Garden ~ Kitchen-ness ~ Utility Room Purge (the room that holds way too much ha ha!)

 

Our 4th of July started out very foggy, but the remainder of the day was in the high 80's, and sunny.  We spent the morning tying up tomato plants, until the heat index turned 91°F.

  Those tomato plants are not all of them, I have a main tomato patch as well.

Our zucchini plants are about 5 feet wide this year.  Never in our life, have we seen them this large.  Don't mind the weeds, I'll get those when the ground is a bit more dry out here.  You can see the small whirly-gig, and can compare that to the plant.  Amazing!

  

I'm still trying to resurrect the green onions.  Golly they took a hit with the heat and recent drought.  I was hoping for the rain to help, but it will take some work to bring them back to life.

I like to keep healthy snacks prepared for hot days.  Some days we don't feel like eating a large meal, so I whipped up some hummus, and added spinach this time.

One of our favorite breakfast casseroles with chili peppers and cottage cheese.  

 

Craft containers on a shelf in the utility room - the purge/extreme clean has started.

 

I dumped out 3 containers, of the "jewelry" making craft supplies.  I went through them to either toss, donate or keep, and filled a bag to donate.  However, I think one daughter wants to look through it first.  Keep in mind, we have 6 kids, and that was years and years of crafting with them.  The girls really used these, and there was a mess in the bottom of each container.  I found a small set of screwdrivers, that will go to the garage.

All of my patterns were put back into a binder, but my binder ring in the center broke.  I'll revisit that project when I have a new binder, but the patterns are all in there, and in their properly marked section.

The Pharmacy Door Story

 The back story to the pharmacy door:  My Dad was a pharmacist for a living.   The drug store also had a photo counter, cigar/cigarette counter with candy counter, a general store counter and items sold there, and an old time (what I called) fountain.  

(source:  Hometown Library)

If you look to back right upper corner, that is the pharmacy, with enclosed windows that were added later in the years.  If I remember correctly, the enclosure was added to lock it up, due to people breaking in and stealing from the store.  I can't recall if it was a business requirement, or because of the breaking and entering and stealing, but the enclosure make it possible to lock that area up.

At the "fountain"  there was a counter with stools and booths to sit at.  I grew up working behind that counter at nights and weekends.  I sometimes worked for the main, full time gal Carol that ran the fountain.  If my memory is correct, all of my siblings, at some point in their lives, also worked there.  I think my first pay was $2.25/hour.  I loved that job.

  Dad built this door for the entrance to pharmacy counter he worked behind in the drug store (before the glass windows and door enclosure was added).   He painted it, and when the store closed, he kept the door.  When he passed, it was found at his apartment I think?  I ended up with it, and had it for 2 years before figuring out what to do with it.  We talked about many ways to use it, and one suggestion was to decorate a barn with it ha ha!  I wanted a room pantry with this as the door (getting a kick out of the "pharmacy" painted on the door), and we considered it for other uses.

It's going to be a door for one coat cubbie, to replace a curtain, and keep the dust out.   A work in progress, but getting done.