Friday, June 10, 2011

Garden Pictures

I love to take pictures of my garden in the morning. It is so much fun watching everything grow!  We've got Eggplant buds blooming, squash blossoms and today I picked my first Zucchini - Lungo Bianco (Heirloom seeds from Italy).  It is fun and exciting to watch the new daisy buds grow and open, too.  I've always loved working in the garden and digging in the dirt.  This year, I've not been so good to my roses, but hope to get them back on track and share pictures soon. Aren't these great pictures from this morning?

Zucchini - Lungo Bianco

Eggplant Blossom

My first Daisy Emerging!

Purple Coneflower

One of the flowers in my Wildflower Garden

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Handy Sean

Sean is a handyman around the house!  Remember the dishwasher repair guy messed up and the dishwasher leaked causing damage to the wood floor? I posted a picture earlier this week.... Since the owner of the At Your Service -TODAY "Appliance Repair" from High Point, NC did the original repair, we requested someone other than him to come back out (OH! He complained and moaned the entire time he was fixing the dishwasher! It was awful and had us laughing in the other room at times!).  Tony had originally come out to assess the problem and he is a great guy!  Unfortunately, Tony could only say that he didn't THINK anything his boss did caused the leak and therefore At Your Service -TODAY- "Appliance Repair" refused to repair our wood floor. 

I'm a dishwasher snob.  I love my dishwasher.  It is a Bosch.  Prior to the repair men coming to our home, the dishwasher would run here and there. The pump was broken and leaking and since the Bosch has an automatic water shut off once the dishwasher gets too full of water, we never had a leak, when the water level would drop, the dishwasher would run fine with water coursing through its insides with nary a leak.  Chris (the owner, not my hubby) came out to repair it once the part came in.  He walked through the door complaining how hard it was to fix the dishwasher, then proceeded to moan, groan and complain the entire few hours he spent in our home. Perhaps we should have moaned and complained that we were paying him over $400 to repair our dishwasher!

Chris even admitted to his worker, Tony,  that he did not run the washer before he closed it all up to be sure there were no leaks.  While Tony won't say it was caused by anything his boss did, we KNOW it was because of what his boss did.  We'd of given the repair guy the flooring we had, so they would not have had to pay for that! I  think it is an unethical business practice to know your shoddy workmanship caused damage to another's property and not even offer to repair the damage.  Luckily, we had extra wood flooring saved in the basement and my Sean is handy! There are a few imperfections, but for free and his first time, who is going to complain!? Here is the finished job (he only needs dad to help put the molding back under the dishwasher):

In the end, a few of the boards had mold on them from water, no doubt.. I am always dripping water near the sink. Luckily, there wasn't but a bit of mold growth on the wood (not on the plastic barrier).  Tile is in our future. 

Jam Sweet Jam and.... Diets

We've made more jam...... yum, yum. Yesterday, we bought some South Carolina peaches (better than Georgia peaches, I'm afraid!) and I made jam late last night.  Then, today, I made more peach jam along with some raspberry jam and blackberry jam.  Absolutely divine.  The boys had biscuits for breakfast and spread jam I made a few weeks ago all over them.  Strawberry and strawberry-blackberry mix were the jams of choice this morning. What I made last night and today go into the freezer for consumption later! Sunday we are going to pick tart cherries to make jam!  YUM.  I'll freeze some for pies, too. 

 If you want more info on how I made my jam, please visit the post on jam there at this link: Pattie's Wildtree Kitchen  I am really excited about my cooking blog and about starting Wildtree, too!  I'm going to post all sorts of recipes there, not just Wildtree exclusive.  I even have a few of my HCG Diet approved recipes posted there. If you are interested in HCG Diet approved recipes, they are posted here (more will be added as time goes on):  HCG Recipes . My friend and I did one round of the HCG diet over Lent and recently started a second round.  We had to create some tasty recipes to survive!  If you are into Low-carb cooking, I will also share those along with my sugar-free recipes!  I've lost over 30 pounds on the HCG diet!  My goal is to reach 45 pounds and then maintain by eating no sugar and lo carb during the week and then letting myself eat what I want on weekends.  During the break from HCG rounds, I did this and maintained my weight-- even lost 1/2 a pound! You can find low carb recipes here: Pattie's Low Carb Recipes.  Be sure to check back often...I just started the blog and will be adding recipes daily!!! 

Here are my jam pictures... don't they look yummy!?
First batch of Peach Jam
Raspberry, peach and blackberry jam