This & That

Cautionary Tale #2

Perhaps you remember Cautionary Tale #1 which was, "Never run with scissors or any other pointy object."

Cautionary Tale #2 relates more to saving you time....lots of time....and frustration, unless you are really a fan of explosive plant growth.

Never plant Bishop's Weed in your yard.

Bishop's Weed can be kind of pretty, but don't let those flowers fool you. This stuff spreads faster than mint, and that's saying quite a bit. And it takes over whatever area you have it planted in. 

And then multiplies exponentially. We've tried for several years running to get rid of it.

Yeah, you can see how well that's worked.

The Falls Are Booming

First off, happy birthday to my sister. :)

High water years make for excitement at the falls.

Shoshone Falls is known as "The Niagara of the West." Even though Niagara Falls is hugely wide, Shoshone is higher. The flow over the falls is controlled by a series of reservoirs upstream. During the spring run off, which has been unusually heavy this year, the flood gates of those reservoirs are wide open so they don't flood.  It's the Snake River that runs over the falls and hydroelectric powder is generated by the flow.

You can see the power plant at the base of the falls.

When the water is so high and fast, it throws up a cloud of mist you can see above the canyon rim for quite a distance.  We ventured down after supper last week for a gander at the spectacle and for some picture taking.

PB, The Girl and LS Boy. Will you please look at PB's smile? We are so, so, so close to normal. Not completely there, but so close. He's still having some eye things going on...tearing because the muscles aren't 100%, but he's looking so good.

SD Boy and his lovely bride.

And me and my honey.

Yuck.

There are some things that I really just hate. Mushrooms, summer, olives of any kind...

But the one thing I hate more than anything, is having to send my kids off to far-flung places. Last weekend, Eldest and his family moved halfway across the country....and they took my grandboys with them.

I miss them already.

It makes me sad.

A 10 for Originality

I'm not sure how I forgot to put this entry in last week, but I did. A few shots from Father's Day. I challenged the kids to wrap DH's gifts with anything they could find except wrapping paper.

PB "wrapped" one in his Big Hair Ball get up.

The Girl was slightly more creative, putting hers in an ice chest.

But the "atta boy" went to SD Boy who took a stack of small paper plates from the counter and formed a package from them with packing tape.

This guy's a great dad.

Strawberry Syrup

We tried this last weekend on some Oatmeal Pancakes (recipe next week) and it was really tasty. It was also uncomplicated enough that The Girl made it by herself. The recipe comes from The Sisters Cafe blog. We changed it slightly by leaving the cinnamon out. The Girl thought that sounded gross. With or without the cinnamon, this makes for something good on pancakes or waffles. You'll also have to excuse the purple plate. It was a very casual morning at our house.

Strawberry Syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 Tb. cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 cups thinly sliced and then roughly chopped fresh strawberries

Combine sugar, cornstarch, and cinnamon in saucepan; stir in strawberries.  (The strawberry juices will dissolve the sugar and make a wet mixture.)  Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.

This makes approximately 2 cups of syrup.

*Note: frozen strawberries, thawed, would work too.

Project 12 May Sketch

I missed doing the Project 12 sketch for April. It's on my desk now...but I did get a little time to scrap this afternoon and got May done. A lot of older BG here. I stamped the green dot background. I was going to try it with a wood mounted stamp, but decided that it would be better, if a little longer, with a smaller Paper Trey Ink acrylic stamp. Click on the image to make it bigger.

 

Belated Celebrating

We had LS Boy here with us for a bit after his time in Ukraine. He had a birthday while he was there and we didn't get a chance to sing and open presents with him, so we took a bit of time to do that.

We managed with three candles on his pan of Snickerdoodle Blondies. We were going to break one candle in half and have them stand for 2 1/2 decades, but in the end we just went with the three.

He managed to blow them out quite successfully. He's out west-er than us for a few weeks for another internship, but will manage a little fly-in for the holiday weekend.

 

What a Difference a Year Makes

My new yellow iris last year. It came from a start from a friend's yard.

My iris this year.

Time

I took some time the other day and went shopping with The Girl. I hate shopping. I've never been one of those that could just spend hours at the mall, going from store to store looking at every possible thing.

But right now it's something that she loves to do. And she had seen something she loved in this new little shop. So we went and spent an hour. We looked at everything in the store and she tried on a few things and settled on a couple. Then the sales lady put them in this pretty bag and added a sucker on a long stick. The Girl was totally happy.

Then I looked at a large vintage picture of a lovely woman with vinyl lettering next to it on the wall behind the cash register. It said, "In memory of our grandmother Rose Marie." And I thought what a sweet thing it was that they had this memory of their grandma that was so tender that they named their store for her.

It got me thinking that sometimes time spent doing things we don't necessarily want to do can sometimes be the best time. You just never know.

Of course, last night I was the worst mom in the whole world because I wouldn't let her go with her friends after dinner when she'd been with them all afternoon and part of the morning. Right now I'm wondering which one she'll remember....

Snowballs in June

With the cool spring, all the blooming has been behind schedule. We are just now getting some of the things we usually see 3 or 4 weeks before this. We have a snowball bush that has been pretty well pushed out by the lilacs. However we managed to get a few off it this spring.

This always reminds me of DH's grandma. She had a large bush in her yard that bloomed profusely every spring, usually right in tandem with the peonies. (Long running debate at our house...whether it's pronounced PEE-oh-nee, or pee-OH-nee. I'm in the first camp, DH in the second.) They would make large bouquets of the two flowers every year and decorate the family graves for Memorial Day. So seeing them always gives me a bit of a bittersweet memory. We planted both a snowball bush and red peonies to remind us of her.