The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Blueberries in the Morning

Autumn Colors

Cloudy Day Baking

The original title to this post was going to be “Rainy Day Baking” except that it hardly rained at all today, and I didn’t want to be inaccurate.

I made four loaves of white bread this morning.  I haven’t done any bread baking all summer – it’s been too hot and humid for me to want to, and we’ve been rather busy as well, so time was limited.

Anyway, here are the rest pictures I took along the way….

Just Some Pictures

Crescent Moon and Branches

Scratchy of the Morning

Shoveling Nemo

I think “Nemo” is a ridiculous name for a blizzard. 

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Now I can continue.

New Mom

I’ve probably posted this before, but I haven’t seen the picture in ages.  I was cleaning and reorganizing today, and just now came across this picture of me with a very little Alex.

It’s one of the few pictures of me that I like.  Bill took the picture with my old film camera.

Wow.  Almost ten and a half years ago.

Time.  The part about it flying. 

Yep.

Scratchy on His Red Chair

We have this red chair in the living room.

Scratchy believes it’s his.

It’s got lots of white cat hairs on it.  Evidence that Scratchy spends a good deal of his down time curled up and shedding there.

Unwavering Peaks

I did a lot of baking yesterday, plus other baking-related stuff.  Haven’t done that in a long time – a full day’s worth of just playing in the kitchen.

I’m hoping to post about some of it later today, but in the meantime, just wanted to share this little bit with you.

Still Life with Softie

“See?  I can pose with vegetables just as well as that slacker brother of mine can.  And I’ve got pumpkins!  Take my picture!”

Feline sibling rivalry.  It’s exhausting.

Citrus

I was making a marmalade the other day…

Surprises in the Backyard

It’s starting to look like Autumn. 

More Pictures and Little Text

First – a minor tragedy.  Bill had noticed that one of the smaller galeux felt kind of lighter weight and hollow, so we cut it open.  Half the innards were liquid.  We figure one of the EVIL squash vine borers dug his grubby little way in and had a feast.  Bill hacked this pumpkin to bits with a hatchet but couldn’t find the grub. 

We found a grub just under the surface in another of the galeux.  I let out a little shriek of disgust and Bill fed the grub to our lizard, who gobbled it up in a split second.  She prefers the creamy filling of grubs to the crunch of crickets. I know.  Ick.  The rest of the pumpkin was fine, so after trimming away any part the icky grub had come in contact with, I roasted the rest of it.

That’s it for the sad pictures, though.  The rest of the pictures are of a happier nature.

Painted Lady

Moth

After today’s rain Bill and I went outside and took a look around the jungle garden.  I took the usual pictures of vegetables and water droplets on leaves, and then, while prowling through the Squash Forest, I saw this little guy. 

He didn’t mind at all as I moved the camera closer and closer.  I took several pictures, and then left him to finish drying off.

Becoming a Man

Alex and Bill went skipjack fishing the other day.  They brought home 12 nice-sized fish. 

Alex has become a good little fisherman.  Bill said he waded out up to his chest (Alex did) to be able to cast into the school of fish as they moved farther away from shore. 

When they returned home, Bill gave Alex a lesson in filleting a fish.

Just before the lesson, Alex said, with a bit of a swagger, “Yep, I’m a man now.”

When he says things like that, I have to chase him around the house for a bit.  Man or no, he’s a very ticklish little boy.  Reminding him of that is my job.

Anyway, I was going to share all the pictures I took during the fillet lesson…but I like the one above the best, and I think it says everything that needs saying.

Pink Hair

We have corn!  And it’s got pink hair!

We were walking around the garden yesterday morning, as we are wont to do of a morning, and suddenly my eyes were distracted from all the lush greenness by this curly pink stuff on one of the corn stalks!  I actually screeched something like “LOOK! LOOK!” at Bill, before carefully placing my coffee mug on home plate and racing inside for my camera.  You know, in case the baby ear of corn hopped off the stalk and ran away.

A Bunch of Close Up Pictures Because I Can Finally Again

A while back the camera doctors told me, regretfully, that the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my Canon Rebel XT had gone to that great darkroom in the sky.

Okay, they didn’t say that.  It would have sounded really odd coming from them, or pretty much anyone.

They just told me the lens aperture wasn’t reading right any more and that’s why the camera kept not working, and that rather than spend the money to fix it, I’d be better off replacing it with something better.

Yippee!  A reason to shop for a Newer! Better! Lens!

Garden Pictures from This Morning

Most mornings when I’m not working really early Bill and I take our coffee and walk around the yard looking at the gardens.  It’s my favorite part of the day.  Here’s some of what we looked at this morning.

First up – tomatillos!  Yay!  It’ll be a while before the fruit is big enough to pick – you can’t even feel them inside their papery lantern-like cocoons, but just seeing them makes me happy. 

Recent Pictures

This is from one night when I was flying around in my space ship….

Sports Photographer

Julia’s gymnastics end of the year demonstration was the other night. 

Of course there are pictures.

Sports Photographer

Julia’s gymnastics end of the year demonstration was the other night. 

Of course there are pictures.

Hurler

My little boy on the mound at a recent game.

Alex is home sick today, so I figured I’d write about him….

