My six-year-old stayed up way too late last night (and didn’t even get to see fireworks). This morning, he’s sleeping in like a teenager and I’m totally not getting him up until he’s got a solid 12 hours.
Visitors to the Front Garden
This evening, after my daily 15 minutes of weeding, I sat down in my front garden to enjoy the flowers and flying things.
I saw a female hummingbird last week, so I was only moderately surprised (but still super thrilled) to see a male ruby-throated hummingbird stopping to enjoy nearly every single milkweed bloom, sharing space with the giant fuzzy bumblebee that was also enjoying the buffet.
What DID surprise me was the monarch butterfly flitting overhead. It didn’t stop to taste any of the flowers — it just fluttered in loops and figure-eights above the garden.
When it finally lit on a tree branch, I stood and slowly crept up to it with my cameraphone snapping away.
It let me get within a couple inches of it, and didn’t fly away until my phone and I had backed off.
Enjoy the milkweed, Your Majesty.
Post-Pincushion Project #1
After my successful pincushion project, my next venture was a pillowcase for my son’s travel-sized pillow I’d gotten some cartoon fabric remnants at a good price on eBay, so I used one that I knew Connor would like, but that wouldn’t kill me if I ruined it: Mickey Mouse.
Luckily, The Seasoned Homemaker’s tutorial on making an envelope pillow with French seams was well-worded with helpful photos, so I only messed up a couple of times (and those were minor and easily hidden).
LOVE these chairs in Promenade Park!
Maple Bacon Onion Jam
A while ago, I was extolling the virtues of my homemade tomato jam to one of my coworkers, and he came back with a description of his homemade bacon jam.
Of course, I had to try making my own.
I found a recipe on The Kitchn that involved bacon, onion, maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and Worcestershire (and shallots, but I left those out). I made two-thirds of the recipe, since my package of uncured bacon from ButcherBox was 10 oz and the recipe called for a pound of bacon. I got everything ready to simmer before I went upstairs to supervise my son’s bath and bedtime routine, and enjoyed the sweet scent of bacon as we did our thing. When I came back downstairs after lights out (having already checked on it a couple of times), I was worried that I’d over cooked it — the jam was a deep mahogany. As it turns out, it was damn near perfect, and yielded about a cup and a half of deliciousness after I hit it with the immersion blender.
It’s more of a reduction than a jam, per se, since it’s not really thickened… but that’s just semantics.
Whatever it is, it’s delicious, and I’m glad my coworker unwittingly put me up to it.