December 2019, Week 1
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
4 years ago
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dbarron
4 years agojlhart76
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Recipes for Christmas II - Week 1 December 2013
Comments (20)I got this recipe years ago, but I can't remember where except that it seems that it was in California in a grocery store. Please try it, you won't be sorry. FRUITCAKE HATER'S FRUITCAKE 2 cups soft butter 2 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar 1 cup honey 10 eggs 4 cups flour 2 t cinnamon 2 t baking powder 1 t ground allspice 3/4 t salt 2 1/2 lbs glazed apricots, sliced 1 lb pecan halves 1 1/2 lbs pitted dates, sliced 1 lb raisins 1 cup apricot nectar 1/2 cup light cream 1 T lemon juice 1 cup brandy 1/4 cup orange flavored liqueur In a large bowl cream together butter, brown sugar and honey. One at a time add the eggs beating well after each addition. Into another bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking powder, allspice and salt. Then stir half the mixture into the sugar, egg mixture. In remaining flour, dredge apricots, pecans, dates, and raisins. In a bowl combine nectar, cream and lemon juice. Add this to the mixed batter, then fold in the nut, fruits and flour mixture. Butter and flour 4 9X5 loaf pans. Evenly divide the batter between the loaf pans. Bake at 250 for 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Remove from oven and pans to cool. In a bowl combine brandy and liqueur. Sprinkle each loaf with 1/4th of this mixture and let stand 1 hour. Wrap well in foil and let season in the refrigerator for at least 1 week. Edited to correct spelling. This post was edited by walnutcreek on Wed, Dec 4, 13 at 12:48...See MoreJanuary 2019, Week 1
Comments (65)dbarron, I'm glad I was able to find that thread, and I'm glad you posted something on it in order to resurrect it from the archives. It will be interesting to see how the okra does for you. I consider my whole garden one long running experiment. To me, there is nothing more fun than trying new varieties, or new growing techniques or new....whatever. I get bored with doing the same things in the same way year in and year out. Jennifer, That is too bad about the power outages. I bet the house did get cold. We have a generator now, so the thought of a power outage doesn't bother me as much as it once did. Still, it is a lot of work to wheel the big old heavy generator out of the garage (it always is behind a ton of Tim's junk) and set it up, so I'd just as soon not need to use it. Our Wal-Mart has partial stuff on the garden center shelves, but nothing I want---mostly chemical pesticides and herbicides. You know, because we need all those in January? (Not that I use them any other time of the year either.) It was real hit-and-miss. There were some organic products outdoors on the garden center shelves, some patio furniture and outdoor throw pillows (because people buy those in January?) If I ran a garden center, I'd have seeds and seed-starting supplies on the shelves first, not pesticides and herbicides. There's still a ton of unsold Christmas merchandise, but quite a bit less than a few days ago. Even at 75% off, most people walk right by and don't even look at it. Everybody's clearly over Christmas and moving on. Nancy, I hope you hit that button and ordered your seeds. I did quite a bit of that yesterday, but I really did try to show 'some' restraint. Maybe not enough restraint, but I tried. Then, this morning I went to the websites of Hazzard's Seeds and Eden Brothers and both boggled my mind, as always, with the huge selection and huge quantities available in bulk. I didn't order anything, but I am pondering doing so. It is 69 degrees, gorgeous, clear and sunny with blue skies galore here. I just love it! Cats and dogs are happy although the ground still is terribly waterlogged and covered with big puddles. I am excited we will have more days like this over the next few days. Both the 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks give us an above average chance of rain. No, no, no. This is supposed to be our driest month historically. Can the rain please stay away for at least a couple of weeks? Why doesn't this rain fall in July and August when we need it? dbarron, Trowels? Ha ha ha ha ha. I'll admit to having at least 6 or 7. I swear ....somebody here (and it must be me because I am the only gardener here) leaves them lying in a bed in the summer and then they get lost beneath plants or mulch. By the end of the season, I'm down to 1 or 2 trowels being visible and usable. Then, in the winter or early spring I find them all again, gather them up, clean them off and put them in the garden shell. It is the same thing every year. At least I finally have more trowels than I can manage to lose in one growing season so I no longer actually run out of trowels and have to go buy another one. For years, it seemed like I had to buy one more per year. In fact, I have to resist the urge to buy another one "just in case" when they hit the store shelves. Amy, Believe it or not, my seed hoarding has improved a lot and I am getting better about using them up before they lose their