74 and humid. Some lightning and clouds but no rain all day. Reached about 90 degrees.
It was a nice day despite the heat. Larry got on a roll with breakfast and made fried potatoes, eggs, sliced tomatoes and toast. What a feast. Our hens are laying very little now, and with the reduced flock that means that we have to actually think about how many eggs we use. Not something I'm used to doing. But the new biddies are thriving so far so in a few months we'll be back in the egg business, barring any more disasters.
A friend stopped by for a visit in the early afternoon. That means more than the simple statement implies because anyone who wants to visit us must travel 4 miles of single lane, rough road to get here. So when she called and said she was coming I got busy and made scones. I do believe these were the best I've ever made. I used vanilla yogurt instead of milk, and added dried cranberries and dried orange peel that I softened by heating it up in a little water on the stove, then letting it soak and adding it last. The scones were amazingly light. I'll have to remember to use the yogurt in the future. And now I also wonder about using fruited yogurt. Do you think that could work? I added a link to my recipe, above--it's much simpler than most that I see online, and we like them better than any we've had elsewhere.
I spent most of the day painting furniture. No canning today! Larry did bring in another huge bucket of squash, but I am so over squash at this point. So I cleaned house and painted. Here's what I worked on:
This one is still in progress, needs the wax to be buffed out. It's a bit odd with the offset drawer, but would make a nice entry table.
Remember this dresser, the one we found in the trash by the side of the road in Ohio?
It's all spiffied up now, just need two longer screws for the pulls on the center drawer.
I actually painted this table white a while back, but a customer wanted a table in this color so it got a new coat or three, and the dark blue glaze that gives it a beachy look. Just needs wax and it will be ready to go.
I enjoyed getting back to painting; it's oddly relaxing. I'll soon be back in the kitchen putting up tomatoes and apples so I need to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak.
You remind me of the intense rivalry between various aunts and others concerning who could make the best scones. Aunt May was probably the winner and, though she happily passed on her recipe to others, no one could quite make scones like Aunt May. I always wondered whether she had a secret trick that she didn't divulge - it certainly wouldn't have been yoghurt; no one had heard of such a thing in those days.
ReplyDelete