Home Happenings...plus Nature

In the last post, it was all about family visiting our home.  This post is all about the nature around our home, a short woodland path and of course, food!

Our Virginia Sweetspire has finally shown it's beauty after a couple years with little going on.  This southeastern native grows in moist, wet areas and in upland locations.  It is known for those clusters of white drooping fragrant flowers in the spring.  In the fall, the leaves are supposed to turn orange, red and yellow.  This bush can be invasive but we have it contained in a small area.

We are readying for a big neighborhood garage sale.  While going through our piles and accumulations of 'stuff', Laurie came across a bird bath that we'd 'retired' from service.  Since our loropetalum bushes have been cut down to a reasonable size, the bird bath can now join our concrete rabbits by the front porch.  The birds will be very happy... 

We recently purchased 2 bushes like the one shown above.  Laurie has them in planters on either side of our front porch entry.  Mexican heather, aka false heather, is a small evergreen shrub that is native to Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras.  In climates like ours here in East Tennessee, it will have to come indoors in the winter as it does not tolerate freezing temperatures.  It should bloom for most if not all of the summer...

I noticed that our purple iris 'crop' is doing well this year...and spreading too!

Somehow this small azalea bush has survived it's less than ideal location next to our back deck.  Too much shade and less than ideal soil and it's still rewarding us with it's bright and colorful blooms. 

This photo is one of my favorite views from our home.  It was taken from the front porch looking back along side the house...and into what looks like a dense lovely woods.  It currently serves as a refuge for our neighborhood fox den and as an occasional place for deer to bed down.  The wooded lot (one of the few remaining) next to us feeds into a wooded common plot between houses.  The photo was taken  in the direction of that wooded bit of land.  

Laurie's latest project is a joint effort with Terry, our new neighbor who bought the new home behind us.  The project involves the construction of a woodland path through the common ground behind our house...a bit of a hill involved...so that we and Terry can easily walk back and forth between our homes rather than driving several blocks to visit... You can see the beginnings of the path just behind the big tree in the upper portion of the photo.

The ladies recruited a local 17 year old high school junior to build the path.  Alejandro worked hard on the project, even picking up bags of mulch and wood chips for the pathway itself.

This photo shows the placement of the stepping stones leading up the hill from Terry's home to ours.  Wood chips and mulch were added later.  For safeties sake, both ladies have walking sticks leaning against trees at either end of the path.  The next step will involve the creation of a woodland garden using plants that are native to East Tennessee. 

Now for an evaluation of two 'prepared' food items from grocery stores... 

During a recent food exploratory adventure at Costco, we noted these Jamaican Style Spicy Beef Patties.  We like spicy and we like to have 'easy meals' in the refrigerator or freezer.

Well...These spicy beef patties (sort of like empanadas) were not spicy and, as a matter of fact the beef filling was a bit mushy and flavorless.  Disappointing for sure!

Since I hate wasting food, I decided to try to improve on those 'spicy' Jamaican Beef Patties.  Consequently, I cut one into strips, fried them in a bit butte, slathered them with sharp cheddar cheese and then topped that creation with an egg.  I added Tabasco after tasting one of the strips.  Sadly, this updated creation did not help this product!  

I am determined to try again.  There has to be a way to make these beef patties more tolerable!  My next attempt will involve spicy taco sauce.

Onto another prepared 'convenient' food item.  We purchased this bag of Rosina Grande Italiano Meatballs at our local Food Lion store.  They are made with beef, pork, Romano and Ricotta cheese...with some Italian seasonings.

Note: This was a high risk purchase as Laurie generally doesn't like meatballs... She really can't explain why as she likes hamburgers as well as pork.

Winner, winner, Italian style dinner!  The top photo shows Laurie's dinner before adding parmesan cheese and the second photo shows my dinner after adding the cheese.  The meatballs have a nice flavor and they are firm, not mushy.  They paired well with the pasta.  Even better, sliced in half and placed on a nice bun, I was able to use the remaining meatballs for a couple of good sandwiches!  We will buy these again!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Yard Maintenance and Improvements

This little trip through part of our yard...front and one side...is all about trying to maintain and improve its appearance and its function.  Have no doubt that this is not something that I enjoy spending money on!  Ten years ago, I could have done much of this work myself, but that is no longer the case.