viability. Well, I still hoard too many tomato seeds, but you never know when you'll want to add another 10 or 20 varieties to the Grow List. This year, I put the seeds I want in the shopping cart online. Then I go back and delete at least half of them before I order. So far that is working out pretty well. My storage tote seed crate is emptier than it has been in at least 10 years. Lisa, Wow! You sure have taken on a lot of responsibility with MOW. I am so proud of you---that is such an awesome thing that y'all do for your community and I know that y'all are making them really yummy food. They are so lucky to have people like you who care about them. You might not be behind....it might be that we are getting ahead of ourselves just a little bit, but what else can a bunch of gardeners do in the winter time? Talking, planning and dreaming about gardening isn't really the same as being able to do it, but it does help pass the time until gardening time rolls around again. This afternoon a yellow jacket tried to come into the house with Tim. It made it into the mudroom and there it died. It now resides in the trash can. Will somebody please tell the yellow jackets that it is winter time and we don't need their company in January? We feed the deer every day, of course, and this morning or perhaps overnight, one of them left me a small present at the deer feeding area---one small antler probably from a 6-pt buck, since this antler had 3 points. I picked it up and brought it indoors and will let it dry for a while. The grandkids will love seeing it...they are at the age where seeing and collecting anything natural like bird feathers, pretty rocks, dandelions, etc. just thrills them. Dawn...See MoreAugust 2019, Week 1
Comments (44)Rebecca, Well, the best we could do to beat the heat was 11:30 a.m. Fort Worth is so big and there's so many deaths and the funeral homes stay super busy, so you get the time slots that are available, if you know what I mean. I am not complaining.....at least it isn't an afternoon funeral. It is supposed to be the hottest day of the year so far, but no one here on this earth can control the weather. I think the recent high heat index numbers (ours have been in the 112-114 range on recent days) have fried my brain. We were out at the pool this evening and the temperature was 90-something and the heat index was 106 and I told Tim and Lillie "you know, this really doesn't feel bad at all". lol. I've lost my mind. I've always been impressed with how well tomatoes can bounce back some years. I have abandoned the garden in some hot dry years....stopped watering, closed the gate and walked away, leaving it all to the spider mites and grasshoppers. Then, a month or two later, I look and the tomatoes have tons of new growth and look great. You just never know what they'll do. I'm glad yours are showing resilience. Your flowers do look great. Jennifer, I know how badly y'all need rain and was hoping you'd get more, but any amount of rain is a blessing at this time of the year. I'm happy for all of you who got rain. We didn't get any, but we had some last week, so we aren't in terrible shape again yet. The dewpoints and heat index numbers are horrible though---as if the plain old high temperatures wouldn't be bad enough as they are. I believe Sun-Mon will be out hottest days of the year so far. Don't let the heat get to you! September is just around the corner and will bring cooler weather. Really, the NWS is showing cooler weather mid-week, so that's something to hope for and to look forward to, unless the forecast changes and that take that bit of coolness away from us. I hope you have many more years with your mom. Our mom never took care of herself (don't even get me started on that!) and we never thought she'd live as long as she did. When our dad passed away in 2004, we all thought mom wouldn't live more than a year or two longer. See how wrong we were? I know it will take a while to get used to not being so busy with the band, but y'all did your job so well for so long, and now it is somebody else's turn, and you and Tom get to have more free time for yourselves. That can only be a good thing, right? Today the weather felt quite a bit nicer here than on previous days. I think it was because our dewpoint was falling late in the day instead of going up, so our heat index peaked earlier in the day than usual, and it peaked lower---at only 111. How sad is it that this is what I consider a better heat index? How many days until autumn? Winter? Can we start counting? Need heat relief? Skip going to the nurseries and garden centers. Go to Hobby Lobby and walk around admiring all the fake autumn flowers, pumpkins, gourds, etc. and all the other fall decor, and then mosey over to the Christmas area and pretend it is winter time. See there---don't you feel better already? Drought is spreading rapidly on the U. S. Drought Monitor Map and our fire conditions are worsening. All we need is for southwestern and southcentral OK (and much of central OK and western OK) to get some rain like NE OK had this week and then things will get better quickly. If, and only if, that rain actually falls though. I looked at the 6-10 and 8-14 day outlooks and they don't look especially promising. I say this every August---where is a good old tropical storm or hurricane off the Gulf Coast when we need one? I'm not asking for a big damaging thing...just some sort of storm that will send a plume of moisture up over Texas straight to us. Unfortunately nothing like that is in sight either. Dawn...See MoreOctober 2019, Week 1
