At Home and in the Neighborhood

…It’s time for me to take another break in my long lasting narrative related to Laurie and my late summer road trip to Michigan and beyond.

Short and simple…staying home and checking out a “Roadside America” attraction just a couple miles from our house.

Here in East Tennessee, there is about a 10% chance of snow on the ground on Christmas Day.  So this light covering of snow didn’t change the odds…as it began snowing on December 26^th and had mostly melted off by the afternoon of December 28^th.  As usual, no snow on Christmas and no shoveling either… However, it did get very cold for this part of the USA.  It bottomed out at 7F early one morning...the coldest here for many years.

The first view gave us pause as we noted a variety of animal tracks in our yard…overnight visitors.  We saw rabbit, deer, squirrel, and cat tracks at the very least.  

Once again, at my request, Laurie roasted a small prime rib roast for our Christmas dinner.  My concession to her was the mashed potatoes rather than the roasted variety.  Since I can’t eat greens with my meds without really planning out our meals, I went with yellow squash as our side dish.  It was a very nice dinner…ending a quiet Christmas Day.

One holiday morning we tried making Babka French toast.  We’d had a loaf of cinnamon Babka, (an Eastern European creation), before but I bought another loaf so we could try it as French toast.  Note the real butter and pure maple syrup!  I liked it a lot but Laurie thought that it was just ‘OK’.

As we shopped for our special Christmas dinner at Fresh Market in Farragut Tennessee, Laurie was looking for buttermilk as a baking ingredient…when she noticed this item.  We had never seen a bottle of Homestead Creamery’s “Old Fashioned Custard” so we ‘had’ to try it!

The Old Fashioned Custard milk is a seasonal product, much like egg nog is.  This rich, old-fashioned custard is a drink like no other.  We both liked it with its creamy vanilla flavor.  It wasn’t too ‘thick’ or ‘heavy’ and it was like drinking a nice smoothed out milk shack without the ice.  We will repeat with this item next Christmas. 

The family owned ‘Homestead Creamery’ is located in Wirtz Virginia.  Website: https://www.homesteadcreameryinc.com/farm-market/. 

As our grandsons have gotten older, our son David II and his wife Amy know that every family experience the 4 of them have together is even more precious than the last… Over the Christmas/Holiday break with sons David III (22) and Emmett (19) home from college, off they went to Maui Hawaii.  They had blast in paradise and even niftier, they shared the experience with Amy’s best friend, the one who convinced her to go to a party…and where Amy and David found each other!

…meanwhile, back home in Tennessee…

This Christmas, Laurie’s “Christmas Cactus” actually decided to bloom in conjunction with the holidays!  Lots of attractive blooms…

Originating in the Brazilian rainforest, Christmas cactus are not your typical cactus plants.  They don’t have prickly spines and they do need to be regularly watered.  To encourage more stems…from which those flowers grow and bloom…either grow your Christmas cactus as a hanging plant or place it in a spot where it has room to ‘drape’.

Recently our insect/varmint control contractor, aka ‘The Bug Man’ walked into our master bathroom and let out a shriek!  He wasn’t aware that Laurie had moved her huge old philodendron in from the screened porch for the winter season.  She had decided that since we never use that huge whirlpool tub for anything…it would serve as a comfortable winter home for the plant.

I had to agree that if you weren’t expecting it, our huge philodendron is a bit intimidating!  Then it came to me that there was a vague familial resemblance to the famous plant that starred in the movie “Little Shop of Horrors”.  Rick Moranis, who played the male character lead in that cult classic, had named his man-eating plant…and her name was “Audrey II”.  So, I’ve named our seasonal visitor “Audrey III”. 

If you think that our live green bathroom invader is a little frightening and perhaps a bit off-putting, then you’ll ‘love’ the photos we took of a local ‘attraction’ that has been growing exponentially, both in size and in fan base, just 3 or 4 miles from our house. 

The Vonore Road “Bike Ride” has grown to the point that it is actually listed as an attraction by Roadside America!  The “Bone Yard Family’s” special display is located at 9378 Vonore Road in Loudon Tennessee.

Note the grave yard, the 12 foot tall giant skeleton, the hearse being pulled by a skeleton horse and a ‘covered wagon’ with Frosty the Snowman as its passenger.  It was very thoughtful of the Bone Yard Family to add a touch of the Holidays to their display at this time of the year.  The pool scene may be a bit incongruous, but it was nice to see that some members of the family would rather just lounge by the pool rather than ride their bikes.

We’re wishing the Bone Yard Family the very best in 2023.  To see bit more, go to Loudon, TN - The Bone Yard Family (roadsideamerica.com).

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave