Evening Stroll by the River

After a day of feeling bored out my gourd and only cooking, eating and sleeping we figured we needed to get off our rear ends and go for a walk along the River.

Turkey Vultures roosting for the night.

Scott read recently where these vultures will actually throw-up and poop on workers if they are startled... makes me glad neither of us are power or cell tower workers. YIK! Can you imagine the smell - they eat rotting carcasses. EWWW!

Double trestles over the Congaree river.

I just love capturing the reflections.

Nearly a full moon.

Moon and it's reflection.

Really Cool  Beetle just doing it's thing!

Dress Blues Inspection

Greg is at his Drill weekend and today they are having dress blue inspection. He was afraid that he wouldn't be able to get them on but with my help we got it on him. He realized he didn't have his Petty Officer Insignia on it and will just have to answer for that. I think being able to get it on made his morning. I love when he has to be in full uniform... doesn't he look so handsome?

I wish he wouldn't cut up sometimes but it's just him being him... I'm proud he feels he can be himself no matter what.

PERFECT Brownies

Here is the recipe we discovered in a lovely old cookbook put out by Proctor & Gamble in 1956 called Creative Cooking made easy - The Golden Fluffo Cookbook

PERFECT BROWNIES
Chewy Squares For Everyone's Delight

(makes 16 2 1/4 - inch squares)

1/2 cup Fluffo ( I use Crisco shortening)
2 1/2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sifted enriched floour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt Fluffo and chocolate together.
Blend sugar and eggs and stir into melted chocolate mixture.
Beat in combined dry ingredients.
Stir in nuts and vanilla.
Pour batter into a 9-inch square pan rubbed with Fluffo and bake at 350*F for 30 minutes.
Cut into squares while warm.

If you don't have squares of chocolate in the house you can substitute:
3 Tablespoons Cocoa Powder + 1 Tablespoon butter = 1 square chocolate

Cherry Pie!

When I got home from work today I decided we "needed" a Cherry Pie! So I went right to work starting with the recipe my Grandma always used for her pie crust. I used this recipe the year I entered an Apple pie in the South Carolina State Fair and won a second place ribbon. Here is that recipe:

Pie Crust (For a 9-inch double crust)

Sift together:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Then add and cut in with a pastry blender until it resembles coarse crumbs:
2 /3 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons Crisco shortening (you can use other brands but Grandma swore by Crisco)

Add and stir in with fork just til moistened:
1/3 cup COLD water

Roll and fit half of the dough into a pie plate; handling as little as possible so as not to make the crust tough. Fill with filling of your choice and top with remaining crust that has a few slits cut to allow for ventilation. Before placing top crust on pie moisten edges of bottom crust around edge to help the two layers of crust bind together. Cut top layer a bit larger than bottom to fold under and then form edging with finger tips. Bake at 425*F for 50 to 55 minutes.

My Grandma NEVER chilled the dough or let it rest. She went straight from mixing to forming the crust and it ALWAYS turns out flaky and delicious... just ask Scott or anyone else that has eaten one of my pies or my Grandmas'.

Another note: if you want to avoid the deep browning on the top crust after about 40 to 45 minutes place a piece of aluminum  foil loosely over the top and continue baking. You can also do this over baking hens and turkeys during the Holiday's to keep them from getting too brown. I will post some more recipes over the weekend.

Robyn - where art though Robyn!?

One more day to claim your prize and then I will draw someone else to be the winner of the Bamboo knitting needles.

Mangled Thumb and Glove Balloon

Now that it has had a day or two to mend I thought I'd share a photo of my thumb...

I have kept it covered since I injured it at work day before yesterday and only smacked it a few times at work today while putting freight out onto the sales floor. And only once good enough that I saw stars. So this afternoon I've decided it needs some air. I'll cover it again tonight so that it doesn't get caught in the bed covers. All in all it is looking pretty good; no inflammation or other signs of infection. I'm really happy about that!

Now... exactly how old does a boy have to be before I stop finding things like this in my bath tub? He is 25! GEEZ!


This is whats On My Mind

AND my friends and family in Upstate New York that are dealing with some pretty serious flooding.

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WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!

I may have awoke at 4 AM but shortly after I had posted the message before this one I noticed that it was below 60*F and decided to open some windows. Then I sat in one of the recliners and slept a couple more hours of good restful sleep.

I made pancakes for my breakfast and didn't realize I had used the last of the syrup so I put the batter in the fridge and we will eat the rest as either dessert tonight or breakfast in the morning.

After Scott got up and made himself a sausage and eggs breakfast we decided to go for a walk by the river and then to the library and Aldi's. We went to the West Columbia Entrance today for something a little different. The flowers are trying very hard to put on one final big blast of color before the weather turns cooler. And of course I had to try to capture some of their essence....

The colors were all so rich and vibrant they absolutely GRABBED our attention and demanded their photos be taken.

      Nature's Beauty surrounds us EVERY day!

There were quite a few Canadian Geese enjoying the morning. It was most enjoyable watching them bob for food and then fluff their feather. They were honking to one another and we wondered if they were going over what they were to do today. 

This little fellow is a 5 lined skink and they are so beautiful. We have one that lives under and in our compost bin that is 8 to 10 inches long. They are great little bug hunters and I so enjoy seeing them.

This dragonfly caught Scott's eye because of it's coloring and I am glad that he pointed it our to me. Isn't it striking?

Of course the Gervais Street bridge is always "eye candy" for me and with today's blue sky and wispy clouds I had to take even more photos to share here.

 Scott wanted me to take a couple picture's of our Capital City of Columbia from "our side" of the river so here they are... isn't the sky wonderful?

It really won't be long until the tree's have lost their leaves and we will have a clear view of Columbia.

 After our walk along the river we stopped at the library so that Scott could try to get on the Department of the Navy's job website but apparently their site is down. While he was doing that I decided to just look through books and came home with a small stack to enjoy the next few weeks. I'll share more on them later.  We then went to Aldi's for syrup and ended up about filling the cart with more groceries - I shop better alone! We will use everything we bought and the prices were unbeatable.

And to round this day out I made a spicy vegetable soup and Scott made corn bread for our supper. It was DELICIOUS!