It's a Sickness

I took an unsupervised visit to the nursery today, which is always a dangerous thing. Actually it got more dangerous because Bennett's didn't open until 11:30 or noon so I stopped by Lowe's to pass some time. I always like going by myself better, because then I can putter around and look at everything and don't get hurried. While it may be more enjoyable, it definately does more damage to the pocketbook.

Lowe's had several racks of plants on 75% clearance, so I had to go nose around there. I ended up with a Winged Euonymous bush with a couple of leaves left on it, a Penstemon 'Silverton' that wasn't too badly off, two Bronze Ajuga plants that looked very healthy and a mystery bush that had pretty purple flowers just right for attracting bees. I always have the desire to try to rehabilitate these walking wounded plants and see if I can bring them back. Let's not mention all of the otherwise healthy plants that I've killed off this year. In addition to the sick plants I also brought home a May Night salvia, an Arizona Sun Gallardia and a verbena plant. And then I went to the next nursery. :)

My main goal in going out this afternoon was to get some tulip bulbs. Or at least that was what I said I was going out for. My real objective was to get a mountain laurel bush for the back yard. When we lived in Virginia the mountain laurels were so beautiful and I've always wanted one. By the time I was finished at Lowe's I was already hot and sweaty and ready to go home, but I went ahead and pressed on. Instead of my usual rambling around and looking at everything, I homed in on my objective which took a few minutes to find because they'd moved since the last time I was there. I spent a few minutes agonizing over whether to get the light pink ones, pink ones with some white on the flower, or the one I ultimately got, Minuet, which had red rims with white centers. Carrying my prize, I went on to the front office to pick out my tulip bulbs and to pay. I got several different kinds of tulips, in red and yellow which are the colors that Maw asked for.

So now the plants are at home and in my garage, waiting patiently for me to get them put out. I'm giving it an hour or two more to cool off and then I'm going out to plant my new babies. I think this is the last purchase of the year, because I'm about planted out. So now it'll be time to get everything prepped for winter and start making big plans for next year.

Whodathunkit

I've had elephant ears at various points in my life, with varying degrees of success. They have neat foliage, but that was the extent of interesting features in the plant for me. This spring I found some elephant ears with black stems, which add further architectural interest. As the summer progressed, I noticed that there were yellowish leaves on the plant, and was thinking that it might not be doing so good. So I went over to take a look at them, and imagine my surprise when I figured out that they were flowers. Not pretty fragrant flowers, but flowers nontheless. In fact they reminded me somewhat of birds of paradise. So this has been the first surprise of the growing season for me.

Everything else is doing pretty good. I'm going to have to relocate some of the other plants that have gotten too big for their neighbors, but that's to the good since I still have some bare spots on the front of the house. I think we're going to do one last trip to the nursery tomorrow and get some tulip bulbs, get everything set out and transplanted and then call it a growing season.

Bamalama Red Beans

Since D. is out of the country I'm flying solo right now. I haven't been eating that well lately, for various reasons and am trying to get back on track with healthier eating. So tonight when I got home from work I was thinking about having some black beans and rice. Since I got kidney stones most likely from a calcium supplement, I am trying to get more calcium naturally. I was out of black beans so I made it with kidney beans (how appropriate)! It was time to clean out the refrigerator crisper and so I threw most of what I had into the pot. Since I made salsa a few days ago, I decided a more Caribbean themed dish would be good. Here's what I came up with:

Bamalama Red Beans

1 Tbs. olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 (14.5 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14.5 oz) can tomatoes with jalapenos (or you could use Rotel)
1 c. water
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. smoked spanish paprika
Salt & pepper to taste
1/2 c. thinly sliced green onions
About 1 Tbs. or so of minced fresh cilantro
Juice of 1 lemon
Brown Sugar to taste (depends on the acidity level)

Heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and celery, saute until onion begins to brown. Add beans through salt and pepper and stir well to combine. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer around 10-15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.

This turned out pretty spicy, but really flavorful. Instead of mixing it with the usual rice I made some quinoa to go with it.

Ave Maria

We had some guests in visiting this weekend and had a really great time. It was the first weekend I've felt like doing much in a while. We went to see the Ave Maria Grotto at the St. Bernard's Abbey which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It was an absolutely amazing place, I could have spent a lot more time there than what we did, but it was starting to get pretty hot outside. The grotto is a collection of miniature buildings that were made by one of the brothers at the monastery. There are 155 of them total and he made them from found objects. The buildings are located in a scenic wooded park that is very relaxing to walk through. It'll definately be a new stop for visitors who come to see us.

We went to see the Space & Rocket center and enjoyed that also. I'm not that into crowded places, but they did have some very interesting things to see. They had the OCC's Liberty Bike on tour there and set up which was something to see. They have a pretty good assortment of different spacecraft there, and also artifacts from the space program. We rushed the outside tour part, because it was starting to storm and we didn't really want to be standing out beside a giant rocket when it got struck by lightening. Our guests went home on Sunday and we spent the rest of the day relaxing. D.'s grandmother died last Wednesday and he is going home for the funeral so we went out shopping on Monday for clothes for him to wear. It was a pretty eventful weekend so it's nice to be back to work so that I can rest. :)