July 4th Coming Soon

July 4th will be here in no time and we have 17 people in our house for the week.  Should be crazy but a lot of fun.  We always attend the Bovina Fireworks just around the corner - found a great article about it.

http://observer.com/2011/09/no-sleep-till-bovina-meet-peter-schjeldahl-pyromaniac/

Cabin Envy

I have always been obsessed with cabins - treehouses,  garden sheds, writing studios, etc... I used to go through magazines and websites in search of the perfect little space.  It's how we lived for quite awhile upstate until we built the house.  Every so often, I have to sleep overnight in the old cabins so they don't feel neglected. Despite the house I still love to look and now all I have to do is go to  

www.freecabinporn.com - one of my favorite sites and look at all these amazing images of the perfect cabin.  Zach Klein is one of the editors of the site and he also has his own perfect cabin in Sullivan County New York  just south of us and you can see images of it being built on www.beaverbrook.com.  Beautiful photos and wonderful spaces.

Don't Count Your Hollyhocks

It has taken us just as long to grow Hollyhocks as it has to grow tomatoes.  We have tried for years with endless amounts of seeds, seedlings, and plants and finally we managed to find a hardy variety from one of our favorite nurseries - George and Peggy's in Walton  Country Grown Perennials.  We planted these last year and they are slowly but surely getting to full height.  This particularly variety has a bloom that is this deep dark purple almost black.  I would prefer some color so I hope the others start blooming soon.  This plant is already four feet hight and will get up to 6 and 7 feet by the end of the season.  

Roxbury Shade Garden

Before dinner Saturday night, Brian took us on a tour of the shade garden that he and Richard have worked on for the past few years and it was almost destroyed by Irene last year.   The creek that runs along the back of their property overflowed and swallowed up quite a bit of yard but they have managed to restore and add to it over the past year.  It looked great and you could obviously see how much work they have done.  Nice job guys.

Water Feature

Sometimes all it takes is a sprinkler and some light weeding and of course a cocktail to make my day.  I love to just stand in the yard and look at all our hard work  paying off.  At the end of a beautiful weekend afternoon , I just turn the sprinkler on and move it around the garden beds and do some light weeding .  I love listening to the sprinkler while I work.  That and the pond are the only water features I need. The sun sets to the west of the house and we get this filtered light through the trees.  I wander around the garden with a bucket in one hand filled with hand tools and  a cocktail in the other.  I weed and transfer small perennials that are seeding randomly.  I transfer two small blueberry bushes that are getting swallowed up by the asparagus plants and move them to the kitchen garden.    

Lots of yard work this weekend, I mowed and weeded for 5 hours on Friday - that is the problem with 5 acres - it's a lot to maintain. The guy I asked to brushhog the meadow never got back to me about costs - so I will have to call him again this week. 

Saturday, cleaned house all day - getting ready for July 4th week with 16 people coming.  Saturday night, Richard and Brian had us over for dinner at their place in Roxbury.  We haven't been to their house since Irene hit last year so we didn't know how much yard work had gotten completed but Brian surprised us with this beautiful new shade garden he has been working on that looked spectacular.  He had done some extensive work along the creek bed that washed out portions of their yard last year.  The erosion from the flood was obvious but it actually created a surprising architectural change to the creek with these cascading rocks and water.  The garden looked great.  We had dinner on the deck and drank wine long into the evening.

Sunday, finished cleaning and had some time to go weed the perennial garden which is  in need of work.  We were both exhausted from two days of hard labor and quit early to read and get out of the heat.  Tim decided at the last minute that we could probably drive down in the am  - so we got a gift afternoon - and I went outside to do some more yard work and water the garden.  We ordered a pizza and went to pick it up from Hogans in Andes and came back to the house and ate dinner on the front porch while the sun set.  The swallow"s babies hatched this weekend  and the parent swallows seemed very happy  as they soared and swooped around the garden.  Beautiful   

Here She is World...

What is the phrase - "Three Times A Charm"?  In the gardening world, supposedly three years is how long it takes for plants to acclimate and for your garden to mature so to speak.  This is our third summer in the house but we have had a garden for quite some time.  However, some of the beds that we planted when the house was built are finally established.  Our peonies finally bloomed this summer.  They are beautiful and along with several other plantings are finally maturing.

Frogs Sunning Themselves

It's a Frog's Life

I think this was a harmless flirtation - I wish I knew how to tell male frogs from female frogs - not that it would matter much but it would help to name them - I wouldn't want the male frogs having issues being called Jill or Bethenny or any other NY Housewive's name.  It's been a quiet frog season - unfortunately all of the baby tadpoles disappeared again - I imagine the Heron paid us a visit while we were away?  However, we have plenty of mature frogs around.  Lots of salamanders as well. Things will change in a couple weeks when we have a landscaper in to place additional large boulders around the pond.  They are going to have to bring in a front loader - these rocks are big!  I just hope no one gets crushed in the process.

Key Lime Whoopie Pie

Experimenting with desert recipes for July 4th week when we have 16 people up for the week.  These were great!

KEY LIME WHOOPIE PIES

1 &1/3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)

1 cup whole-wheat flour (spooned and leveled).

1 cup packed dark-brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon divided

1/2 teaspoon fine salt

1/2 cup full - fat plain yogurt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanillla extract

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 tablespoon grated lime zest plus 3 tablespoons juice ( from 6 key limes or 2 limes)

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with racks in middle and bottom thirds.  Whisk together flours, brown sugar, baking soda, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon , and salt. In a large bowl , with a mixer, beat yogurt, oil , and eggs on medium, 3 minutes.  With mixer on low, add flour mixture in 3 parts, beat in vanilla until combined.  Refrigerate batter 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, using clean mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth.  Beat in confectioner's sugar and lime zest and juice until smooth.  Refrigerate filling, covered, until ready to use ( or up to 3 days).

2. Combine remaining 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and granulated sugar.  Drop dough in 40 rounded tablespoons, 1 1/2 inches apart, on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Bake until puffed and set, about 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through.  Remove cakes from oven and immediately sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar.  Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.  Peel cakes from parchment.  Spread 1 tablespoon filling on flat sides of half the cakes and sandwich with remaining cakes. Serve immediately (or refrigerate in a single layer in an airtight container, up to 2 days.)

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Spice Rubbed Pork Chops with Grilled Zucchini

Great easy recipe from Everyday Foods this weekend.  We had so much to do so it needed to be simple and flavorful.

SPICE RUBBED PORK CHOPS WITH GRILLED ZUCCHINI

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon light-brown sugar

1&1/2  teaspoons ground cumin

Coarse salt and pepper

4 bone-in pork loin chops (3 pounds total)

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided, plus more for grilling

6 medium zucchini thinly sliced lengthwise

2 limes

1/2 cup crumbled feta ( 2 ounces)

1. In a large zip-top bag, combine coriander, brown sugar, cumin, and 1 teaspoon each salt and pepper.  Add pork and 1 tablespoon oil and toss to coat.  Refrigerate at least 8 hours (or up to 1 day)

2. Heat a grill or grill pan to medium-high; clean and lightly oil hot grill.  Grill pork, covered, about 5 minutes per side for medium.  Let rest, covered, 10 minutes.  

3.  Clean and lightly oil hot grill.  Toss zucchini with 2 tablespoons oil; season with salt and pepper.   Grill until tender, 2 to 3 minutes per side.  Grate 1 tablespoon lime zest, then cut limes into wedges.  Transfer half the zucchini to a serving plate and sprinkle with zest and feta.  Serve zucchini and pork with lime wedges.

Cocktails - Hairy Fairies

It's time to start talking Summer Cocktails.  One of our all-time favorites is the Hairy Fairy.  Once you get past the name  and no it's not a hirsute gay man - but a smooth, knock you on your butt. great cocktail.  This has been a summer favorite for quite some time and Tim and I are big drinkers.  Be careful, because it is so smooth you won't fill it,

HAIRY FAIRY

1 shot Absolute Peach Vodka
1 shot Cointreau
and add Lemonaid

Add ice to cocktail shaker and shake well.

It is delicious and a perfect blend of sweet and tart.

Fern Frenzy Weekend

It's that time of year.  Tim's parents are retired botanists that worked for the New York Botanical Gardens.  They are very active in The American Fern Society and the Garden Conservancy.  They participate in the Garden tour every year and sell ferns to benefit the Fern Society.  We volunteered to help this year along with Tim's brother, Paul, and his sister-in-law, Cathy.  It was a beautiful day and I took a bunch of photos and some video clips of their gardens which are gorgeous.

Lego Piano

Tim's oldest nephew's Senior Piano Recital was on Saturday and the entire family went to hear him play.  He did an incredible job.  He is so talented.  Not only is he going to go to MIT on scholarships and major in engineering and physics, but he is also going to continue to play piano which I am really happy about.  He is also a very talented painter - this kid can do anything.  He and his brother are also big Lego freaks.  For his gift to his recital teacher, he made her a mini Lego  grand piano that plays.  Incredible!

Full Moon in June

Last night, there was a beautiful full moon that rose over the mountain in front of our home.  It was such a nice evening.  There had been a light rain in the late afternoon and so the evening was both warm and cool.  With the full moon, the lightning bugs hovering everywhere, the frogs croaking peacefully in the pond...it was such a nice night out.  Our home is situated so that I could watch the moon rise and shine in our living room windows most of the evening.  I stepped out onto the front porch right before bed to listen to the frogs and watch the lightning bugs.  Lovely.

Irises

Tim's Grandmother's Irises look so beautiful this year.  I love old fashioned colors like these.