Friday, July 26, 2019

Miscellaneous – Nature and Its Bounty!


Hey…it is that time of the year.  Nature is in full bloom, greenery is everywhere, critters have had their offspring…and many of the local farmer’s and gardeners are reaping what they sowed!


Laurie has been feeding the bluebirds their favorite food…mealworms!  Papa bluebird has picked one up from the deck that was knocked off the railing…


In the meantime, his baby (actually a full grown teenager) is on the railing looking for something to eat!


But…being a teenager, he still wants dad to feed him.  Doing his own thing is just too much work!


One street over from us, we had to stop to let a couple of wild turkey hens and their broods cross the road.  Laurie scrambled for her phone to take a photo and this blurry picture was the result.  I found it interesting that one of the hens led the group across the road and another one brought up the rear.  


Who doesn’t love fresh fruit and other produce!?  Norm and Linda stopped by after visiting a nearby Mennonite farmers market and presented us with this luscious cantaloupe.  It was really good!


A couple of days later, we had dinner with Linda and Norm and stopped by their house for a nightcap afterwards.  We got our cat ‘fix’ from Morris and Molly!  We didn’t get a photo of Miss Kitty…the latest member of the household.




In any case, Norm loves gardening.  Not only is their yard beautifully landscaped with greenery and flowers, but he has built a number of raised vegetable beds that are very productive.  The first photo shows the harvest that he had on hand when we stopped by…and the second photo shows how lucky our timing was…and how generous Norm is.  The cucumbers were used in a couple of our salads and we steamed those great yellow squash.

But then we were inspired and went on our own foray to the farmer’s market!






We picked up some bi-color corn (terrific), amazing heirloom tomatoes, homemade bread and a great little watermelon for two…


Most importantly, we also stocked up on Laurie’s favorite granola mix.  The Mennonite ladies put a combination together that Laurie really loves.  Most mornings she has yogurt…with the granola mixed in to enhance it.


Well I was thinking… Now we had fresh homemade bread and more importantly some spectacular heirloom tomatoes.  On the way home, we just had to stop by Benton’s store, (Country hams, bacon and more), on US Hwy. 411 in Madisonville Tennessee.  We needed some of their amazing smoked bacon for the ultimate in bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches!


This is what half of one of those purple tomatoes looked like after slicing it up for our BLTs!  Just beautiful!  Unfortunately you’ll have to imagine what our sandwiches looked like as we forgot to take photos…

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

2 comments:

  1. I had to smile at the first produce pic about the number of squash he had - a couple of plants will usually supply the neighborhood and since we eat so few of them, I soon quit growing all forms of squash.

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  2. Ahhh the joys of bountiful! I like and I like a lot, friend David. Sautéed tomatoes, Squash and Cucumbers on sour dough bread topped with bacon … heaven! Sending Summery greetings from Alberta. Love, cat. PS: Sending you another cat fix featuring my Theo Thunderbutt … smiles … https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fo5RUhuoLO4?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0

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