The colorful loropetalum bushes in front of our house have survived another winter... They looked like the December cold snap had finally killed them off...but here they are in all their 'glory'.  The problem is that they have grown too tall and they're getting harder to trim back, at least as far back as far as Laurie wanted.  Her goal was that they should be below the porch railings.  We had other yard related projects that needed attention as well so we called a local service to deal with all of them.

So the 2 man crew cut the loropetalum bushes way back...I mean way back!  They also spread a new layer of mulch around them.  I guessed that this severe trimming in the spring might just kill the bushes...

But Mother Nature has taken hold and those scraggly dead looking remnants of the original loropetalum bushes, are making a major comeback.  Of course they have had a little human help from Laurie with extra water and some plant fertilizer... 

Then there was that other loropetalum next to our "Little Gem" magnolia tree.  The loropetalum had pretty much taken over that side of the flower bed and Laurie wanted it gone...

And...she got her wish!  That overgrown loropetalum is gone and an opportunity to plant flowering plants has been exposed.  FYI, cutting down the big loropetalum hasn't killed it either.  We now have a 6" shrub springing from the old root system.

Along one side of our driveway, we have a forsythia bush that seems to grow faster and higher than anything else in our yard.  The flowering Texas Star quince at its right, one of Laurie's favorites, was also expanding quickly.  We usually trim these bushes ourselves but since the landscaping team had power tools, they had this assignment too...

Then there were the more significant projects on our playlist!  The rock lined drainage strip along side our house had pretty much become a series of dams rather than a conduit for water to run off whenever we had a major rainstorm.  It was clogged with debris too which didn't help.

This is a close-up of our rock filled drain.  Between the impact of roots from a tree that was no longer there, the accumulation of dirt and plant waste and the shifting rocks over the last decade, the flow of water was blocked in several places as it flowed toward the back of our property. 

So the real effort was the removal of all the rocks and then ensuring that there actually was a channel for the water to follow.  Next the team laid down some waterproof sheeting to inhibit plant growth.  Finally they had to replace all the rocks...and before they were done they actually needed to bring in a small load of additional stones.

And this was the completed lined and rock filled drain... Interestingly the owner of the yard service company came back to take a look a few days later after a major rainstorm.  He wanted to make sure that it functioned as it should... 

FYI, during the rebuilding of the drain, we learned that the company that had built it in the first place had not lined it with the waterproof sheeting.

In the previous photos that showed the side of the house and the stone filled drain, you might have noted the plantings off to the right side, also surrounded by a bed of rocks.  The team that installed this rock feature did lay down the waterproof sheeting needed to keep the weeds at bay.  However, since this area is sloped, all the mulch washes away after a heavy rainfall.  We needed a solution...

The options were to terrace the bed or to install rock barriers or dams to retain the mulch near each of the bushes we have planted here.  We're hoping that it does the job for us as terracing would be far too expensive.  After a couple of good rainstorms, this solution is doing its job.  

The overall project was expensive but then just about everything is these days.  Maintaining one's home is an investment in the future...but it can hurt at the time!

The center of attention in this older photo is not the rock bed in the center of the picture but rather the broken up rock at the right side.  Late last year a tree company took down a hickory tree between our home and our neighbors that was on its last legs.  Despite Laurie warning them not to drop the logs onto the big rock right below them...and to lower them instead, they went ahead and dropped a big log on that rock, shattering it. 

The owner of the tree removal company had promised Laurie that they replace the shattered rock with a new one in the spring.  She had to remind them but it finally happened... The 'new' rock rests in the shattered remnants of the old one.

One last photo!  Every year these colorful cone flowers pop up around the giant boulder in our front yard.  They are very cheery and they attract the bees and butterflies.  When I was out in the yard the other day, I counted 11 bees of one type or another busily doing what bees do.  When the blooms die out the finches swarm the plants to feed on the seeds.  Now we have a few cone flowers popping up in the woods next door.  

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them... Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Now back to my efforts to straighten out my multiple photo files.  If the photos end up in the 'wrong' file, I currently have to move them to another file just in order to drop them into whatever blog posting I'm working on.  The next publication date is up in the air...

