Our Little Visitor

A Squirrelly Friend
Drops by for a snack.



"Mmmmm, something sure smells good. . ."

"Ooh! It's bread!"

"Ohhhh, that tastes so good!"

"Yummy, Yummy, Yummy!"

"Ahh, what a snack!"

"Well, better head home, oops I got an itch!"

The End.

More of "The Wild Side of Gardening!"

Gardening on The Wild Side
part II

The picture below is of a Cicada, that has just shed it's larval skin.
We find their discarded skins all about our yard, and the little ones actually enjoying seeing how many they can find.

You are probably wondering why in the world we would do that!
Well, their little skins are absolutely amazing! It is a perfect "replica" of the living creature, every claw, wing impression and hair is preserved on the discarded skin.
The little ones love to hunt for them and find out who has the "best one."

Now we rarely find a real live one, these 2 little guys above had just come out of their skins. And we were ecstatic to find them!

This one we found hanging onto some clothes on our clothesline!
They are really calm, and "friendly" but they seem to fly so clumsily!
This one took off of my hand and bumped into a window twice before smacking into a tree! Then he just flew off, and left my little brother and I laughing!

This video is of my younger brother and a "find"

To Learn More about these amazing little Creatures, click here!

Home Made Sauce Fresh from the Garden!

Homemade Sauce fresh from the garden hmmm can you smell the aroma?

This is my frugal idea for this week.

Our garden has not done as well as I had hoped this year but the tomatoes sure are doing great!

This year my husband had bought a few tomato plants and some cherry tomato plants so we thought we would have enough to make salads and just enjoy.

Well shortly after my dad called and told us that he had some tomato plants for us and we now had 12 plants!

As you can guess we now have a lot of ripe tomatoes so it was time to do something with them!

Here is our sauce recipe!

First pick some ripe tomatoes, and wash them.






I than blanched them in boiling water for about 2-3 mins each until the skin began to peel away.



I removed them from the boiling water and placed them in some ice cold water to stop the cooking process.





I than proceeded to skin them and to cut into chunk size.




I placed them into a large pot to cook down.




(Note I did not remove the seeds but you could if you wanted too)

As this was simmering a little bit of foam began to form so I skimmed this off the top.





When the tomatoes were cooked down I added some other cans of tomato sauce that I had on hand and some paste.




I than added all of my spices. (oregano, salt, pepper, hot peppers) I also added some sugar I like our sauce sweet.



I let this simmer for a little while.

I now had my base sauce.



This past Sunday I cooked up some onions and ground beef. I added a little minced garlic and added some sauce to the pot. Yum this was so delicious over spaghetti!



Add some fresh bread or our pepperoni bread that we posted about here, and a salad and you have a very frugal meal that is absolutely delicious!

God Bless, Enjoy! Kathy

The Wild Side of Gardening!

A little beetle "dancing"

Gardening on the Wild Side!
Enjoying the beauty of God's world.

This lovely Lilly is in my neighbors garden, but it is very close to our Veggie garden, so we are able to enjoy it too!

This praying Mantis visited our Garden 2 years ago. We were very surprised to find such a large one!

These beautiful pink rhododendrons grow in the front of our house

This is a favorite! My brother, Collin caught the little guy in our yard. Then he found the bigger one in a little pond!

This is one of our first red tomatoes from our Cherry Tomato plant!
Our garden is doing really good!

This is a Cicada, we find their shells all over our yard. In the top picture (on the left) is the skin that this Cicada shed. Isn't it amazing how wonderful God made these little guys?

This a bloom from the Wisteria vine.

Wisteria is a favorite of mine! They have a beautiful scent and the flowers resemble a bunch of grapes.

Collin is holding a monarch butterfly!
(he caught this himself too!)

This is my little sister's tulip. It grew very large and had a gorgeous purple bloom!

This photo is one of my pride and joys!
I have a normal Digital camera, and so this little guy had to let me get close! He kept flitting around and finally relaxed and let me take his picture! He is only 3-4" long!

Some Cute little Buttercups!

3 little Robin chicks snuggled down for a nap!
We got to see them learn to fly this spring too!

Well, here is our last picture!
Collin has a frog that he caught in our garden!

I hope that you all can enjoy the beauty of God's creation this week and every week!

God Bless
~Rebecca~

More Garden News!

Look at the water drops clinging to the little tomatos!

Okay maybe my garden isn't so exciting but I really like seeing all of the veggies growing!
My daughter was out this week and she loves to take pictures (she is so good at this!) So I thought I would share them.My beautiful summer squash! I really love summer squash! This year the Lord has really blessed our squash plants and they are really producing alot of fruit!

Tomatoes not red yet still waiting!

Okay this is my daughter's picture and she said that I must add it!
Can you guess what it is?
You are right it is a beautiful "?" dragonfly!
She waited for this picture for quite a while.
Mr. dragonfly finally posed and let her take a picture!
He even smiled!

Does any one else like to garden?
I hope you all have a wonderful day!
God bless, Kathy

Our Summer Garden!

It is summer time and we have our little garden planted.
Today I went out to do the daunting task of weeding our happy little garden!



My children helped out which was a great blessing. We do not have a large garden. Sadly to say our children are not really big vegetable lovers (my fault I guess) I never really liked a lot of veggy myself.
There are though a few that I really like. Fresh string beans steamed with a little butter humm!



Summer squash melts in my mouth! Yum! As you can see one of our summer squash is almost ready to pick!


My husband is the big vegetable eater here. We planted a lot of tomato plants so I am hoping to make some fresh sauce! I have never tried canning sauce before I would love to learn how.
I am thankful to the Lord for our little garden and I am praying that it will yield quite a bit.



We also planted cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and lettuce.

Does anyone out there like to garden? What kind of plants do you have planted? Do you can any of your veggies? Let us know! We would love to hear from you.
God Bless, Kathy