Taste Like Chicken Weekend 7/31 & 8/1

Saturday: Welcome to the last day of July.

We just got back from YS. Poblano and green peppers. Cantaloupe. Tomatoes, big and small. Garlic. Cucumbers. Basil. Iggy is going to fire up the grill so we can grill veggies and chicken. He is making hummus and tabbouleh a d I am cutting up veggies for the grill and to dip in the hummus.

The hummingbirds like the potted zinnias we have. There are a couple of goldfinch that will perch on the empty feeder. We hear the robins, cardinals and doves in the trees but no bird is hanging out lately in the bird baths. I haven’t seen a woodpecker, house finch or sparrow in awhile. No squirrels or chipmunks either, for that matter. They probably heard about the Elmer Fudd that lives here.

I hope all is well with everyone physically and mentally and you have a fun or productive or lazy day, depending on your preference.

Thanks for the start, Chele. July has definitely flown by. LOL on "Death Eaters" in Congress. I just hope they choke on it at some point. Living out in the country as we do, I think if someone knocked on my door, they would get more than an earful and a slammed door. Definitely agree with term limits for senators. When all this was fleshed out by the founding fathers, the life expectancy of a white (of course) male (again, of course) in the U.S. was about 44 years, so one 6 year term was about all any man could do. I guess I know who will be in charge of the paper from Ikea when you have to go back. I know you'll definitely be wearing a mask there, so can you wear one like Linda's KN95 that should decrease the dust you're exposed to? I only knew the people from Ohio because of their car tags. I can attest that none of them were wearing masks in their cars (which, believe it or not, some of the older senior locals do, even when they are by themselves). I was definitely pooped yesterday after the smoke detector and freaky storm dog ordeals. I'm happy to say it didn't go off last night. Fingers crossed your eggplant will take off. Fruit needs chilling hours and I think eggplant needs heating hours. I have one small Rosa Bianca that is about 2" long right now and a few more buds. I hope they don't all constrict when we launch from the 90s today to the 80s starting tomorrow. What a haul at YS today. Menu sounds great! Happy grilling! LOL on homicidal relatives. Are you dealing with more smoke from out west today? We definitely are. Dale said he's not seen such high numbers on air quality here. I think the hummers may be paying attention to my bright orange and bright red flowers I planted in the bales with the veggies. They also seem to gravitate toward my pot of Cherokee Spirit coneflowers. All your house finches must be summering here. We saw a red bellied woodpecker yesterday and both remarked that we hadn't seen one at the feeder for a while. We can here them peck, peck, pecking in the woods, however. Sounds like the squirrels and chipmunks got wise, like our Canadian geese staying away from the neighbor's property when they're home (which they weren't yesterday so the geese had a field day).

Linda, I don't understand how it's legal for your senate president (who is obviously from one of those areas that a Dem can't win) can get enough stupid elected officials to support her on this. I guess they are all from the same kind of districts. Dale did change the batteries in the smoke detector and used canned air to blow out the dust. I hope it's not on its last legs like yours was. It's only 6 years old, not that age is a big determining factor. Sorry about the storms last night. Does Micki just growl at the thunder and doesn't seem to notice the lightning? How hot is it? I wasn't able to get your link to load. Do you have 2K more cases than the day before or is the total new cases 2K? We have been over 2K all week but not as many deaths as AZ. I still can't believe people are dying from this with pretty good vaccines available. Vaccine numbers are going up a little here, which helps. Are they there?

LOL on your emergency TP stash, Kathy. We've been pretty lucky that our Northern has mostly been available. We have decided to get a package every time one of us goes to a grocery store and it's working out pretty well. Thanks for the tip on the Southwest Power Blend in a tortilla. I could add a bit of tofu scramble and that would be a mega protein meal. That is really strange about the court. You would think they would be a bit more careful about possibly exposing jurors to the virus. Something needs to change there. I wonder if the federal courts are doing things differently. I didn't stop at Publix this week, so I'll have to see next week if they are all masked. They are probably the best grocery in the area for that anyway but had been getting away from it some in the past month. One of the local sportscasters had a segment on the a.m. news this morning about how the current SEC teams would stack up against TX and OK. I was surprised he didn't mention basketball. The UT/UT rivalry in women's basketball is almost as big as UConn. What a cool international virtual reunion! I guess you didn't know the relative who shares your name--at least until today. Is she from Ireland? How many of the people on the session had you met when you went to Ireland? It's incredible that your numbers are worse now than they were right after vaccines became available, especially with the high percentage of 65+ who have a higher vaccination rate. And, you're right that your numbers don't include tourists, so I hate to think how much virus is floating around there (same here!).

Becky, it sounds like Covid is raging again in Austin. That's not a lot of ICU beds, given the size of the hospitals there. How are things in your local area? You're probably right about no mask requirement at HEB; but given what Linda said, maybe Walmart corporate will do something (but will it be enforced?).

Are you in recovery mode, Liz? How are the pups doing? Is Wally's tushy bump getting any larger? Do you think it's a cyst like Zoe has had before? Did you do your typical weekend errands today?

Denise, are you still working a lot? How hot is it there?

Dale did a trail run this morning but we decided to forego getting takeout because we had it twice (with lots of leftovers) this past week. I was plenty busy while he was gone. I changed the bed and washed the sheets and quilt, did the watering, and got my microgreens planted that I had been planning to do for about a year. We started talking about them when he saw something on a CSA that sells them locally. I have sunflower, radish, cabbage, and mixed salad microgreens all planted. It should take 7-10 days before we can harvest. The IP was also extremely busy today. I did eggs, ground beef, and oats for Arya this morning and when Dale got home from the orchard, I did 2 batches of corn on the cob and one of green beans. So the IP was running 6 times today. I also did 3 sessions from a gardening summit I signed up for and they were really good. I think I am going to start growning ginger and turmeric in pots next year.

Karen, if I ever run out of the good TP, I will be happy to use the less popular brands, lol! I also still have a good bit of emergency canned food should I ever need it. I was thinking I would donate some of it to a food bank when the pandemic ended, but at this rate it will be expired before then. A tofu scramble would be great with the protein blend. I've also been known to add a bit of leftover chicken, but I know you won't be doing that! Sounds like a good harvest is on the way with the microgreens.

Linda, I have plenty of tomatoes to share, or will in a few weeks when they start to ripen. I told Dale in about a week and a half I should be swimming in cucumbers the way Becky was. Unfortunately, the garden is like a jungle right now. I "kind of" overplanted. Already thinking about how not to do that next year. What kind of fertilizer are you using? I started getting Happy Frog Tomato & Vegetable Fertilizer 5-7-3 and the plants seem to be loving it. That sounds like a cool new hummingbird feeder. We haven't had any bee problems this year--so far. I wish the flashes didn't bother Arya. Nice that Micki is just annoyed by the thunder and isn't freaked out by it. Kids there sure have been hit with Covid. I don't think we've had a huge number here. They haven't updated our numbers since Friday, but I know it's not been going down. Good that your school systems are taking the initiative and telling your governor what they can do with the lack of a manate. Sounds like Kathy's guv isn't the only one killing off his base. I know you have enjoyed cooler temps. We are having a week of that, so thanks for sending it along.

It sounds like people there have taken the current surge more seriously, Becky. I did see that WM was requiring all employees to wear masks, but Dale went this morning and he said only about half the employees were wearing them and some had chin diapers. Sorry your family reunion didn't happen. I hope your relatives start to feel better, but that usually doesn't happen with hospice being involved. Hope Kenneth's will happen in November, Covid permitting. Is it local? So, I guess businesses can "manate" but not enforce, so really is no mandate at all. Friday night you went to a party but had to work?🙄 How are the shoulder and knees doing today? Yes, when you do it, you don't mess around, do you?

Kathy, Aldi used to have a brand of TP in huge packages that was comparable to Northern but a lot cheaper. I have it on my list to look for on Tuesday when I go there. I had tofu scramble with fresh baby kale, sungold tomatoes, and salsa on a whole wheat tortilla for lunch and it was really good. I got some TJ's tofu when I went last week, which makes the best scramble. It's cool that all your relatives relocated to places that speak English of one dialect or another. How did you get hooked up with the guy in AZ with the DNA match who had been adopted? Did this all come together due to DNA profiles and genealogy? Depending upon the side of the family, one of these for me would have people speaking German or French, so it would be difficult to communicate.

How was your scenic drive, Chele? Where did you go? Like you, we won't be starving this week. Dale brought home sweet potatoes from the orchard and I don't think they are cured, so I decided to cook them this morning. Some of the ones he has gotten there recently didn't survive long enough to be baked. So about 2/3 of what was in the oven this morning went into the freezer. That's all the cooking I plan to do today. Did you find any good recipes? We had rain overnight, so I didn't have to water this morning and just picked one cucumber. I'm sure I'll have more beans to pick tomorrow, along with some tomatoes and hopefully several jalapenos.

Since we haven't heard back about a new TV, we started looking online last night and found the one I wanted was in stock at a WM about an hour away. I called this morning to confirm they had one (we learned the hard way that just because it says they have it in stock doesn't mean they actually do), so Dale made the trip. It's close to where he ran yesterday, so it's a shame we didn't know yesterday so he could have picked it up after his run. I will call the company tomorrow morning to try to arrange a time for them to install it. We thought we might be able to do it ourselves, but it weighs more than we thought and it goes on a high wall bracket, so one of us would have to hold it in place while the other one screwed it into the bracket with both of us on ladders. It won't be cheap, but it will be worth it for neither of us to get injured or for the TV not to get dropped. We had clouds all morning and it looked like we were going to get more rain but didn't. The sun has come out, so it's going to start getting sticky, even though it's just in the 80s. There must have been some lightning from the 3 am storms that Arya saw because she got restless about then. I finally got her calmed down and she slept until about 6:30, which was wonderful. I wish that would happen more often.

Chele, you've been busy. Hope you had a nice drive.

Karen, the distant cousins were just from my dad's Irish side, so not too surprising that they all spoke English. I looked at my DNA matches to my dad's Irish line before the Zoom call yesterday and when the call started, I recognized the last name of the adopted guy. I'm not sure how he connected up with the meeting organizers. I've been corresponding with the guy that organized the call since 2001, so he invited me and DS to the call. We originally connected through a post on a genealogy message board. Most of the rest of them on the call were his cousins and siblings and I only have a distant match to them.

That makes sense to have an installer for the TV. Glad you found the one you wanted. We had a thunderstorm a couple of hours ago which got us out of the 90s and into the upper 80s. Plus, I won't have to water today, so double bonus!

Linda, we just broke our record for the number hospitalized at over 10k. They monitor the water water for Covid and the amount detected as gone up around 1400% in Seminole County since May! That is a future predictor, so it's most likely going to get worse before it gets better.

Becky, glad you're doing better. Take care.