Odds and Ends

63°f/17°C, and guess what? It's not raining! Sunshine, a few clouds, cool enough to have coffee on the porch.  Bliss.

The first day of school was to happen today, but has been canceled at some schools in our county and in other places around the state. At least 2 schools in my county had water come inside, others have flooded roads, playgrounds, etc. It's a mess everywhere but at least we are having a respite before more rain is predicted to arrive tomorrow night.

These have been "in the kitchen" days again for me, and my stove has been busy. We picked beans again---I thought those plants were done, and the deer had even eaten the tops off them, but we picked another half-bushel. These plants should have been finished by the end of July or earlier, but apparently the rain gave them a new lease on life. I canned 7 quarts and made a big pot of beans, potatoes,  and ham for Larry, which I vacuum-sealed and put in the freezer in bags. 

I also made a surprisingly good pasta from a recipe I found online, which uses zucchini, basil, onion, ditalini pasta and parmesan cheese. Very simple. I didn't have ditalini so substituted elbow macaroni.

This is from Giovanni Siracusa, who does many YouTube videos of Italian recipes, all of them easy and doable by almost any home cook. There are several that use zucchini, and I am thrilled to find new ways to use my overabundance.

Served with ham, ripe tomatoes, and cucumbers in a vinegar-dill-mayo dressing. Yum.

While at the antique mall the other day, another vendor had these dishes she wanted to sell. Sets of china do not sell well, that's a fact. But these were so pretty! And there were teacups in there, my weakness as you probably know. So I bought them, for $40. I was quite surprised to find out when I researched them that these are antique Theodore Haviland Limoges china, from France. It's service for 6, with several serving pieces.  Only one piece is missing, a small fruit or dessert bowl. Now I have to decide: try to sell the set in my booths? On ebay? As a set, or part it out? I can't keep it as I have no space for it. But I would love to keep a cup and saucer and the sugar and creamer. Still not sure what to do with it.

A fun little project I have been doing is putting spooky reproduction Halloween postcards into frames to sell. Isn't he a handsome fella?

 Continuing my downsizing, I cleaned up these Hoosier glass canisters to take to a booth. I hate to sell them, but I really don't need them. Originally they might have come with a Hoosier kitchen cabinet. I just put the salt and pepper set in my booth last week.

Stuff out, stuff in! The mall owner gave me this teapot because it has a small chip under the rim. I 

am using it now as my daily teapot. So pretty.

Another project in the works, this tea cart has a large chip that Larry has glued back in place. I need some wood filler to touch it up, then will sand and re-stain.

I walked around my flower gardens just before last night's storm and picked a little bouquet. The flowers and herbs look pretty bad right now and I don't know if they can recover. The soil is just sodden. My son Derek calked and said he is considering tearing down his barn and building an ark! I told him he would probably have many people willing to help! We have had 10 inches of rain in the last 2 weeks. Crazy.

I've been doing a little cleaning here and there since I am mostly stuck inside. The silverplate tea set got a polishing up. I intended to sell it, but every time I clean it I change my mind. It's just so pretty. 

The four matching pieces were made for hotel service and are quite sturdy. The center teapot is a favorite of mine with its etched design and mother-of-pearl knob. I believe it's a late 1800's-early 1900s's piece. I don't need this set, but last year I used it during the winter for my daily tea. Just not ready to part with it yet.

And finally, to end this random post, today's project: making chocolate zucchini bread. This stuff is so delicious, like a brownie really. I made two batches; most of this one I will give to friends at the open mic tonight. One more way to use up zucchini! The recipe called for peeling the zucchini bit I missed that and shredded it with the skins on and can't tell any difference.

I copied the recipe from my blog, but it was originally from Taste of Home recipes.

All for today: time to get ready for tonight's open mic!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Clyde

73°f/22.8°C, overcast but not raining! Rain may come later today, and we had storms last night. Only 3" total here in the past few days, but many places have not been so lucky. There is much flooding still happening, landslides, bridges damaged, and many homes damaged. 

News around our state hasn't been good as people deal with all the torrential rains. I know of 2 animal shelters that lost their bridge access and are flooded and without power. It was a rough weekend for so many people, and my heart goes out to them.

Clyde, December 2025

We stayed home all weekend.  The main reason was Clyde,  our 17-year-old cat. He was doing okay for his age,  but this past month he began to slow down, and this weekend wouldn't eat. He slept inside Saturday night, a rare thing for him, and didn't wake up Sunday morning. It was a peaceful way of going, but we will miss him terribly. He was a fine cat, undemanding until this past year when he wanted to be fed several times a day and seemed to crave attention. Rest in peace, dear boy. 

As a kitten, Clyde tormented Charlie, our female cat who was a few years older. He often jumped higher than my waist, and it wasn't easy to catch him being still enough for a photo.

It took a few months, but they finally became uneasy friends.

We would come upon Clyde in the most unlikely places, like on this January day a few years ago when I was walking in the woods. He was mainly an outside cat, rarely coming in the house until he was 15. We had a warm workroom he could access whenever he wanted.

Our handsome boy. What a joy he was.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Saturday Catch-Up

71°f/21.7°C, mostly cloudy all day. Very humid, high of 88. Not a day to be outside---again.

This has without doubt been a miserable summer, and apparently we can't expect much of a change for the next week. Honestly,  I am very much looking forward to our trip to Colorado in September! 

I should not complain though, considering all the floods, the tornadoes, and the terrible earthquakes in the past month. The whole of Earth seems to be reeling from one cataclysmic event or another, while we have just had heat, rain, humidity, and a few fallen trees. Counting my blessings and sending my heartfelt sympathies across the sky to all the places suffering.

Yesterday was booth day, but we just did Ravenswood this time. I am trying to just do one location at a time if we can, as I don't get nearly as worn out that way. I mainly worked on that one messy booth; it looks a bit better but I am still not happy with it.

Before:

After:

Afterwards we met granddaughter Hannah at the Artisan Market for a very late lunch. She had sweet little Sutton with her. Such a little doll baby. And a little sleepyhead! He is about 6 weeks old now. 

After lunch Hannah went with us to the farmers market. It was miserably hot but we strolled around visiting friends who were vendors, and I picked up some fresh eggs. (I am sorely missing my hens; we will get more when we return from Colorado.) It was a very nice way to end our day.

I went out to the garden today for about 30 minutes to pick a few squash, some basil and onions, and some zinnias that had been knocked over by the wind. By the time I came back inside I was completely soaked with sweat. Larry worked in the garage all afternoon and how he stood it I don't know. He came in literally dripping, and had to strip on the porch. It's a good thing we live out of sight of all other humanity,  as porch-stripping has been the order of the day this summer!

A few photos from my wildly messy garden. 

This was the cucumber arbor, but they blighted (too much rain), so this zucchini is taking over. Mind, this was supposed to be bush zucchini! Apparently no one told it what it was supposed to do. There's also a volunteer tomato plant twining in amongst the rampant zucchini too.

Same thing is happening on the other side of the arbor. I think there is one surviving cucumber plant. Deer got in and ate my second planting of cucumbers, so we are done for this year. Disappointing. 

At the other end of the garden, the butternut squash, which was also supposed to be a bush variety, ran amok and is covered with squash. I counted at least 14, but there are no doubt more hidden under the leaves.

Beside the butternuts, the peppers are doing quite well despite the rain. There were supposed to be bell peppers in there, but apparently these were also mislabeled because all I have found are banana peppers. This mislabeled of plants and seeds has gotten worse every year since 2020. I am not sure why but it's very annoying.

This is a volunteer swiss chard that has gone somehow from one plant to about four. I have no clue how that happened, unless there were dormant seeds that decided to sprout? No idea, but they are all welcome.

Crazy old garden year, but we have harvested plenty, so I am not complaining. Every year is different, with some things doing well and others failing. I am just grateful to have the space to grow as much or as little as I want.

While I was outside, I went up the little bank outside my kitchen window to photograph a wild flower I had seen from the window. It came complete with a bug---a katydid, I think?

I don't recall ever seeing this one before. It has a rather suggestive Latin name: clitoria mariana, but its common names are butterfly pea and Atlantic pigeon wings. I think I prefer butterfly pea! I had asked Larry not to mow this area, just to see what might come up. I may do the same next year. It's a little messy, but no one can see it except us anyway.

Yesterday morning I came up with a pretty good hack for keeping a quiche from being too runny if I use fresh tomatoes in it: I just spread about 1/4 cup of uncooked quick oats in the partially baked piecrust. Then I layered the sliced tomatoes, some chopped garlic chives and torn basil, then parmesan and cheddar cheeses, then poured in the egg mixture (4 eggs, a couple tablespoons of mayo, a couple of the same of milk, and salt and pepper). Baked at 350° for about 20 minutes. It was not runny at all, and the oats were undetectable. 

I used one yellow and one black tomato, and this cut portion shows where the yellow tomato is, kinda hard to see. The juice on the plate is from the sliced tomatoes we had on the side. Still lots of tomatoes that need to be used up ASAP.

Other things I have been up to: sorting out my dresser drawers and a couple cabinets in the kitchen. I also sorted more books and emptied a bookshelf in the bedroom as I continue downsizing our little pockets of storage. Storage, I find, translates to "keeping stuff we no longer need, just in case we might need it again". Given our age, I am being more realistic about just what we can or want to do in the coming years. 

I also painted this cabinet that we picked up at a thrift the other day.  I have no idea why this photo looks so strange. Trust me, it does not have weird dotted lines around it!

I think this is made for storage of cans and jars in the kitchen, maybe?

I am reading a book that I think one of you Blogger friends recommended:

It is the best book I have read since A Gentleman in Moscow. The writing is exquisite,  and I find myself reading slowly to savor every word, description,  and especially the gentle, spot-on humor. Set in County Clare in Ireland, it takes me right back to our visit there in 2017, and now I am longing to go back. 

Well, that's about all that has been going on around here. Tomorrow I need to get those tomatoes and zucchini dealt with so I will be back in the kitchen. More rain is on the way; maybe it will break the humidity. Til next time!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.