T Stands for Tuesday & Lots to Share & Lots of Photos

Wow Another Tuesday is upon us, and I can't believe May is gone-where did it go?? 

    I know I have been in a "fog" since Memorial Day weekend and we have had brutal hot weather for most all of May-absolutely no Spring here--so mostly trapped indoors but time is just passing me by way too fast.  
    I remember when I was working full time the days just dragged-went so slow, and I had to commute a long distance too for many years-very stressful as I am not someone that enjoys driving. We also had a full time home business as well-I get tired sometimes just thinking about all those 16-18 hour days we put in for years.
    I really love that I am retired now and can just stay home-I really love and enjoy that very much.  I have no idea why all this just got typed lol--I said my mind was still in a fog though (smiles)
   I also know many of you are getting this same weather too, so I will stop commenting -for now that is-(smiling)

T Stands for Tuesday is where we gather together and share a drink related post over at our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth. Find the link in my right hand column-you are most welcome to join us.

I have lots to share so will try not to get even more wordy-I probably should have split this into a couple posts but decided to just do a big catch up.

   My gluten free sourdough experiment baked up beautifully-but tasted horrible-I mean horrible. This organic quinoa flour I bought must never had the grain rinsed well first before it was then dried and ground into flour-this was soooo bitter and soooo sour.  I did love the technique of how it was baked-it actually looks like bread, not as doughy as some I have tried in the past. I am not discouraged though as I see promise and am working on my sourdough starter by adding only brown rice flour in hopes to get rid of the quinoa-if I can't I will just start from scratch and follow her directions for capturing wild yeast. 
    Again the book is by MaryJane Butters Wild Bread. She also has a forum which I just joined as well.  A nice way to get feedback and learn as well.
   If you would like to try sourdough with regular wheat-I highly recommend this book and her forum-(gluten free too-but trust me your wheat sourdough should not have the problems that I have with gluten free)  just read the whole book first including the back which was loaded with more information that I should have read first. 
    The wildlife got the bread-and it was all gone the next morning

(Note: since this is a heavy photos post-I am keeping some of the photos smaller-just click to fully enlarge them)

I got a good rise with the starter

I think one of her secrets for getting the gluten free bread to bake right is to also make small loaves. Normally if this was wheat you would make one loaf this one she had us making two small loaves-I think that is a good idea.

Many gluten free baked goods recipes always gives an internal temperature to know that it is baked. I have never done that before but decided to this time. the temperature was to be 200 degrees f to 205 degrees f  the first loaf at 200 was a bit under baked the second one baked up perfect

Sad these did not taste as good as they looked sigh

The last two mornings Mother Nature has given us a beautiful cool down-instead of mid 70's f early morning it has been 58 degrees f and instead of high humidity full sun and mid 90's f we are in the low 80's f  wonderful!!!  Although today the air was pretty thick again for me-still too much pollen, mold in the air again for me-but at least I could work at catching up.

Of course the weeds in my butterfly garden areas was a nightmare.  I had that really cleared of weeds, so I am almost thinking the less expensive big bags of garden soil I have been getting for this area must have weed seeds in it-and it comes with two types of thistle weeds-those are so hard to get out as the roots run deep.

I can't even find my milkweed plants in all this and did mark them with those wooden popsicle type sticks.  I did preserver-and got most of the really bad thistle out-although I wasn't able to dig out the roots do to all the zinnias popping up.  I spread the seeds thick in hopes they will crowd out the weeds. 
  The last two seasons I saved the flower heads as they began to dry and just put it all out this year.

These photos are mostly after I tried to get allot of the larger weeds out of the zinnias

Below blank spots were weeds

all this green is mostly flowers-zinnias-the butterflies will love it

I found this rope in an out building-a big tangled mess and I had straightened out enough for my project. Hubs said he got this at a garage sale when we first moved down for about $5.00 and already used some of it too-I am happy with the way this turned out.-I wanted to give a little definition and hopefully discourage the deer-we'll see haha

This is my madder dye plant that I planted from seed 3 years ago-hoping there are enough roots to harvest this late summer into fall. I planted this in a raised bed up near the house, and will plant more seeds this year to get another batch going
   Have any of you dyed with madder root from scratch?? this is new for me

This is a sunflower type perennial that I planted last year and the deer ate all of the flowers-they love love sunflowers.This is to get up to 12 foot tall with lots of sunflower off shoots-I Hope they make it to full flower this year as I put a little fence around the bottom and tied some plastic bags in hopes to deter them-we will see.

Another view-and another arch-this one supports the big orange trumpet vines-the hummingbirds will love these-and they should bloom nicely this year as this is their third year. My friend from Wisconsin brought them down for me 

  You can see the rain forest type weather we have had is making everything grow and grow and grow ha ha

My indigo plants I grew from seed-am hoping these will grow well so I can play with indigo dye later

I have all this old straw down to help keep the weeds down and keep the moisture in the soil when we end up with weeks with no rain.

A little peak of our new vehicle-Hubs has always wanted a suburban. When he got his oil changed at the dealers for his truck he thought he would take a look at the used lot and see if perhaps there was a suburban-and wow there were two-we thought this was the better choice-very low mileage, just a year old, fully loaded-a treat for us, and loved the color. and the price was marked to sell-to us-lol  Sometimes you get lucky and find just what you want-like it was meant to be.  
  This will be better for his fishing with friends-lots of room and seats. He loved his truck (we have always had a truck living rural), but could only have one other person with him.

   Today I received my silk eco printed scarf that I won from an artist in England--It is sooooo lovely and beautiful and I agree with those of you that said this was the nicer scarf of the two-it truely is.  I held this up with one arm and snapped a few photos.

Please click to enlarge for better viewing-this is so special-I love her art She used a variety of plant leaves.

She also included this eco printed paper-She does not have a blog but posts on this facebook page, so if you are on fb I wanted to share her page. 
    I stay on facebook for artists and groups like her-she is so gifted.  I asked her about the paper as it feels like cloth almost-she made the paper and said she will tell me how she made it-I will ask if I can share the information with you. I have been wanting to eco print paper and had collected some different papers and weights a couple of years ago-this will inspire me for sure.

Again please click to enlarge these photos for better viewing-this handmade eco printed paper is amazing.

Sorry for such a long post-I just wanted to share with you all.

We had our first watermelon One deer came up and ate all the rind except for one-animals love the rind. (I didn't get a good photo of the deer)

I found fresh mangos on sale last week so I made one of our favorites-mango margaritas-so delicious and perfect for hot summer days. In the vita mix or heavy duty blender- Place chunks of a whole peeled mango, add to taste-tequilla, lime juice, orange liqueur, lime liqueur, agave, add a little water-blend til smooth-add loads of crushed ice and blend again-enjoy.

I am realizing I am falling in love with pretty water bottles. This one is by the Pioneer Woman-I love her flowers-in dishes, linens and more.  I filled it up with coconut water when I was out pulling weeds

Whew--I hope you all made it through to the end without getting to bored--

  Happy T Day everyone.