Loofah Seeds ~ Life of a Loofah Plant

 

The to-do list(s) are staying continuous, and in doing so, I found a small flower pot with loofah seeds that some how ended up at my house (from Mom's house).  They are from my Aunt J, from Florida.  I know many (many) years ago, Mom gave me some, and I could not get them to grow here.

I decided to humor myself, and put some seeds in a bag with a wet paper towel, to see if any were even good.  I put them in the bag June 27th (although late in our growing season), and on July 12th, I noticed one sprouted.  I planted it out where it would get a good amount of heat and sunshine, and marked it with glady posts (and to give it something to climb). 

July 19, 2022 (very late to plant in our zone, but I did)

July 21, 2022

July 22, 2022 (new leaf)

 

July 24, 2022

July 26, 2022

August 4, 2022 (very hot and humid, just got rain)

August 10th, 2022.  It's now about 2 feet tall.   Just ignore those weeds.  It's not getting pulled until the garden dries out.

 These plants can grow up to 30 feet.  Anyway, our humidity and hot weather just changed to being nice, so I don't know that I'll get a loofah on it.  I guess we shall see what happens over the next 6-8 weeks.  I'm going to put a much larger trellis behind it.  These plants need something to climb, and it's outgrowing the smaller trellis.  I can also run lines from the trellis to the fence behind it.  Time will tell if I get any loofah's, but what a fun experience so far.

Corn Freezing Day

 

We had a beautiful evening sky last night.  We were out shucking corn on the front porch, and Daughter E pulled in for a visit.  We fed her and she helped shuck some corn.

 

My tool to clean the last of the pesky hairs off the corn - inexpensive bottle brush.  I learned about this a few years ago, while watching the cooking channel.  Works great too.

It's weird to be freezing corn today by myself.  No kids to help, and we joked about my husband taking a vacation day to help.  I'll get it done, and the chickens are going to be very happy today.

I did however, get a good portion of carpet cleaned upstairs.  It has to dry, get vacuumed again, and possibly spot cleaned.  I hope to hire a few strong men to move the treadmill up there. 

Fun Finds ~ Hot Banana Peppers and other ramblings

 While shopping in Amish country, we walked thru a few antique stores, and I found a butter dish to match my salt and pepper shakers.  By the way, there was one store that had a ton of this Jadeite in their booth.

I also found a few more mini hen and nests for the cubbies in the kitchen.  

I double checked the garden, and had enough for a half batch of hot pepper mustard sauce.  Those have left the kitchen.  Now I need to go check on the jalapenos.  I'm glad I checked the tomatoes.  Some of the tomato stakes had to be straightened again.

I tried a new fresh salsa recipe and it was so good!  We are getting tomatoes from the garden now.  I also made a lemon cheese cake pie that was also a new recipe.  It's a keeper.

Another produce stand has closed their doors.  I counted on them, when I needed just a few more hot banana peppers for my canning recipe.  Sigh.  More and more small town restaurants are now closing their doors at 2-3pm, and not open for dinner anymore (lack of employees, which I just don't understand).

I was just told that the large oil company my husband works for is being bought out.  He's been told the insurance for us will be better, but I hope it doesn't change any of his retirement.  

Happy Homemaker Monday

 

The rain has brought on the garden.  More rain is coming, and the bell peppers look great.

My husband and I took a short weekend getaway to a nearby Amish country.  We checked out their new flea market, but wasn't impressed.  We did however, bring home some items for the newly repaired/remodeling bathroom.  It's now all put together and looking nice.

We stayed one night in a historic hotel we stayed at years ago.  I was so disappointed with the new owners.  They completely took the "nostalgic" away from the hotel.  The parlor was completely remodeled into a quilt room.  It was one of the reasons I loved that hotel.  No more.  Our room we stayed at years ago, now has no refrigerator nor microwave. We brought food with us, and could not keep it cold, nor heat it up, and the other rooms also had no refrigerator.  I was blown away at this....

Literally in front of the toilet. See the toilet paper?  We checked out and got coffee at the flea market.  The bed was comfortable, but the whole "nostalgic" part is the reason we liked to stay there.  The new owners just destroyed the original, "real" historic part of the hotel.

We came home, and unloaded, and searched every bag we brought home.  My husband lost our keys.  Not kidding.  Somewhere walking into or out of the hotel, while reaching into his pocket, lost our keys.  No one turned them in either.  Thank goodness I had the spare truck keys, and luckily, I had the only spare house key in my purse.  We never found the lost keys, and like I said, no one turned them in, and thankfully the truck was still there when we checked out.  You just can't trust anyone anymore.....anyway, as of this morning, still no keys.   

We were on the porch thinking the hotel would call, but we just got a visit from a butterfly.

