Miscellaneous – April 2018

Well, it’s about time for me to publish a mélange of miscellaneous photos that we’ve accumulated this spring… Hopefully, you’ll see something that you really like…

The first sign of spring at our house is when the Quince Bush blooms.  Laurie loves this colorful harbinger of spring!

The quince bush is soon supported by the blooming redbuds in the woods followed by the dogwoods floral display. 

We’re going to lose some of these trees at one side of our house as construction will begin soon on a new home on a wooded lot at the ‘garage side’ of our home... Unfortunately the deer have been using it as a trail as well so we may see them less frequently.

RIP… We decided to retire our old bird feeder as shown above.  It was an economic move as we will save a lot of money on bird feed and BB’s for our BB gun!  

This is one of the culprits responsible for the retirement of the old feeder!  He’s fat and happy for a reason… Well, we decided he needed to go on a diet!  Not having to chase the squirrels off and waste BB's on them is also a stress reducer...

This is the new bird feeder.  We were very happy to see that all of our usual birds have figured out how to use this feeder.  We were quite concerned that the woodpeckers in particular would struggle with this one but they’ve all adapted…

My feed bill has shrunk quickly!  The squirrels have jumped onto this feeder but all it does is spin around and the cage drops down to close off the feed ports, so they quickly abandon their efforts…

Laurie snapped this photo of a Pileated Woodpecker looking for a bit of lunch in one of the trees at the back of our home… What a beauty!

Moving on to food while still speaking of beauty, how about this gorgeous hunk of ribeye steak!  With spring comes the grilling season.  FYI…this steak, purchased from Fresh Market, was big enough for the two of us!

When we lived in Chicago, one of our annual traditions was the purchase of Italian Easter Pies from our local Dominick’s Grocery Store.   Just before Easter I came across a recipe for these savory pies on the Internet.

 

So we bought ready-made crusts…combined 6 hard-boiled eggs with a pound (+) of Italian sausage, more than a cup of shredded sharp cheddar cheese, half a cup of provolone cheese, 1.5 cups of whole milk ricotta cheese with 2 more eggs to bind it all together.  The recipe made 2 pies which we readily consumed.  Note: There is a top crust on these pies...

They were a respectable approximation of what we used to buy in Chicago but next spring we’ll use hot Italian sausage instead of the mild version and we’ll kick up the Italian spices too…

We had cats for many years but Laurie is allergic to them now, so we decided that she should stop suffering and we gave up the idea of replacing J.D., our last furry feline.  Nowadays, we have to get our cat ‘fixes’ when visiting friend’s homes.

 

The 2 cats in the first photo are siblings named Morris and Molly.  They allow our friends Linda and Norm to live with them and serve them…   

The black and white cat in the second photo is a feral (but tame) cat named Miss Kitty.  She has ‘adopted’ Norm, Linda and other neighbors who provide her with food and shelter.  She’s very sweet…

One of our favorite diner type joints is Hot Rod 50’s in Alcoa Tennessee.  They offer a huge variety of burgers, sandwiches and classic comfort food entrees.  I’ve written about this restaurant before but we recently dined at Hot Rod 50s and these sandwiches deserve honorable mention. 

The first sandwich is Laurie’s 6 inch very enjoyable Italian Hoagie. ($6.99) It includes ham, Genoa salami, pepperoni, provolone cheese all on a grilled hoagie bun with lettuce, tomato, red onion and mild finger peppers along with a side of Italian salad dressing.

I was very pleased with my 11 oz. Pastrami Burger as shown in the second photo. ($10.99) It was served medium rare as requested and the burger was topped with some grilled pastrami and provolone cheese.  Yum!  Both of our meals came with a side and we both went for the cottage cheese.

Hot Rod 50s website is at http://www.hotrods50sdiner.com/index.html.

I thought that I’d close this posting with a family photo.  These cuties are Laurie’s great nieces.  From the left we have Avery, Charlie Kate and Delaney.  At the bottom of the sweet family grouping is the latest addition to Kasey and Kevin’s family…and her name is Elliot Jane.  Poor Kevin…living with 5 women!

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

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave