Mocking baby

A few weeks ago some mockingbirds built a nest in the confederate jasmine on our front porch. When we woke this morning we noticed the baby wasn't in the nest and the parents were freaking out. Finally we saw the little one hopping around in on the vines and flapping its tiny wings.

Here's one of the parents feeding it.

Keeping watch....

Learning to fly....

And a little nap before leaving the nest. When we returned home from our tennis game this evening, it had flown away. It was quite an entertaining day.

Bye-Bye Crazy Palm Tree

We have had a crazy ponytail palm tree by the front door that has outgrown it's space and got taller that the roof. It was making the front porch look junky. I finally saw that when I took the photos for the last post. The splotchy paint and moldy buildup on the steps weren't really doing it for us either.

So we borrowed a pressure washer, and Scott had a fun day last Saturday stripping the paint off the porch. Yesterday we also did the back porch and patio. I need to get me a pressure washer. They are awesome. Look at the amazing difference on the steps.

Then last Sunday between football games we removed that crazy palm tree. I don't take too kindly to removing perfectly good trees, but this one needed to go.

 Voila! No palm and much less digging than I thought. We just had to roll that sucker out to the street.

And now the porch looks so much cleaner and open. Next we'll paint the concrete....

Painting the front door

About a month ago, I bought a Living Social deal for 2 hours of handyman service for $49. He helped us deal with some exposed wiring from where we removed some light fixtures and replaced a window sill and the trim on the front door. We put in a new front door about 4 years ago, but never finished the trim. Ghetto, i know. I didn't even bother to take any before pics because these things should have been done long ago....
So after we got our fancy new door trim - well, not really fancy at all - we decided to paint the door. We settled on blue and found a nice color at the hardware store a week ago, but had to find the next best thing at Lowe's. Since it was Labor Day our trusty neighborhood hardware store was closed.

I also found a shot of the house on google maps before we even painted the exterior. When I bought the house it was dingy white with Christmas-tree green trim. Check it out.....

Pretty sweet, huh?


We think the new color looks much better, but the curb appeal still needs work. This is with our white door.....

 This is after one coat of blue. A little streaky, but after three coats, it looked pretty good. But when we removed the painter's tape as seen above, some of the door paint peeled off with it around the lock. boo! So the next morning I put a few coats over the bare spots and called it done.

Next we desperately need the pressure wash the gooey mildew/mold on the stairs and paint them. And of course, weed-eat around the castle wall around the flower beds and pressure wash them. And rip up our stupid piece of a sidewalk and install a new walkway. And I think the ponytail palm might need to be cut down. I hate to kill a tree, but now it's taller than the roof. One day at a time, right?

Updates: A new car, the garden and a new door

We've been busy around here since vacation. After we got home we learned that my car was sick and would soon need a new transmission, computer and catalytic converter. So we decided to get me a new ride. We settled on a Honda Civic Hybrid after being tempted by a sweet Mercedes for cheaper. In the end, I went for the more practical car. Surprise, surprise. But I love it. It has power windows and locks and cruise control - all firsts for me. And it should save me some money on gas.

We also harvested our pineapple. These things take two years to grow, so it really makes you appreciate them when they're finally ripe. Here's what it looked like when it first appeared in March....

And here's what it looked like yesterday before we devoured it. There is nothing like pineapple ripened on the plant and eaten fresh......

We've also been growing purple okra. This is a first for us. Hopefully we'll like eating it, because it's not one of the veggies we eat regularly.

Our bathroom renovation is finally complete. It was mostly done back in February, but needed a few finishing touches. Right after vacation, the contractor from Lowe's showed up to replace our rotting door and window that wouldn't stay closed. We got a cool door with blinds between the glass. It feels weird to get excited about doors, but I guess that's what happens when you're a grown-up.

Here's the before photo......Notice the sweet orange towel used to stop the rain from coming under the door. It was also a nice shade of dingy white.

