SpruceHill

From My Garden

 My veggie garden is really coming along. I have all kinds of baby veggies.

 

Our upside down tomato plant is really doing well. It is much larger then our right side up plants.

 

Although our right side up plants have more tomatoes on them.

 

My cherry tomatoes are doing really well too. They are taunting me.

 

This week we had our first salad with lettuce straight from the garden. It was the best salad of my life.

 

I took this picture a couple days ago, when I went out to check my egg plant this evening it was gone. Yup not there any more. I think I have a bug problem!

 

I am loving my squash blooms.

 

 

Oh a baby squash, I can't wait to eat it!

 

I even spied a baby cucumber this evening, I can't wait to make sweet pickles with it.

 

I also have one baby banana pepper.

 

My dill will go nicely with those sweet pickles.

Last summer I was not able to eat a lot of fresh veggies. My chemotherapy got in the way of that. You have to be really careful of bacteria when eating fresh veggies. This summer I am going to go crazy with the fresh veggies!

Monkey bread

One day not too long ago I was cruising around the internet reading all of my regular blogs. I made my daily stop over at Pioneer Woman and I saw a recipe that looked really yummy (all of her recipes are yummy by the way and well worth a daily trip over to drool over check out). On this day the recipe was for monkey bread the recipe is from a guest blogger that she had out to the ranch forthe weekend to stay at the lodge house that she and her family have just finished remodeling. I read his blog too, he also is an amazing cook, and Ryan is also a Pastor! As I read the recipe my mouth started to water, my head started to spin, I needed to make it and fast!

The ingredients

Brown Sugar- 1/2 cup 
2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
Bundt Cake Pan 
Cinnamon- 2-3 teaspoons
3 cans of Buttermilk Biscuits (the non-flaky ones) yup that's right go out and buy them it is worth it!
Sugar- 1 cup

 Open up all three cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters.Combine the 1 cup of regular sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon put the mixture into a large ziplock bag. Drop all of the biscuits into the cinnamon-sugar mix. Shake them up in the bag to cover all the pieces.  This will get all those pieces unstuck from one another and nicely coated with the cinnamon-sugar. Spread these pieces out evenly in your bundt pan. Make sure to coat your pan before you add the biscuit pieces so it does not stick. Melt the two sticks of butter together with 1/2cup of brown sugar. Stir together over a medium-high heat until blended. Once the brown sugar butter is mixed together thoroughly, you can pour it over the biscuits. Bake this at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes until the crust is brown on top.

 

This recipe has changed my husbands life. Yup! You heard it hear. He now craves it and would love to eat it everyday if I let him. The Sugar butter mixture is just...... well there is just no way to describe it. It is amazing, it is life altering. Enough said my butt is getting bigger just thinking about it!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Go make monkey bread and rejoice! Amen.

Don't Bug Me

I was out this morning in the garden trying to get pictures of water droplets on my flowers. There weren't too many good shots to be had, but then I spotted this little lady bug. I couldn't resist.

 

She was just sitting there. Not scurrying away like bugs usually do. So I kept snapping away.

 

I love how shiny she is.

 

I turned around to look at my lilies and saw this guy hanging out.

 

I just love the colors he has on his little body.

 

 

I did get a few droplet pictures.

 

Then I headed over towards my rose bush and was accosted by a bee on my catmint that sits next to my roses.

 

He was not at all happy with me.

 

After a few minutes I decided it was a good idea to step away rather than get stung.

Hope you have a good weekend!

Riding in

It is nice living in a place were you can ride your horse to a 4-H meeting.

 

Miss H and her cousin MM rode their ponies to our 4-H meeting on Tuesday evening. It was held at Waffle Hill Farm, my Uncle's place. 

  

The girls planned on doing a demonstration at the meeting. In 4-H a demonstration is required by each member every year. The kids have to stand in front of the club and demonstrate something about their major project that they participate in. If you have an animal the demonstration must be on the animal.

 

The farm where the girls keep their ponies backs up to Waffle Hill, it was the perfect way for them to get their demonstration in.

    

Tempest is Miss H's pony, she was a good girl and stood still for the girls. They did a great job!

 

They had quite an audience.

  

The cattle were very interested in the horses.

 

 

This is Mikey, He LOVES Tempest, maybe a little too much. He is a good boy though.

 

The bulls seemed to think the horses were very interesting too. I am a bit uncomfortable around bulls, they make me nervous. I was chased by some bulls when I was a kid and it still makes me nervous being around them. You just never know what they are thinking.

 

After the girls finished my cousin NAS and our friend MA hopped up on the ponies and rode them back to the barn so the girls could stay at the meeting. It was such a beautiful evening and they really enjoyed the ride.

  

There aren't too many places were you can ride your horse to a meeting. I am glad we live in a place were that is possible.