We hope that your summer is going well!  

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave and Laurie

An Early Summer Drive

I'm slow at developing blog posts as I'm still struggling with my photos... Now that almost everything has downloaded from Carbonite, I find myself with 3 different photo files, lots of duplication, 3 different apps to clean up or enhance the photos and a download file that duplicates much of what is in the photo files.  I'll eventually figure it out...

So, recently Laurie and I went for a drive in the country.  We did have a goal in mind...but we did stray from that objective as the afternoon went on. 

We love donkeys so we had to stop and chat with these two herd guardians... Coyotes wouldn't stand a chance with these critters on guard!  They are smart, curious and fierce.

Our objective was the High Order Mennonite Farm Market near Tellico Plains Tennessee.  There are 2 other markets operated by High Order Mennonites in our area.  One is near Delano and the other is close to Englewood and both can be easily accessed from US Hwy 411.

Our primary objective was to buy a couple of big bags of the granola that this community produces.  Laurie loves it with her yogurt.  We also conceded that we'd like a couple of fresh tomatoes.

As you can see from the photo above, we 'slightly' exceeded our goals...and our needs.  We did get a couple of nice tomatoes, 1 slicing and 1 heirloom, as well as 2 different bags of granola.  Then we strayed just a bit, adding radishes, cauliflower, a couple of yellow squash, a jar of pickled beets, a jar of strawberry jam and a jar of hot salsa.  

But we didn't stop there!  The Mennonite Market also sells plants and Laurie maintains a deck garden so she couldn't resist picking up some additions for her varied plantings.  In addition to the citronella plant, she picked up a couple of baby hyssop plantings.  

I'd never heard of hyssop so I looked it up.  It is a shrub of the mint family that is native to southern Europe, the Middle East and the area around the Caspian Sea.  It purportedly has medicinal properties that can be used as an antiseptic, cough reliever and expectorant.

So was that all there was?  Since we were all ready 'overachievers', we did think of one more stop where we intended to pick up just a couple of sweets for dessert.

So much for good intentions... Once again we strayed, this time with a stop a the Tellico Grains Bakery in Tellico Plains Tennessee.  There was a bit of chocolate involved plus the anticipated sweets for dessert.  It was like a buying frenzy!  The worst part is that Laurie's appetite has shrunk considerably...but her mind hasn't caught up yet.  That led to a couple of actions.  Chocolate vs. regular food and what she couldn't eat, became my personal commitment.  Waste Not, Want Not!

Not everything we purchased at Tellico Grains was sweet.  We also picked up a couple of very nice croissants stuffed with ham and cheese.  They served as our breakfast the following morning.

Next...the other day we tried something that that we'd purchased in our local Food Lion.

We both love BBQ spare ribs but since my idea of BBQ ribs is to slather them with sauce and grill them hot and fast...they really don't qualify as BBQ...which should be smoked low and slow.  So we decided to buy a rack of Swift's KC Style Ribs that we spotted in the meat department.

All I had to do was to do my thing, grilling these ribs and putting that 'char' on them.  Conclusion - The ribs were really 'meaty' and I had leftovers that I shredded and used in a couple of sandwiches.  They weren't falling off the bone...requiring a little 'chew', which is the way we like them.  The problem is that they were far too salty for our taste.  

If you don't try things, you'll never know if you missed a real winner!  Maybe our next meat related impulse will truly hit the spot...

I thought that I'd end this post with something 'healthy'...while utilizing some of the items we purchased at the Mennonite Farmers Market.  I can't eat greens so every now and then I cobble together a salad of sorts without the green stuff.  This 'salad' utilized the fresh slicing tomato, the cauliflower, slices of the yellow squash and bites of those fresh radishes.  I will admit that I managed to 'overcome' the healthy aspect of this salad by slathering it with Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing... At least I ate my veggies!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave

Fried Chicken Plus…

We do love good fried chicken!  The problem for us is that the seasoning has to have some distinct pop of flavor.  Kentucky fried chicken (crispy) is one of our safe dining destinations when we’re home or on the road but we’ve also had great fried chicken in local restaurants here and there over the years.  It is a road trip favorite meal…

This is Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken’s location on Lovell Road near the Turkey Creek Shopping Area in Knoxville/Farragut Tennessee.  This is the second Knoxville area Gus’s location.  In the past we’ve eaten at their Sutherland Avenue restaurant but this much newer location is much closer to our home in Loudon County.