Garden update and another spectacular sunset

purple haze carrot

Our garden is really growing fast now. We've been eating a lot of salads for dinner, and I've been taking freezer bags full of salad greens to my co-workers. The corn is starting to flower and the peas are just starting to make pea pods and the first round of carrots are almost ready to be harvested! It's an exciting time here.

purple haze carrot. apparently the amount of purple color depends on the temperature.

corn and spinach

lettuce, mesclun greens

carrots

peas

 The squash and zucchini and the corn planted in the round bins did not get the message to grow, however. The corn in the metal bins was planted at the same time as the corn in the main garden behind it. I have no idea why it never grew.

dead zucchini

 These photos were taken on Thursday, and later I looked outside to see this sunset.......

 So I ran out into the street with my camera, and I called for Scott to hurry and get the bikes so we could make a mad dash for the river before we lost the light. It was so worth it.....

 

 Oh, I almost forgot. Stay tuned for pics from New York City this week. I'm flying up on Tuesday morning and coming home Friday. I'm going to a taping of the Martha Stewart Show -- the bride-to-be show-- on Thursday afternoon. I'm soooooo excited. I'll post at least one pic on Tuesday evening. Let's hope all the travel goes well. My dad is meeting me there and there is supposed to be snow and ice in Raleigh on Tuesday.....His first trip to the big apple, by the way!

Twofer: sweet potato biscuits and a chair rehab

So I just wrote this post and was almost finished, but I accidentally deleted everything except the photos I was working on and didn't realize and, of course, it resaved before I realized it and, BAM!, I lost my entire post. This is how this week is going for me so far. I had a long, cold day at work yesterday. Here's hoping the rest of the week will be better! Here's take two....

On Sunday I visited my mom. She went to see my grandma in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, so she brought me some old family photos from my grandmother and some farm fresh sweet potatoes from North Carolina. I didn't want them to sit in the pantry forever, so I decided to look through my new cookbooks I purchased at the newsroom book sale last week. A recipe for sweet potato biscuits caught my eye, so I decided to try it. Ya'll these are GOOD! They're from the Mary Mac's Tea Room cookbook. Here's the link to the cookbook on Amazon. It's got great southern recipes.



Here's the recipe:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups mashed sweet potatoes, baked
2 tablespoons buttermilk

To bake the potatoes, rinse, then cover with foil while still damp. Bake for 45 min to 1 hour. The skin will fall right off.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease the baking sheet and set aside. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. (I don't have a sifter, so I just stirred them together.) Cut in the butter with your fingers or two forks until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add the sweet potatoes, stirring well to combine. Gradually add the buttermilk to form a soft dough. (I didn't have buttermilk, so I made my own by mixing 1 tablespoon of vinegar with 1 cup of milk and letting it sit 5 minutes.) Turn out onto a lightly floured board. (I had to use a bit more flour to keep it from being sticky.) Pat the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick circle and cut our the dough with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Place on the baking sheet. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the bottoms are lightly browned.

Now here's the photos. Food-blog style....

mash the sweet potatoes

mix dry ingredients then cut in the butter

mix in the sweet potatoes. use the rest for dinner.

gradually add buttermilk

roll out the dough

cut the biscuits. i used the heart pancake mold i have. or use the top of a wine glass.

bake for 18-20 minutes

you'll be left with a messy kitchen, but it's worth it.

served with a mesclun greens salad from the garden!

Now for the chairs. You probably know I found some sweet chairs for $10 each at a yard sale last Friday. One was quite rickety, so we decided to fix it with a little wood glue. Couldn't take long, right?
Well we googled "chair repair" or something similar and realized we'd be taking the entire chair apart, sanding it and gluing it back together with the help of a clamp. So I set out for the JoAnns and Home Depot to get the glue, fabric and foam for the cushions, and a clamp and bungee cords. I'm too cheap to buy multiple clamps, so I figured the bungee cords would help hold it together. We took the chair apart carefully using a mallet. While I was gone shopping, Scott sanded the old glue at all the joints. We had to replace some of the wooden dowels that broke while taking it apart. I suspect they were broken already. Then we put it back together again one side at a time, gluing and clamping.

 I forgot to take a photo of the after of this chair. And I forgot to photograph the process of recovering the cushions. Here's Scott taking the cover off one of the cushions. The previous owner used old fabric scraps for the padding -- not very comfortable. I bought some new 2-inch foam and they're super comfy now.

Here's the other chair. We only had to glue one joint, so we didn't take it apart, just glued and clamped. The rickety chair was a full-day project, but it's as good as new now.



Before:

      

After