipe (http://www.parade.com/export/sites/default/food/recipes/parade/123-eats-strawberry-lemonade.html) We love it and highly recommend it! However, the one change we made was to NOT strain the strawberry pulp. It's like summer in a glass. Enjoy for the holiday!