As per Gus’s website, they are the current reigning champion of the National Fried Chicken Festival.  Also the Travel Channel has ranked Gus’s as the 12^th tastiest restaurant in America to ‘chow down’.

Despite its obviously casual almost ‘bare bones’ appearance, Gus’s is a sit down restaurant with friendly wait staff taking your order and delivering the food.  While we were there they also had a steady flow of ‘to go’ customers.

The menu is very straightforward and brief.  There are 3 different ‘starters’, fried okra, fried green tomatoes and Fried Pickles.  Customers can order their chicken ala carte…by the piece…as a ‘snack’ (chicken only: 2 piece white or dark, and ‘mixed’ with 8, 12, 16 or 20 pieces of chicken.  Then there are the meals or ‘plates’ which include varying quantities of chicken, including ‘tenders’, as well as baked beans, coleslaw and a slice of white bread.  Alternate ‘sides’ include seasoned French fries, mac ‘n cheese, greens and potato salad.  FYI, Gus’s does serve beer.   

As I mentioned, the dining area décor at Gus’s is minimalist.  These ceramic chickens and other miscellaneous items were noted on a shelf high up on the wall.

The founders and creators of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken were from Mason Tennessee.  Napoleon “Na” Vanderbilt and Maggie started selling chicken ‘to go’ out of the back door of a tavern they operated starting in 1953.  With the support of the local community, they opened their restaurant in Mason in 1973.  Both “Na” and Maggie have passed but that restaurant is still serving their chicken...

The first photo above shows Laurie’s meal.  She ordered the “3-Piece Dark Plate”, (2 thighs and a leg), with the usual sides of baked beans, coleslaw and that slice of white bread under the chicken.  Laurie prefers the dark meat but she doesn’t really like legs so I ‘had’ to help her out.

My meal was the “3-Piece White Plate”, (2 breasts and a wing).  I switched out the baked beans for the seasoned fries.  We both enjoyed our chicken and our sides…my seasoned fries were very good and the slaw holds its own too.  I didn’t write down the prices, they aren’t posted on the website and my receipt wasn’t detailed.  Nevertheless, the pricing was very fair and we got more than enough food.

It should be noted that these restaurant’s full name is Gus’s World Famous Hot and Spicy Fried Chicken.  It is not Nashville hot fried chicken.  The heat in Gus’s chicken is fairly low key…just enough to be different.

The only negative we have ever noted about Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken is that it isn’t all that great leftover the next day.  The light breading or the process used to cook the chicken seems to cause the meat to be too dry to be a great leftover.

Then there was this sign.  It explains why that slice of white bread is placed under the chicken.  It’s what Napoleon and Maggie did in the beginning at the back door of their tavern and it’s now a tradition. 

The menu at Gus’s also includes 5 different types of pie, all of which are baked daily.  They include pecan, chess, chocolate chess, sweet potato and old-fashioned coconut.  We have yet to try any of them.

So why is “Na” and Maggie’s restaurant referred to as Gus’s?  Their son Gus (aka Vernon) and his wife Gertrude, were the ones who not only continued the legacy but were part of Gus’s continued success. 

Gus’s World Famous Hot and Spicy Fried Chicken is located at 126 Lovell Road in Knoxville Tennessee.  It is right across the street from Costco.  Gus’s is open 7 days a week.  Website: Knoxville (Farragut) | Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken (gusfriedchicken.com).  Currently this chain has about 40 restaurants across 13 states.

Time now for another ‘dog fix’ for Laurie!   

This is Flurry, the latest neighborhood dog to be spoiled by my better half.  In that second photo she’s liking her ‘lips’ after receiving and eating a milk bone.  Laurie keeps a sealed container of large and small milk bones on the front porch ‘just in case’ she has the chance to pamper another pooch.

I’ll end with Laurie’s first ‘harvest’ of the season.  The only edibles that she grows are herbs from her planters on our back deck.  In this case she’d harvested tarragon, basil and sage, which she bundled and hung up to dry for future use.

That’s all for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave