Nice Little Sunday In the Garden

Annuals purchased for the flower bed

Tulips from our garden

Lilacs from our garden

I Love Gerber Daisies

Annuals are planted & bed is mulched

Clematis is climbing

Sage & Chives drying from the herb garden

A Brief Update

July was a pretty jam packed month. Three days after returning from Nantucket we headed out to New Orleans for my friend's 30th birthday and the fun hasn't stopped since...

Crappy pic of Bourban Street... where a man would be shot 24 hours later

We hung out in the garden district for a while one afternoon

St. Charles St. Cable Car

Parakeets at the NOLA Aquarium

Wearing my fedora & feeding a parakeet... 'cause that's how I roll

Peter & some fish

Steamboat we took a ride on

Peter & the birthday girl

New Orleans Pharmacy Museum!

Famous Acme Oyster House

Stuffed Soft Shelled Crab! Mmmmmm!

Can't remember what this was

And here's the rest of July in pictures...

My flower CSA continues to deliver

Flower shot!

Rochester Air Show

Rochester Air Show

Rochester Air Show

Rochester Air Show

Rochester Air Show

Happy Family Time with Mom

Rogers' Family Reunion

Girl Cousins

Only married cousin & her hubby

How Muffin spends 95% of her time

The garden continues to grow

Bacon continues to be eaten

And so do avocados...

And avocado plant (3rd attempt) is now underway

The Hippy Factor Increases...

I've been excited about our South Wedge Farmers' Market starting for a while now. Unfortunately, my busy schedule has interfered with my attendance. I was sure I'd hit it up this Thursday, but then realized I was working the evening shift. Boo. Alas, I will make it there soon, this I am sure of. Mostly, I'm confident about it because I joined a fresh cut flower CSA this summer & my pickup is at the South Wedge Farmers' Market... Yep, that's right, a flower CSA... I really have become a hippy! Peter randomly received some info on Chicory Blue Gardens. He forwarded it to me since I have a minor obsession with having fresh flowers in the house. So, now I get to pick up a fresh bouquet of flowers every Thursday! Anyway, since I work this Thursday I had to pick them up early at the Brighton Farmers Market on Sunday. I'm not really sure what I'm in for with this CSA, but the first bouquet was acceptable!

You may notice that the flowers are in a pitcher. Well, that is because I broke my vase a few weeks ago. The pitcher was a birthday gift from a friend since she read my sangria post & saw that I only had one pitcher for sangria! ...Sadly that original pitcher broke when I got home from our Memorial Day picnic. So, the current tally is as follows:

1 pitcher lost to a dead mouse

1 pitcher lost to my husband's mishadling

1 vase lost to me dropping it

Leaving us with one new pitcher to be used as both a vase & pitcher for the time being.




While at the farmers' market we also bought some granola & a loaf of sourdough bread from Small World Bakery. We've had their bread before & liked it. The granola is one of Peter's experiments to see if he could ever be one of those people that eats plain yogurt with granola in it for breakfast. Jury's still out on whether or not he's a total hippy yet.




We also found a nice Italian stand that sells homemade raviolis, sauce & stuffed breads. You can get one of each for a total of $15 which excited Peter & I enough to give it a shot!

Pepperoni & cheese stuffed bread

Not quite enough done for me... I popped mine in the broiler for a bit

Dinner = roasted red pepper ravioli w/vodka sauce & a slice of stuffed bread

Overall it was quite a productive day at the farmers' market!

A Lovely Little Saturday

This Saturday Peter & I made a vow to be productive... despite using our Groupon at Solera Wine Bar & splitting a nice bottle of red wine the night before. There may have been additional drinking on Friday, but I'll withhold the details surrounding our escapades.

Anyway, Saturday morning we headed out to the Rochester Public Market. While Peter & I are big fans of Farmer's Markets, we are less enthused about the public market. Peter doesn't like that such a large quantity of the food being sold is not local. Florida oranges & pineapples and California avocados kinda defeat the purpose of a public market. Oh, and Peter hates all the carts & strollers everywhere! Regardless, our South Wedge Farmer's Market doesn't start for a few weeks , and our Highland Farmer's Market was complicated last week due to the Lilac Festival traffic diversion. Thus, we took the plunge & headed out to the public market.

Peter really wanted locally grown asparagus & I really wanted fresh flowers. We were able to find both, along with some apples, and a few herbs to replace the ones that didn't make it through the winter.

We also finally got to stop at the famous Juan & Maria's Empananda Stop! It was very exciting. We'd heard so many great things about them & even though we already knew where we wanted to go for lunch, we decided to indulge & split a beef & onion empanada first. Definitely worth the stop, and far superior to my pathetic attempt at empanadas.

Following the public market Peter & I ventured to Swan Market. Now, I had never heard of this establishment, but when Peter saw a Groupon for it, he told me to buy it. So, we headed off for some German fare in the middle of a Rochester area that I did not recognize.

Authentic German food

We split a sausage plate & a sampler plate. I was a little wary at first, but the fact that this place smelled just like I remember my grandma & grandpa's house smelling reassured me. (Yes, I am Polish, not German, but sausage & grease are universal smells). The food was wonderful... along with the German beer we washed it down with... all before 12 noon. We then headed home to enjoy our public market purchases... starting with my flowers!

I have a bit of a thing about having fresh flowers in the house... especially in gloomy weather. I just love fresh flowers! They make me happy! I was excited when I found the flower people with pretty bouquets for $8 and with that purchase you get 6 daisies (one of my favorites!). They definitely made me happy on such a cold & rainy weekend!

My bouquet of flowers...





and my pretty FREE daisies...

For dinner we had our locally grown asparagus wrapped in bacon- of course. We also ate our last good steak from our cow, and I prepared some quinoa. It was my first attempt at quinoa & I think it turned out alright. At least Peter & I enjoyed it. I added garlic & thyme & chives from our garden.

The picture doesn't really do it justice, but here's our meal... and no, my bacon is not burnt, that's just how I like it!

We ate strawberries & whipped cream (ie Cool Whip) for dessert & opened up some champagne for the hell of it!

We're so classy

There was no Home Depot or Olive Garden involved, but it was a nice little Saturday!