A Little of This and a Little of That…

It was hard to come up with a specific title for this particular post for the blog site… It’s about flowers, food and ‘home’ shopping.

Winters here in East Tennessee are generally quite mild with very minimal snow and ice.  We do get cold here…below freezing…but it generally just happens for a day or two in a row.  However, this past December we had a run of days where it got cold…below freezing at night…and stayed cold for several days in a row.  As a consequence, our Laura Petaluma shrubs/bushes really got hammered!  Looking at them in early spring, there were a few blooms but most of the small branches appeared lifeless and we weren’t sure that the bushes would survive.  On top of that, most of those blooms just seemed to die and fade away.

We just took this photo on 5/28/23 and there has been a lot of growth.  The Laurie Petaluma shrubs are going to make it!  I had just trimmed them to keep the regrowth even and there still are some ‘bald’ areas, especially in their center.  Hopefully, they will eventually fill in…

Our little Boxwood bushes on either side of the entrance to our front porch did not fare as well as the Petaluma bushes.  They took a hit from the weather and they are not coming back.  In this case, those few light green leaves have just been turning into dead foliage.  We’ll have to pick out replacements now that it’s evident that they are finished…

We just love the magnolia flowers!  They are just beautiful and they look so delicate too.  Our two “Little Gem Magnolia” trees aren’t so little.  It appears that they have reached their alleged maximum height of 20 feet…

Unfortunately, they are messy trees too… Leaf litter is especially heavy in the mid to late spring…but they do grow new leaves and shed old ones fairly continuously during the growing season.  

‘Good news, bad news’ in our backyard as well… Our big Oak Hyacinth is in full bloom, looking glorious once again.  Unfortunately, another Oak Hyacinth, which was just few feet to the right of this one, is no longer.  It was wiped out this winter by a big limb that fell from our massive old Oak Tree.

Moving along to one of my favorite topics…food!  In this case, leftovers for breakfast.  You may remember our dinner at TC’s Grill…a diner in Maryville Tennessee.  I’d ordered the country fried cube steak with country gravy.  What I really got was two 8 oz. burger patties that were breaded and then deep fried.

Want not, waste not.  There was no way I could eat 16 oz. of deep fried hamburger in one sitting.  So, subsequently I reheated the second breaded hamburger in a frying pan with butter and shredded sharp cheddar cheese.  I love fried cheese… So I dropped 2 easy over eggs on top and sided my breakfast with a toasted buttered English muffin.  It was satisfying and very filling!

Another day, another breakfast!  I had 2 deli ham slices tucked away in the fridge and I was going to make scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and the ham slices.  Then I saw a package of Feta cheese in the meat/cheese keeper.  So, I made my ham and cheese scramble with Feta cheese…and it was both creamy and very tasty, a nice change of pace.

Then I discovered a slab of leftover parmesan crusted chicken breast that I’d fried for dinner one night.  We’d purchased it ‘ready to fry or bake’ at the Fresh Market in Farragut Tennessee.  They were big and Laurie couldn’t finish hers…hence breakfast for me!  Again I added cheese and of course, I topped it with an egg.

Since Loudon County with Tellico Village is home to a lot of retired folks, there are frequent estate sales as people downsize, move back with family, move to assisted care or pass on… It isn’t unusual for our area to have 2 to 3 three day estate sales per month.  Most items that remain are 40% off on Saturdays!

Do we need any more ‘stuff’?  Of course not, but that has never stopped us from shopping for things we ‘might’ need or for items that we actually have a use for.

I took a few ‘typical’ photos of some rooms in this particular estate sale.  Everything was looking for a new home!  Like most of these sales, just about everything in sight is for sale.  In this instance dishware, kitchen tools, pots and pans, décor items,  clothing, cameras, TV’s/electronics, office supplies, tools, crafting materials and much more was available to the discerning shopper.  We picked up a few more things ourselves.  They included a small bathroom rug, 2 nice pillows, a framed close up of donkeys and 4 CD’s for my growing CD inventory…

I thought that I’d end this post with a new flowering plant in our yard.  This is a hybrid red Calla Lily developed for gardens and floral displays.  The most common form of calla lily or Zantedeschia aethiopica is native to Lesotho, South Africa and Eswatini/formerly Swaziland.  Normally white or pink, hybrids come in many colors. 

In nature, wild calla lily in Western Australia has been labeled as an invasive pest.  That is because it loves water, swampy areas in particular and it uses a lot of it.  All parts of the plant are poisonous, producing local irritation or a burning sensation in the mouth and sometimes vomiting and diarrhea.  On the other hand, Zantedeschia aethiopica can also be used for the treatment of wastewater due to its tolerance of iron and its ability to grow in wet areas.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave