It's Late In The Season

It was late in the Season, but I scurried to downtown Roanoke for a last minute gift.

The little red farm truck was there selling live trees, wreaths and greenery for those who had yet to don their home with the fragrance of a forest.

You simply can't beat the look, hustle and bustle of an old downtown that takes you back to days of yore, beeping car horns and shoppers scurrying across  the busy streets.

Pay to park lots, parking meters, and high rise parking buildings help to manage the scenes, and if my husband could survive there, I would choose to have an old. small apartment over a store.

The lifestyle would suit me well.

My little Elf On A Shelf girl would have come along,

But downtown simply had no place for horse parking.

Neighbors stopped by with goodies in a cellophane wrapped box,

just one more thing for us to eat!  But we love that we are surrounded by good people.

 

A pretty flower arrangement from my husband's mother arrived, and it's nice to know that at 87 she still thinks of us each Christmas with a display that brightens our home.

Rowdy loves the red and green of Christmas and hiding directly within it is a game he plays each December.

And he was nice enough to think of his girlfriend, Izzy, and brought a matching Christmas scarf home for her from his visit to the vet.

They are simply stylin' in their pinecone neck scarvess.

 My husband's present arrived a few weeks early this year and parking it beneath the tree was a problem, so we parked it in the driveway instead.  This photo was the last one taken before those golden leaves in the background fell to the ground from a windstorm followed by the first snow of the season.

So in early December we said goodbye to the golden leaves and hello to the snow of winter.

 

But snow never gets us down.... as long as we can get to the grill life is good!

 

The lights come on with each sundown and  cast their reflections on the rainy, wet driveway,

and we ooh and aaah when we step outdoors with the pups.
It's only right that we should enjoy them, since our home is hidden from the road and only those two homes we share our driveway with can see them.

And my husband brought us home a pink poinsettia from the grocery store this week, a must have each year at this happy time.

I'll say goodbye for a few days now as each and every one of you enjoys YOUR gifts of the Season

and time with your loved ones next to the warmth of your heart fires

and Christmas trees.

Merry Christmas to all!!  

See you soon.

A Fine Winter's Day

 We had an inch or two of snow a few days ago, and we were pretty excited about it, as was the sweet pup peeking out the door in this photo.  Rowdy is our 'I LOVE SNOW' pup and he can't wait to get outdoors and run circles in it.

 The snow began it's melting from the driveway as quickly as it had come.  And it didn't keep my husband from heading off to town and back home again to run a short errand.

In truth,  he simply loves driving his new car.

 

 

 The weather didn't keep him from grilling either... kielbasa and a beer.

Always a treat no matter the temperature outside.

 After their morning walk on the snow covered roads, it was time to snuggle in for a nap.

A new sherpa blanket (which was overdue by the way), since the out-going sherpa was finally too tattered to save.

This one was on sale at Pottery Barn and it's certainly been a hit.

Beer, kielbasa and sherpa make any winter's day a great day.

Ready For Fall

 We say good riddance to June and July, the two summer months from Hell this year.

Too hot.

Too humid.

Too uncomfortable.

Late afternoons when you simply pull the curtains and close up the house to keep the heat out.

Many days it felt like a cave in here, but it was the only way to stay comfortable and keep the house at it's coolest.

Heat is why we left Arizona in 2007 and moved to Virginia, but it now seems to have become a problem here also.

Where to next?

It's hard to even find the energy to think about moving somewhere else, but we certainly have contemplated it during the summer of 2017.

 Our butterfly bushes don't have a lot of blossoms left for attracting butterflies, but they are doing their best to keep the critters happy, and I have a few movie clips to prove it which I will do my best to get posted once I put the clips together and crop a bit here and there.

 The garden is doing okay this year, although not as robust as last summer....

we are awaiting the bell peppers and hope there are enough over the next month to allow us to do a few stuffed ones to enjoy, and to share with a neighbor or two also.

When our plants only produce a few, we become hoarders and no one else gets any from our garden.

The weeks ahead will tell what happens.

 The tomatoes, although still very green, are bulking up in size and as long as worms and bugs are minimal, my husband will have some heavenly tomatoes to enjoy.

 We had one day recently with temperatures in the 70's, so of course that meant grilling some burgers for dinner.

 He does not like his photo taken, so I do a bit of sneakery (probably not a real word) behind him.

 Rowdy grabs the last spot of afternoon sunshine to be found on the deck.

 The lawn turns brown when the summer heat turns up it's volume and not enough rain falls, but fortunately we have had just enough rain to keep things green.

 These two enjoy a tad of shade.

 And then Rowdy heads to the front door to see what his dad is doing indoors.

I took his photo at the vet yesterday.... he had an infection that is now being treated...

one of those icky anal gland infections.

Meds are taking care of it for him and soon he'll be back to par and able to enjoy the last month of summertime

and soft shady grass.

We are all ready for fall at our house.

How have you faired?  Are you a summer rat or do you prefer the cooler months?

Staying Out Of The Heat

 Although we do just about everything possible to keep the house cool and the humans and pups comfortable on these warm summer days, my husband still enjoys baking sometimes, especially when the bananas on the counter-top are going bad.

Hence, banana bread enters our life which means a warm oven for an hour or so which heats up the kitchen.

Once a week of heating up the kitchen then calls for a bit of cooking outdoors, which also gives him an excuse to drink an ice cold beer out on the deck while the grill is going.  Late afternoon and early evening is when the heat really settles in outside, and so grilling is not something he does every day of the week,

 so in order to cut his outdoor time during those heated hours, he grills numerous items which we then refrigerate and re-heat as is needed for our meals.

Turkey burgers, hamburgers and hotdogs will be on our dinner menus this week when temperatures outdoors are roaring hot.

 The garden is nowhere near giving us cucumbers yet, it will be a bit of a wait, so in the meantime I buy just one or two a week.  One nice sized cucumber sliced, a bit of red onion, toss in some yellow and green sliced bell peppers, add a little bit of sesame seed, and then douse it all with Zesty Italian dressing and shake it all up real good in a plastic container and you have a delicious and easy summery salad to go with any one of your grilled meats.

 Ranch beans, or what Dad always referred to as Cowboy beans, also make a great complimentary food with a grilled hotdog or burger.  These are not sweet like baked beans, so you can opt to sweeten them up if you like, but just heated up in a pot works fine for we simple folk.

 With all of the meat he grilled for us, there should be no reason for him to have to stand out in the late afternoon heat again this week.

He'll just have to suffer and drink his next ice cold beer indoors.  

LOL

 I also, since it's summertime which means 'tacos and taco chips' galore, want to share this wonderful brand of salsa.

It's from the Plow and Hearth store, and it's made right here in Virginia by Gunther's Gourmet.

I met one of the owners of Gunther's Gourmet at our local Plow and Hearth store as he was demonstrating cooking with their salsa, and also offering up samples to those of us watching him cook.

I really enjoyed their bean salsa, as well as the Lime Mango Salsa.

It's pricier than grocery store salsa, but certainly does not have that generic salsa taste that so many brands have.

 Here's the link to Gunther's Gourmet where you can click the link to see all of their products offered, which they sell at Plow and Hearth stores.... you can't purchase them online though, so visit a Plow and Hearth store if interested.

 These two guys were born and raised here in Roanoke, VA, so you know they are super nice people.

I met the younger brother, Mike, and we chatted for some time about his great garden at home and also our love of the Boxer breed of dog.  He's as nuts about his boxer as we are about our two maniacs.

So, get your summertime on, either indoors our outdoors, and if the heat of grilling gets to you, well, just do it once a week like we do.