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The Blister Beetle Has Arrived
Every year around this time, a black beetle shows up on some weeds in our yard. This portends the arrival of many more of its kind. Our garden seems to be a favorite place to fill up their little stomachs and they don’t waste any time but get right to work – decimating an entire tomato plant in just a few days. This year I am determined that they will not get my 4 beautiful tomato plants so as soon as I saw the beetles had arrived I became proactive and covered my tomato plants with row cover. Going out to the garden yesterday I found the little pests on my bean plants. Not good. Not good at…
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I Survived
I made it through, survived and thoroughly enjoyed catering my first wedding reception! You can read about how I was asked to do this and some of the preparations that were made here. Twenty-four gallons of sauce! Although there were 265 RSVP’s, there were probably only 170 at the wedding so there was a lot of extra food. We sent home lasagna’s with many people who helped and some who were hosting guests. We had a luncheon here at the house on Sunday after the wedding and you probably know what we fed them. Lasagna! Saturday was the wedding, so we headed to Flagstaff on Friday. I was hoping to get there…
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Are You Schooling for the Masses or are You Schooling for Your Divinely Created, Uniquely Gifted Child?
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about my approach to high school. I have 6 children with my first 3 being boys, one already graduated and my second having his graduation party in August. Zachary (my second son) changed all my thinking about high school when he began several years ago. You see, he wasn’t like my first son, Seth. Seth was very faithful and diligent in his bookwork – following conscientiously his mothers high school plan for him, graduating and then going on to enter college for almost a year and doing very well on his entrance exam as well as his classes. In short, he was a model student.…
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From Spaghetti Sauce to Lasagna to 28 Quarts of Sauce
I have always enjoyed cooking and planning parties, so being asked to cater a friends wedding was a treat. Cooking for 70-100 is something I have done so frequently that I’m very comfortable with it but the latest count for this wedding reception is 260. Oh, dear. 🙂 Heather wanted to have Italian, and when I first heard that I thought “Oh, that will be easy, no problem.” What I had not counted on was the fact that the reception hall has only 1 oven. Just how was I going to juggle cooking that many lasagnas in one oven? Fortunately, that has all been worked out – we have a friend that owns…
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Strawberries – Harmful or Beneficial to Your Health? – Part II
You know how one thing leads to another? Well that’s exactly what happened when I first began reading about strawberries. It all started because I was thinking about growing my own and wondering why I would consider it. It’s just so much easier buying them! Then, just like every other fruit and vegetable grown, I saw what they do to the strawberry plant to try and make it produce more and to eradicate any type of pests that would damage their crop. Both of those things (producing more and eliminating pests) are fine but when the solution is as bad as what commercial growers have chosen to do – that’s not fine with me!…
