Apple Pie and grandma's "Dough Cookies"..

I cleaned out the freezer, and found one last bag of sliced apples from last year. So, it was apple pie making today. You know if you don't use those frozen apples within 6 months, they start to turn into dried apples in the freezer. So, I cooked these babies for 45 minutes before they were soft enough to even put in a pie, then I added extra cinnamon and it turned out very well, except that the apples got extremely dark (even though I added lemon juice), it tasted good though, just looked more like raisin pie....so.......after I made this pie, of course, I had leftover dough, so I made some "dough cookies" like my grandma used to make for me when I was a little girl, just basically the dough, cut into shapes, and cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. Grandma had cookie cutters shaped like the images on a deck of cards, spade, club, diamond and heart. I don't know why I remember that she had them, but she always used the club one. So Bill and I were at an auction once time, and we bought a box of junk and in there was a spade shaped cookie cutter, which is what I made my dough cookies with...nice memories of grandmas kitchen and years of watching her create a wonderful meal out of nothing...

Here's my dough cookies, don't look at pretty as grandma's though.

My Weed Garden

Before I show you the aforementioned (is that one word?) weeds, let me show you these huge maters. They are now all canned or eaten, but they sure were pretty.
The pie pumpkins still have a little more to grow.

My kitchen counter while I was getting ready to can the tomatoes.
So now, about those weeds. The weeds on the right side of the picture are were the potatoes are that we have not dug up yet. The weeds in the middle and left are actually my tomato plants that have been knocked down and beaten down by all of the rain we have had this year.
My mini-flower bed looks pretty good though.
Ok, the weeds in the center of the picture is my strawberry patch, which I just planted this year, so the plants haven't had a chance to fill in the rows, so the weeds did. The part to the left over by the cabbages is where we planted potatoes, but most of them rotted due to the rain. We cleaned it up and covered it with straw, so we could use it for the fall garden.

The only thing missing was Tarzan

This lodge/winery really has an African feel. Bretz Wildlife Lodge and winery is owned by a local chiropractor in Carlyle, IL, who has been on safari and killed all of the taxidermied animals in the winery.

I tasted some wines, Bill had some imported Irish Ale, which was very good.
This inside of the lodge/winery is open, with tables and booths for customers.
This alligator was at the front door, very realistic coming out of the reeds.
I really don't know what this animal is, but you can see the tasting room below. We didn't get to go in there, someone was using it for a meeting.

The door was ajar, so I took a few pictures of the giraffe, zebra and gazelle.

Water buffalo
Out back there was a pool with lots of fish, that you could feed.
This bridge was built over the fish pond.
I was looking back at the building from the pond.
There was also a miniature golf course, this was part of it, also below. It looks like Africa too.

There was also a sand volley ball court. Seriously, the only think missing was the Tarzan yell, which would have been very cool, and would have brought the theme altogether. I think I will put that in the suggestion box next time..

The food was very good and inexpensive. The special for the day was Chicken salad on a huge Kaiser bun. The chicken salad was home made, the fries were coated with something, that made them crunchy and tasty. The wine I finally choose was called Nooner, and was a semi-sweet grape wine. We walked around behind the building, where the fish pond was. We fed them and then I checked out the golf course, while Bill pretended he was a troll ontop the bridge...lol. We went to another very nice winery in Centralia, but it was closed, they were on vacation. So, we just went to Dairy Queen and had sundaes.

Those two Decatur boys again, oh, and some of us big people too.

Well, we were just acting silly here, taking our own picture, Garret didn't quite make it when I clicked the button...
Lucas is wondering "Hmmmm, I sure would like some of that chicken." (cause that's what we had for lunch.)
Garret is thinking "This sure is good chicken."
Shelley and the boys.
Luke is wearing his halloween sox from Aunt. Barbie.
Luke is looking like a deer in the headlights...lol
Great grandma and Garret.
Marsha and Christine came to visit us too.
Garret was getting more used to his jeep he got for his birthday, but he's still a little afraid of it.

When I got back home, the lady down the street wanted to know if we wanted some more chickens. They are Rhode Island Red, so we went to get them, and the people that had given them to her had their legs all tied up, because they gave them to her to butcher. She really didn't want them, so we brought them home and cut the strings off of their legs. They had trouble walking, poor things. They are all better today, they were running around, and fluffing themselves in the dirt. Most people rescue dogs or cats, not us, we are the chicken rescuers. For more on saving chickens go to www.savethechickens.org. I'm kidding. So, now, we're up to 20.

Blackberries R US

I was wondering what to do with all of these blackberries, so this was their fate....blackberry jam, pie and muffins. Looks yummy, huh? It is. Slow news day in Kinmundy.

A cool Saturday in July

It was beautiful today, cool even. Bill sold lemonade downtown, I made peach freezer jam and worked in the garden, mostly pulling weeds, and giving the plants their buano fertilizer. Then I read for a while, Stephen King's , Duma Key, very excellent as always. Bill came home and we had supper, which was hamburgers, baked beans, corn on the cob, and tomatoes from the garden. Then our neighbor came over and we did some wine tasting. We just finsihed watching a horrible horror movie, called Dead Birds, why? I don't know. So, that's it, good night!

"Maiden Voyage" of the Lemon cart....a success!

Bill's lemonade cart in downtown Kinmundy. It looks great, and he was very busy today.

The garden spot and Charley's Angels

Mom and I went to visit my brother, Milo and Sis-in-law, Barb in Sandoval today. This is Barb's flower garden. She has made a beautiful area outside to sit with her potted plants, and other treasures she's found along the way....

and gnomes and such...so relaxing out there, and so pretty.
So, we decided to take a few pictures, of course. This is Barb, mom and me. I'm sitting on a tiny rocking horse....Barb calls me Mustang Sheila....
Me and mom, we dressed alike on purpose.......not!
This picture just reminded me of Charley's angels, so I had a little photoshop fun with it.
And, this is the original picture.
Milo and mom
and, the lovely Knights..
Bruce was distorting a picture of himself on photoshop and we got to laughing so hard, my face hurt, we had coffee cake, donuts and coffee and enjoyed Barb's flower garden, and their little dog, Beebs, who is always entertaining..we enjoyed the visit so much.

The Lemonade man cometh

Here's Bill's Lemonade Shake-up cart that he designed and built himself out of an aluminum table, some plywood , an umbrella from Walmart and a banner made at the party supply store in Salem, Festivities, and some tires from a flea market. Looks great doesn't it. It will be going on it's "maiden voyage" Tuesday.


Of course, we spent years in the concession business both with the ice cream shoppe and Wild Bill's concessions, where we sold food, drinks , candy and so many different things over the years, so Bill knows the ropes and made sure his food sanitation license was up to date and his Marion County Health Dept. permit was also up to date.

P.S. The lemons have smiley faces on them, like they are happy to be made into lemonade...hee

Christine worked her "camera magic" on Garret

Of course, Garret laughs at dad, because dad is always funny..
Christine has got the knack though, getting those smiles from this little guy.



Just so adorablel.........and I'm not the least bit partial...really, I'm not...:-)
Lucas on the other hand, has loved the Camera since day one...well, now they are both just adorable, yes?