Comments (31)Good morning, y'all. I think the beginning of the cool-down is here, although we will feel it more at night than during the day. I'm not complaining though, because it is progress towards cooler weather. We awakened to a crisp, cool 63 degrees this morning and that's nice. We are supposed to stay in the 80s today, and the dewpoints are much lower so I doubt the heat indices even will hit the 90s. I feel better because this is a sign that summer (I hope) weather finally is done with us. Y'all watch next Thursday's/Friday's forecast because the models are bringing us temperatures at night in the 40s down here, so some of y'all be get ever cooler than that. The surest sign that the cold fronts are rolling through southern OK and finally mean business? Yesterday, the hummingbirds still were here, but were eating and leaving, and not even hanging around at all. I refilled the feeders in mid-afternoon, and they've barely been touched since then. I knew as I refilled them that it might be for the last time. I haven't seen a single hummingbird this morning either. Usually, I leave the feeders up for 7-10 days after seeing the last hummingbird, so I'm sure I would refill them with fresh nectar again sometime next week, but the hummingbirds may not be here to enjoy it. There's still tons of butterflies though. Jennifer, It is the hardest thing to see your childhood home sold, especially if it was your childhood home for your entire life. I think it wouldn't be so hard if we'd moved around a few times, but we didn't. Until we grew up and left home, it was the only place we'd lived for our whole lives. We all tried to mentally and emotionally prepare for it, but signing the papers to close the deal still was pretty sad for us 4 kids. And, I use the term kids lightly as we're all grandparents, and one of us (my little sis) is a great-grandparent. Still, it also is a good feeling to know another family will live their lives there, make their memories and hopefully be as happy as we were. The house is on a corner lot, across from a nice little neighborhood park with 2 baseball fields and a playground, so it is a great place for kids to grow up. As the old folks of my parents' ages (my mom was the last one on our street and one of the last in the immediate neighborhood) have died or gone into nursing homes, all the 1940s era homes have sold to younger folks who've invested a lot of money in remodeling the houses and redoing the yards and the whole neighborhood has become revitalized and that's a great thing to see. I think I probably never will drive past that house again though even when we are down there visiting nearby family. I kinda want to remember it the way it was when we lived there. Once your parents and your home are gone, then that area doesn't feel like home any more, I guess. I don't necessarily think we needed a 4th dog, but somebody had dumped this one and he was glued to the spot where they left him....for several days. We were afraid a car would hit him as he was right beside the road, so we enticed him up to the house with food and attention. Now, I guess he'll be ours unless the vet finds a microchip tomorrow and we learn he is lost, not dumped. He bears all the earmarks of a dumped dog though. We're going to name him Jesse, after our dear friend who passed away this summer. He's a young, big dog who likely will be a huge dog someday and our two younger dogs, Ace and Princess, are not happy about having a new brother. Jersey is okay with him as long as he doesn't jump on her---she is old and frail---and I am sure Ace and Princess will get used to Jesse. I reminded them that they, too, were stray puppies without a home when we took them in back in November 2014 and our dogs we had then, Jet, Jersey and Duke, accepted them and came to love them and that they should do the same for Jesse. I'm not sure Tim and I are ready to expend the endless energy needed to train a puppy, but we will find a way to do it. I only had to take him outside once during the night, and then Tim took him out early this morning when he got up to go to work, so at least the puppy seems capable of sleeping most of the night without having to go out...and he hasn't 'gone' on the floor once, so maybe at some point, someone had him indoors and he already has been trained in that regard. He's all clumsy puppy though....with big paws and a vigorously wagging tail, so I'm sure we're in for a lot of adventures. Is it idiotic for a person who is attempting to redo the entire landscape to take in a puppy who probably will be a digger and will be somewhat of an impediment to doing new landscaping? Probably, but our yard and garden have survived digging, destructive dogs before and shall again. Dropping the pounds is so hard, isn't it? I feel like all I've done is gain weight all spring and summer, perhaps stress eating from