T Stands for Tuesday-Boat Docks, New Watercolor Painting

Good morning everyone,
   Posting for T where we gather for T with Bleubeard and Elizabeth and share a drink reference in our posts.

  I guess we ended up with an exciting week after the 4th-compared to others here at the lake.
     Larry has been looking for a used dock that is better and safer for fishing off of opposed to the one that came with the house. ( we will keep both as the one is  mostly for his boat)
     Since so many boats fly by and way too close to our dock-we needed something safer.  (boats are suppose to be at no wake for 100 feet from docks-they don't do that here-so close they can touch our boat-and the huge waves they make on the weekends is beyond crazy).
   He located one the week before the 4th but the lady kept sending him to the wrong area of the lake, wouldn't share her address or phone number to clarify.  She started out asking $1000.00  for it, but when the roof started to collapse she wanted it gone Now for free.  So long story short our friend and his two teenage sons came to help. I got one photo as they got closer to home.

   They managed to get it here-Larry had to tow it with his fishing boat, got it tied to our dock.
   Sunday our other helper friend (that we pay to help us with things that Larry should not be doing any more) came to secure the roof-he needed to cut off a large chunk of it, secure the rest down, and tie up the old broken boat lift more securely.  I didn't get newest photos yet.
    I had no idea that a brand new dock this size starts at $40,000 and goes up. This one also has a professional diving board on it, and I cleaned up a plastic lounge chair that was on it.  The newer styles use cement pavers for the floor instead of the wood.This dock is much wider and feels more secure and safe for fishing or just hanging out on the dock-which I think we will be doing now.
   So I am thinking that I will need to learn how to fish now for sure haha.
       This dock has the old style of cement pavers-a couple need to be replaced.  Something I can do-once it gets cooler and Larry makes the mold and shows me how.

    I did get more of my watercolor paints in, have been reading allot from the new book I shared last week (which is excellent) so decided to just try the scene  again that I had in my head-with the hills in the distance, lake in front, a few trees.

   I am happy with this painting and I can see I am improving
I painted this on mixed media paper because of the size-and I can see that I need to paint on actual watercolor papers. So I just ordered smaller papers

    I forgot to cut my paper down again so it would fit into my smaller journal-so I cut down the sky a bit.
     I am sharing on Paint Party Friday

      I can't even remember the last time I fried anything. I just never fried foods. My farmgirl Grandma fried mostly sliced potatoes in a big cast iron skillet but she didn't deep fry meats that I can remember. My Mom never fried meats either but did most things in the oven,
    We had a catfish that Larry had caught and we had a small bag of filets that we were gifted from a friend's fishing his pond. Soooo I thought I would give frying fish a go--and was very happy.
   I found a very simple recipe online-it was a southern style and she said never dip your catfish in egg or anything wet-instead just dust well with cornmeal-a little flour-spices of choice.   She says doing it this way keeps your fish from being soggy.
   I grabbed the perfect cast iron pot-used just enough avocado and grapeseed oil to just cover the fish. (these two oils can handle High temperatures-and thought they would be a healthier oil to use as well)  The cast iron was perfect as it holds the heat well and I didn't have to wait for the oil to come back to temperature-it just stays the same through the whole process.

I am still amazed how simple this was, and the batter was perfect to our liking.

I also snipped some oregano to dry as it was just starting to seed with this hot weather, as was the mints. These mints are spearmint and peppermint. Once these are dry and bagged I will dry some of the grapefruit mint.

   Monday I am off finally to get set up for my crown.  I had been scheduled before all this covid happened. Just last week  this old crown popped off-time to get to the dentist and they were able to get me in pretty soon-he was on vacation all last week too.

For my beverage share this week 
       We have been drinking allot of ice tea this week  around 1/2 gallon a day between the two of us-we work on projects outdoors in the mornings before it gets super hot and come in really thirsty.
   Both of these pottery glasses are handmade, from two different potterers I used to buy pieces from. The glass on the right was from a potterer I loved but couldn't afford his dinner ware. Several artists were having an autumn get together with art and craft sales-these glasses were out on sale for a dollar-Wow I bought a dozen of them 😀 (this was back in the '90s probably)

I took this photo Sunday afternoon-the lake was full of "diamonds"-as the sun was out most of the day.

Happy T everyone-Have an awesome new week