Bit by the bread bug.

It is county fair time ! Every year I enter something, an apron, rabbits, flower arrangements, baked goods, jams. This year I just wasn't motivated. Until yesterday..deadline loom-ith I guess.

In 2007 I entered a quick bread in the county quick bread division. The bread has to have a cup of something from the list of vegetables that are grown here in our county. My eye stuck on Beets...thought, hey ...going to try that. I found a quick bread recipe and a spiced cooked beets recipe combined the two and crossed my fingers.

The bread was so ugly I almost didn't take it to the fair. The family encouraged me ( guess they were afraid I would make them eat it!) so I entered it.


First day of fair I went to the home arts department to see if I had gotten anything on my entries. I walked slowly along the shelves displaying the baked goods, the beet bread wasn't there. I walked through it again,this time from the opposite end, nope no beet bread.  I didn't think it was that bad, kind of embarrassing to have your entry tossed. I turned to go find a volunteer  and there it was, on a pedestal kind of thing, in a roped off area with a BEST IN SHOW ribbon on it. My mouth dropped open, just like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

So I felt the tug Friday when I was re- reading the list of veggies you can use in the quick bread, carrots, I have carrots growing in my garden...hum.

Rubbed the gold seal for luck...

Looks good ....smells good.....

It would be really  nice to win another plaque.... dang... going to have to hide this so I can get some down to the fair grounds. It is a big hit here at the house...guess I already won!

Time Warp

Took my baby to the doctors office today. She will be starting school in the fall, need to make sure all the boosters are up to date.

We got the Rain Forest room, which is cool because my baby loves frogs and reptiles.

I don't care if they are this big and going off to kindergarten

or this big and going off to college. The worries for this mom are and were the same. 

Will she make friends?

Will she make the right kind of friends?

Will she be safe?

Will she make good decisions?

On her first day of school, she told me I could go home now and marched right into her Kindergarten classroom.

I am thinking it will be pretty much the same when we drop her at the dorms. Besides, she says, she is just a key stroke away.

some folks hate these devices, not me, it is a life line.

Sisterhood of the traveling coffee cup.

In the summer, the coffee ladies like to take field trips. We have the time to visit some of the places we've always wanted to , but....

Today we started out at a Vietnamese restaurant. We were so close to the beach we decided to visit Naval Base Ventura County.

Mugu Rock

 

 

 

No people....so rare in southern California. Just the surf,

The Brown Pelicans over head.

Shore birds and seals.

And the sisterhood.

I broke a gardeners commanment this morning.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors Sunflowers.

I mean really...

What Mortal gardener could resist?

Such Beautiful bright colors.

Such open happy faces.

Such abundance.

Planted right on my fence line...

Update from Bunny Central

Well, the baby rabbits have decided I am not a raptor. I am a curious thing  that must be examined.

I have to be on my toes, these two almost cam all the way out. A two and a half foot drop is pretty far if you are about the size of a soft ball.

Of course the blue chin on the left here was first. Remember it was first out of the box , the first to have his /her ears lop. It is the largest of the litter as well.

The last one, and he still isn't too sure I can be trusted, is the little fellow peaking over it's siblings back, with one ear lopped and one ear sticking up yet. He is the smallest of the litter.

works every time just look really cute and she gives us hay!

There is no place like home, part B

When my oldest daughter and two friends from the dorm moved into their first apartment the girls decided they needed another couple of renters to help defray the cost of rent. After interviewing prospective roommates, they chose a couple to share the extra room, that is when the trouble started.


First it was just a few dirty dishes in the sink and clutter in the living room.

Then it was a sink full of dirty dishes. My daughter started cleaning her dishes in the bathroom.


Then it was a sink  and the counter full of dirty dishes, more clutter in the living room, and loud angry arguments between the couple.  My daughter started hiding her clean dishes in her bedroom.


Then it was the sink, counter and stove top full of dirty dishes. Bags of trash and clutter on the floor, and more loud arguments, a whole punched in the wall, a bike being thrown across the room and the police called.

My daughter had told me about these things, I knew it was bad.  When I arrived to help her and one of her roommates move to a new place, I found my daughter holdup behind her closed bedroom door, under siege, a prisoner in her own apartment. Armed with an orange flyswatter to battle the pest infestation, scented candles to make the air more palatable and perfumed soaps place here and there in her clothing trying to ward off the stench.

you don't really understand it until you see it, smell it.
 

After the move and I returned to my house , I asked my daughter how things were in the new place. She said,  I sat at the kitchen table this morning and ate my Honey Bunches of Oats from a clean bowl with a clean spoon. I am so happy.

it's the little things that make a house a home.

There is no place like home.

Brenda's boy friend Paul came over to make sure  the posters  were level!

 I have been away for a few days, helping the oldest daughter move to a new apartment, more on that adventure later. Just got home yesterday.


Youngest daughter proudly told me she went to the store and bought bread so she and Lycra man could make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Lycra Man pointed out he was wearing his last pair of clean socks.



Hank filled up his litter box over night.



 Magellan ran in circles this morning and would not eat his breakfast until I gave him a good petting.

Magellan

I think they missed me.

Magical Thinking

 Harry Potter . My daughters loved these books and loved these movies. 

Here they are, Kathy on the left and Brenda in the middle and Mandy on the right, down in L.A. at the Whimsic Alley shop, that sells all things Harry Potter. The were on a trip to procure wands...wands that light up.

Here is Kathy back in November at the midnight showing of Deathly Hallows~part I in her complete Slytherin robes and...light up wand...the very wand the trip to L.A. was about.

this after noon a group of her friends are coming over to watch the DVD of the first half or Deathly Hallows. Kathy has prepared some Harry Potter party favors for them.

she has also painted her fingernails for the occasion

the Deathly Hallows mark and the Slytherin Crest...did it herself, Pretty good job I think.

and her Dark Mark..don't worry folks it is sharpie. The one on the left is Draco's homemade dark mark from A Very Potter Musical...pretty funny show.

after the DVD is over the kids are off to dinner and to wait in line for the last installment of the Potter movies....

I am grateful to J.K. Rowling for writing such great books. My daughters read for 3 days straight when new books in the series were released. These books came a long at just the right time in their lives,  They were the gate way books, so to speak, to many other great books such as Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Catch 22, Crime and Punishment. 

The Harry Potter books gave my daughters a life long gift,  the love of reading, and magical thinking.

It's Fair Season!

Last weekend Kathy and I went up to Santa Maria to judge Rabbit showmanship at the Santa Barbara County Fair.

these 4-h kids were quizzing each other on rabbit facts out side the show ring.

These 4-H kids are waiting for their turn in the show ring.

and here is Kathy judging a group of kids showing their rabbits. She judged 30 4-H kids that day. I had about 7 FFA kids.

Last evening Kathy and I attended a 4-H rabbit project meting here in our county to help the kids practice for our county fair coming up in August.

Lets face it, we love rabbits.

Speaking of loving rabbits...here are the latest photos of my babies...they are 3 weeks old. Their ears are "air-planing" moving  from laying flat along their heads out to the side and then they will lop, move down against the bunnies cheeks. Until then I have a hutch full of Yoda rabbits!

See mommy in the top right of the photo, she jumps up on top of the nest box to get a break from the kids....they are eating more and more solid food, soon they won't be chasing mom around the hutch trying to nurse all the time...I am sure Tiffany is counting the days!

Rabbits, Marines and the Royals

SB Fair 2010, a 4-H'er and her bunny wait for their turn whit Kathy

Today Kathy and I will be driving up to Santa Maria for the Santa Barbara county Fair. Kathy will be judging Rabbit Showmanship again this year. I really love to watch the 4-H kids with their animals. I know showmanship helped my girls gain confidence in their speaking skills as well as handling their animal.

some times folks from out of state, get the impression all Californians are like the real housewives of Orange County, but we are not.

It is not always life in the fast lane here.

though I admit today it could be life in the clogged lane...

 We will be driving past the Polo grounds where Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge will be plaiyng Polo later this after noon.

also, the navy and marines are staging maneuvers of the cost an in land a ways from Ventura to San Luis Obispo.

if I get any good pictures... they will be here!

Bunny toddlerhood.

Disclaimer!!!!

Remember, I always think the present litter is the best, the cutest, the whatever, litter that we have ever had.

I can always tell when the baby rabbits (2 weeks old here) gain their hearing. They pile in the back of the box as soon as they hear my voice...I try not to take it personally. After all in their short little lives, I am a huge, loud thing that picks them up somewhat like a raptor would....

Curiosity usually gets the best of one of them....usually the first one out of the nest box, and this little one was, usually there first one to say, Hey mom, what is that stuff in the dish there?? and this one was.

Usually the jumpiest of the litter and this one is...this one is looking good to me, see the width between it's eyes??

Here is the back of Mom bunny's head. She always does a bed check after I look at her babies. She is such a good mom. She still has all 6 offspring and they are growing like crazy !  They are the best ____________________________ (fill in the blank) litter we have ever had!

Suffern' Succotash, it's summer in SoCal.

It's going to be a hot muggy day here is southern California. The paper says high of 79, I think it is a typo. Anytime the sun comes up looking like this, shining through the muggy haze, southern Californians know it will be hot and sticky. 

the critters that were out this morning, and there weren't many, were staying in the shade.

The ants get increasingly active in this weather, you must watch were you stand or you will end up with ant bites on your ankles, backs of your knees around your waist band area. We have learned to spray our shoes and socks with Off before we go out to garden.

Time to head to the patio with a book and a big glass of ice water, flavored with  lemons picked fresh this morning from our tree.