all the illnesses and death. I'm working to lose those pounds now, but they are a lot harder to lose than they were to gain, and I think the holiday baking will make it even harder. Being older makes it harder still, but I"m pretty determined to stick with it. I'm glad Tom is smoking meat for the band. It makes life feel more normal doesn't it, even though Ethan no longer is in high school. And, since Ethan's GF still is in high school and in the band, why shouldn't y'all be there? I know it will feel different, but I bet it still will feel good to be there. Larry, I'm so glad Madge is feeling better. Our deer are starting to disappear and be a lot less visible now. They must feel deer season approaching. When I have planted wildlife plot seed mixes for them, I did notice they didn't seem to like the brassicas as much as the legumes. Our older flowers are looking worn out and tired, and probably showing the effects of shortening day length now. The ones that still look the best are the cosmos, roselle hibiscus and candletrees that I planted in June and July. All three tend to be late-bloomers here and love the autumn weather, so they should look pretty good for a while yet. Now, if we hit the 40s late next week like they say we will, probably on Friday night, then all 3 won't care for that cold night, but I'm just not going to worry about that now. It if happens, it happens. I don't see any harm in asking if you can have all the leftover plants so they won't be wasted. dbarron, Your 59 degrees has me green with envy, but we should be in the 50s on Monday morning and Tuesday morning with highs only in the 70s. I'm dreaming of making some kind of yummy muffins to have for breakfast with hot cocoa or hot tea (I'm not a coffee person) and maybe making chili or stew for dinner. Or tomato-basil soup from frozen tomatoes. Any more, it seems like summer lasts throughout all of September and it hasn't always been that way, so I guess I just need to adjust. I'm ready to wear autumn clothing too. There's a part of me that hates to see summer weather end because the grandkids love to play in the pool. We are thinking that with a high temperature tomorrow around 87-88 degrees, we may have the last day in the pool with them. Of course, it depends on how much the water cools off tonight, and then it also depends on the rain in tomorrow's forecast and all that. For the sake of our two little mermaids who would stay in the pool 24/7 if allowed, I hope tomorrow is a pool day. If it is, it will be the last one. Last year, our last day in the pool was October 4th---they had a Friday off from school and were in the pool for as many hours that day as they could manage because we all knew it would be the last pool day of the season. If tomorrow ends up being too cool to play in the pool, we might take them down to Dallas to the Dallas Arboretum for Autumn at the Arboretum, which features an incredible pumpkin festival, including a village of buildings made of pumpkins and gourds, and with around 90,000 pumpkins, winter squash and gourds on display and over 150,000 seasonal flowers on display. Now that I've mentioned it, I should link it, in case anybody here is going to be in the Dallas area during Autumn at the Arboretum. As a gardener, Autumn at the Arboretum is incredibly delightful and it runs through Halloween. Or, maybe I'm just a big kid at heart and would love it even if I wasn't a gardener. Autumn at the Arboretum: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Jennifer, The heater? The heater? Oooh, I am completely emerald green with envy. I am looking forward to our first day that we need heat in any shape, form or fashion----I don't care if it is the heater in the car, the heater in the house or just roasting marshmallows at night around the fire pit. I simply want for it to be cool enough to need heat! Our TV met last night more or less said that the temperatures in the 90s should be over for all of us in southern OK now, and that the cold nights will come quickly over the next 7-10 days and will stay. I hope he's right. I've had all the heat I can take. After the hottest September ever recorded in the Texoma region, I'm ready for something that feels more like normal autumn weather. The air feels much drier today, and that's a wonderful thing. The elms and persimmons still are the only trees showing autumn color. I'm not expecting autumn leaf color to be great down here this year. Probably most trees will hang on to their green leaves forever, and then they'll turn brown and fall off overnight. We have to have long, mild, cool autumn weather to get great leaf color and that sort of weather has eluded us this year. I need to go clean house. I need to put one more coat of red paint on the doors, and guess I'll do that first. Then I need to get out the Halloween decorations and add them to the autumn decor that already is in place. I want the house to be decorated for Halloween before the girls arrive this evening. I hope you all have a wonderful day and a terrific autumn weekend. Dawn...See Moredbarron
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4 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
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