Knott's Berry Farm

Tomorrow morning August 1, 2012 we are going to Knott's Berry Farm. It was delayed one day due to Scheduling issues with Real Estate. We love Real Estate in every way. Sometimes you do what you have to do right? Right. Work comes first sometimes, this is one of those times. Fun seems to be on the back burner but in the long run it will pay off. Did I mention we love Real Estate? So off to Knott's in the am, alarm set for 6am, yuck. I may have never mentioned this but I am NOT a morning person, I am not mean if I am up early just don't wanna be up. If I could stay up all night and sleep all morning I would. LOL We will be out of the house at 7:30am due to traffic on the 91. I will take pictures and post them on Thursday because Knott's is open til 10pm and we will stay til the end. Have a great Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tracey

First Night Bonfire

On our friends first night visiting, we wanted to let the kids enjoy a bonfire. We had saved up a bunch of wood from fencing the our horses destroyed LOL. My husband made this cool burn barrel. Christopher is overseeing the progress and making sure dad does it right.

Looking good, nice and hot. Even though it was a very warm day and evening. 

Isn't she a beauty?

Kids are enjoying it, My daughter Breanna is on the left, my Niece Nikki is in the middle and my Niece Taylor is on the right.

So glad the girls get time to hang out and enjoy their time together.

A man's work is never done, finally Christopher gets to sit and enjoy the fruits of his labor LOL it is about 11pm. Kids sure love summer don't they? they didn't go to bed until around 2:30 or 3am UGH! 

Company's Coming To Town

I am sooooooo happy, my friends are coming to town from Northern California. We are waiting not so patiently for them to arrive. We have not seen them since February when we went up there for a visit. I lived in Northern Cal for 7 1/2 years, they are amazing years. I loved living in Northern Ca. It was so beautiful up there, rural, farms, orchards, horses, cows, fruit stands all over. Corn, Tomatoes and Alfalfa growing everywhere. Oh those where the days. There were festivals all over, there was the Oakley Almond Festival, Stockton Asparagus Festival, Brentwood Corn Festival, Isleton Crawdad Festival, that was a fun one, I called in sick from Home Depot so I could go to the  Crawdad Festival, cool thing was, I was on the boat with the Manager and Assistant Manager so I was not going to we went by boat, In the East Bay there are many, many miles of water ways called the Delta. Talk about a fun place to live. At one time I lived on an Island called Bethel Island, soo cool. I try to go up there at least once a year to visit. It is going to be a busy week doing the tourist thing here. We have the beach, Knott's Berry Farm and who knows what else!

Pictures to follow- Have a great weekend.................Tracey

Friendly Photo Shoot

My daughter and her friend had a photo shoot. My daughters friend is becoming an aspiring photographer. She wanted to photograph Breanna.

Breanna cross processed this photo in PicMonkey. Cool huh?

This is the original photo. see the color difference?

The girls had a great time while her mommy and I had our girl time with coffee and rustic fresh bread from the oven.

She is posing the deep thought aspect.

doesn't she have a great smile?

I love my girl and our friends.

A Few of the Animals

Have I ever told you we have chickens? lots of chickens?

we have many, many chickens, some are going to be roosters. We don't keep roosters. We have one resident rooster and that is coco. (kids named him when he was a chick)

Not sure of this ones name. Kids named him something, maybe midnight.

Here is Coco.

This is Albino, She is gone now. We got a wild hen with 8 babies and albino tried over and over to kill her. So she has a good home nearby now.

Not sure of this ones name either. They have not been laying very well lately, I have read that bedding is a factor, certainly isn't food, they get everything but the kitchen sink. I am going to get them some straw.

Here are the lazy ranch dogs in the house, they wanted to be in the air conditioning, can't blame them for that. I should video the stampede to get into the house when it is hot, it's every dog for themselves.

Time to go outside and pee pee.

Garden Update

Garden update. My garden is struggling in this heat. This is my okra, dragon egg cucumber, and lemon squash spot. Dragon eggs seemed to have been murdered by the lemon squash. Oh well try again next year.

Pathetic huh? They are screaming for water. Yes I gave it too them LOL

How cute is this. This is an okra flower. YEP. 