We invited 3 people to dinner, but not one came over.  We grilled chicken with apple bourbon BBQ sauce, corn and camper potatoes.  It was truly humid, but we did get rain during our grill out dinner.

Today I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom.

I will link up when she posts.

The weather . . . 

Hot, humid and rain.  It's been awfully humid and hot, up in the 100's and I think we will finally get a break this week.

As I look outside my window . . .

It's cloudy, and we may get more rain this morning.

Right now I am . . .

Drinking coffee to get my bearings straight this morning.

Thinking and pondering . . .

While on our weekend getaway, I talked to someone who just removed wallpaper from their house.  I will be looking into renting a steamer to remove the wallpaper from the upstairs room.

I only have trash to remove up there as well, and then we start on that room, but now we are discussing building the new coop next.

We have friends/family in the demolition derby tonight, but the heat and humidity will keep us home.  Not to mention it will rain again tonight.

I've been asked to make up and donate a basket for a silent auction for our family members raising money for an adoption.  I have not decided on my theme for it yet.  I have the basket, but have nothing in it just yet.

How I am feeling . . .

Exhausted, ha ha!  I think the heat and humidity just did us in last night.

On the breakfast plate . . .

Have no idea just yet.

What I am wearing . . .

Sweatpants and a tank top.  

On the reading pile . . .

More of Mom's recipes.

On my TV this week . . . 

Whatever looks interesting

On the menu . . .

-leftovers for starters since no one joined us for dinner

-have no idea yet

Looking around the house . . .

Well, my kitchen floor is still piled with donations.  The people that were coming to take it never showed up.  It may be going in the barn after the rain quits.

The to-do list . . .

-can hot pepper mustard sauce

-laundry

-plan meals

-unpack suit case

-make a new recipe

-plant another honeysuckle the birds gifted us

-check garden

-plan a camping trip

-freeze green/wax beans

From the camera . . .

The new small item I am making for the holiday craft show.  Daughter E has been wearing a few for her recent Hippie Fest, and suggested I give her business cards.  I do have them, but they need updated.

Devotional/Prayers . . .

Our small town pets.  Someone found their cat cut "perfectly" cut in half and now we are worried someone is out killing people's pets.  What a cruel world we live in right now.

Gaining Progress ~ New Recipe Tried

My husband got the ceiling piece back up over the kitchen sink.  He had to use screws (old house, old house rolling eye moments), so I'll be painting over that, taking down the curtains, and finally putting in the last window blind.  We are gaining slowly, but love what we've accomplished. 

It rained all morning, so instead of taking the donations, I spent several hours upstairs.  I made several trips to the burn pile, trash, and put stuff in a box for our friend to scrap.  I also added to the donation pile.

I finally got a few minutes to prepare onion dip to try.  I decided to make it earlier in the day, and put it in the fridge until we wanted to bake it.  I'm just a stickler on getting dishes done and put away, and don't like to do them later after dinner.

Anyway....it was delicious.  It's from AllRecipes.  It's made from sweet Vidalia onions (these come from GA), organic mayo, organic swiss cheese, and organic parmesan cheese.  It's called Vidalia sweet onion dip.  So good!  Perfect for a group of people, appetizer, get together dish etc.  Easy, very little ingredients and bakes in a short time.  Great on a toasted baguette bread, cracker or even potato chips.  Honestly, as I type this, I wonder how it would taste topped on a grilled burger now.  Oh, and I can't wait to try this cold.  I heard it was good that way too after baking it.  

Canning Day

 We had a heat advisory yesterday, and they were not kidding.  It was over 100 degrees and humid as heck.  

I finally got bread and butter pickles canned.  Daughter E stayed until about noon and left to go enjoy the county fair with her boyfriend.  She saw I was crocheting a new item for the holiday craft shows, and took two.  I'll get photos soon.  

We had a late evening storm that brought us a good downpour for a few minutes.  It was enough to give the garden a drink.

There is a chance of rain today and tonight.  My kitchen floor is filled with items to donate again.  I'll be loading that all up soon.

Extreme Clean Day

 

Other than preparing a breakfast for a few days, which now will last a day, I cleaned out much of the upstairs.  I have filled the kitchen with items to donate.

The plan is to load up the truck this weekend and donate.  I offered it to a family member, who is seeking funding for an adoption.  I suggested a garage sale, and we'd donate it all, but they say there may not be a date set.   I just don't have anywhere to store the items, and I need to get it out of the kitchen before anyone trips on it.

Daughter E came out and had dinner with us, and stayed the night.  She is loving our newly repaired/remodeled bathroom.  Now we just need to get the upstairs worked on more to make a spare room.

Today there is a heat advisory.  I watered everything yesterday. There is a possibility for rain later this week.  I guess we'll find out.  The rain keeps leaving the radar, which is not good.

If I have enough, canning resumes today.  I will be getting out my scale to see if that happens.