Okra is in the Mallow family, and is a pretty little flower.

Here are my overgrown tomatoes, that is a 4'x8' box but you can't tell.

My double purple datura is getting very big and has seed pods all over it. I am thinking of selling seeds from it.

This WAS my black beauty eggplant before the RAT!!!!!!! little bastardo. look what it did to my future eggplant parmesan!!

These are my yellow pear tomatoes getting ready to explode with little yellow beauties.

My yellow crookneck squash is suffering powdery mildew. It is struggling now.

view from the other side of the 4'x8' box

how cute are all the tomato babies.

I can't wait to eat them all, but it will be over the winter, I will freeze tomatoes because I will have too many to eat at once.

HAPPY GARDENING

I love Elephant Ears

One of my favorite plants is an Elephant Ear. Mine is either a Colocasia esculenta or a Colocasia gigantea  

The picture above this one is just yesterday, the one with my son is from about a week ago, see the change in the size of the leaves in just a week? It is turning out to be something from Jurassic Park to my sheer delight.  

This one and the one below it I got from google images. The one below is black taro (elephant ear) they are edible, not the leaves but the root.

I got this one off of the website in the picture. Look at the size of it.

Here are mine in better light. They love their location. Only a couple hours of mid morning sun.

Look how tall it is getting, my daughter is 5'5" so I am thinking its already 6' or more at this time.

Nice hat for the Kentucky Derby???

I love how big they are, my husband says they are blocking his view outside our bedroom window lol Oh well he is going to have to come to terms with our sweet elephant ears....

Some internet information I found for you.

Colocasia esculenta is a tropical plant grown primarily for its edible corms, the root vegetables whose many names include Taro and Eddoe. It is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants. Rhizomes of different shapes and sizes. Leaves up to 40x24.8 cm, sprouts from rhizome, dark green above and light green beneath, triangular-ovate sub-rounded and mucronate at apex. tip of the basil lobes rounded or sub-rounded. Petiole 0.8- 1.2 m high. Spathe up to 25 cm long. Spadix about 3/5 as long as the spathe, flowering parts up to 8mm in diameter. Female portion at the fertile ovaries intermixed with sterile white ones. Neuters above the females, rhombiod or irregular oblong. Male portion above the neuter. Synandrium lobed cells 6 or 8. Appendage shorter than the male portion.

A Fire in the Distance

It is hard to see from the picture but there is a fire in the distance, I smelled it half the day. I don't like fire, to me it means many animals will die or need to find a new home. Not to mention possible structure damage too.

It was very smoky and hazy so the smoke is still a bit hard to see.

This fire was about 12 or so miles away but you could cut the smoke with a knife.

I think the fire is out now, it is 11pm ish.

I looked it up and it seems to have burned 60 acres. I hope there were no deaths. It is well tree'd there so I am sure all is ok for humans. I pray for the animals tonight.

What else to do with Biscuits.

I had some ready made biscuits that I bought on sale for .99 cents. I have not made a dinner lately that would require a friendly biscuit, so I thought, and I thought, and I thought what can I do with these lovely, yummy biscuits besides just baking them. HMMMMMM 

I decided to make a sort of pizza with them. No sauce, just cheese, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil. Yep that's it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I rolled them out flat 

Put them on a baking sheet and...... 

used a little olive oil spray from my fancy oil sprayer.

I am not sure if you can see it but I poked holes in the dough to hopefully keep them from rising up  funny. 

Sliced up my ehemmmmm store bought tomatoes because my thousands of tomato plants are not giving me much yet. So with thousands of green tomatoes I have to buy them from the store still.

My basil is growing very well now. 

Here are my constructed pizza's, oh I am so excited to taste them.

For those of you who do not know me well. I am a salt Fiend. I love salt. I always will. I have kosher salt, Chardonnay Oak Smoked Fumee de Sel salt, Grey Sea Salt, and my very favorite salt so far is Alaea Salt from Hawaii, it is a pink sea salt. Oh how I love it. I sprinkled the pink sea salt on the pizza's.

I baked them at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. I watched them near the end and decided when they looked done to me. Do they look done to you? 

They were a hit and you should try them, I will try them with crescent rolls next time,.