Just Some Pictures

Outdoors and Indoors

Spinach that lived through the winter (such as it was) and started growing again a couple of weeks ago.  I harvested those leaves last week, and we’re nearly up to another salad’s worth.

As Different As

I’ve got this slipcover thing on the loveseat in our living room, but it’s one of those that’s supposed to fight great but never stays put.  And, of course, no one ever rearranges it when they get up, so it’s constantly pulled forward and forward, until it’s like this, barely covering anything. 

The cats don’t help – they like to scoot in between the cover and the couch and creep along, waiting for unsuspecting feet and ankles.

Yesterday afternoon the sun was streaming in the front window and Softie was snuggled in the slipcover, toasty warm in the sun’s glow.

I got my camera.

Slugger

Yesterday was a weird day for me.  There’s a lot going on and I’m not writing about it, but suffice to say I feel stressed a good portion of my waking hours, and I don’t sleep, so there are more waking hours than I’d like.  Most of the stress is of the worry variety, one way or another, though there is, finally, some good stress in there too.  I’ll explain some of this eventually, maybe.

Anyway, late afternoon Bill took the kids to City Park for a little baseball practice.  The season is starting next month for Alex, and he’s got tryouts coming up.  The league he belongs to has all the kids his age tryout so it can be determined whether or not the are ready to progress to the Majors or need to stay in the Minors one more year.

About the Banner

March came in wildly this year.  Not so much like a lion, more like a polar bear.  We’ve had such a mild winter it was a bit of a shock to get hit with some ground-covering snow Tuesday night and into Wednesday.  Okay, I guess technically that was still February, but the snow stuck around all through yesterday and we got another dusting over night.  It’s melting today, and tomorrow we get rain, but still…never ever become complacent when it’s winter in New England.

That said, we’ve got seedlings coming up inside, particularly the butternut/futsu hybrid squash plants that Bill planted just to see if they were viable.  They certainly were – and continue to thrive.  Bill keeps saying “well, if they live we’ll plant them outside.” 

I think they’re living.

I took one of the plants out and set it on a windowsill so the snow out front would make the background for this tough little plant.

For the banner, I played around with contrast and brightness and saturation to bring out the green in the leaves and the purple in the snow.

And look – there, in the middle, where the stalk splits.

That looks like a blossom to me, with another one up to the left a bit.

A squash blossom.  At the end of February.

You grow, little squash plant!

Winter Has Arrived!

We got a couple of inches of light, powdery snow overnight. 

So pretty….

 

Self Portrait With Spotty Window

I wasn’t going to post this.

Then I thought maybe I’d wash the window and reshoot and post that.

But nah.

This is real life.

I only clean the windows above my sink every few days. 

I’m sure you’ll understand.

A Few Pictures

“These are my boxes, do you hear me?  MY boxes.  Please don’t put them in the fire!”

Camera Issues

There’s some annoying issue going on with my camera.  At first I thought it was a battery issue, but it’s still continuing.  So now I’m thinking it’s some other issue, and since I am not a camera repair pro, I think I need to have a professional look at it.

Trout Egg Pictures

A couple of weeks ago Bill and Alex went fishing and brought home a couple of trout.  One of them was female and full of eggs.

We saved them, and what I should have done was spend some quality time online looking up recipes for curing them, so I could make us some fresh caviar.

But I didn’t.  And I basically ruined them.

But before I did that, I took pictures….

Fall Back Frost

I got up when my clock read 7:08 and didn’t realize I’d forgotten to set my clock back until I powered up my computer and the time display begged to differ.

Ah well.  I’ve had enough sleep this past week that I don’t really care about missing my extra hour.  And as this is the first morning I’ve woken up and not felt achy or sick or nauseous, I’m happy to spend that extra hour awake and feeling like me again.

The frost outside helped, too.  So pretty…. 

October Wonderland

Snow?  How could there be snow?  It’s 62 degrees outside!

And has been for weeks….

Little Cat Feet

They were just there, practically begging to be photographed.

Jamestown, RI

Some pictures from this morning.

October in the Garden

A tomatillo husk.

Bill’s been closing down parts of our gardens in preparation for the colder weather.  He’s harvested the last tomatillos, the last peppers, the last eggplants…

Lemon

   

A Picture of Sliced Red (Purple) Onion

That’s it.

That’s all I’ve got at the moment. 

But aren’t the slices pretty?

Here’s a post from three years ago with more red onion pictures.

September’s Banner

I just put up a new banner for this month. 

Finally.

It went through several incarnations, but I knew I wanted to include images of yesterday’s harvest.

September is a big transition month, I think, garden-wise.  Lots of harvesting, lots of clearing out and preparing for the winter and the following spring.

One Morning

Bill and I were walking around the yard with our coffee, inspecting the plants and admiring the hard-working bees.  Bill was slightly ahead of me (because I was looking for things to take pictures of) and so he saw this first:

Cicada

This little guy (or gal) was on the railing the other day.  Just hanging out.

I took a bunch of pictures.

Of course.

Dragonfly

On my arm.

Bill and I were looking at a tomato plant in the front yard yesterday when this gorgeous little creature landed on my arm. 

I froze in place, hoping it would stay a while, and sent Bill into the house to get my camera.  Actually, what I said was “RUN IN THE HOUSE AND GET MY CAMERA!”  I can be rather bossy.  But only when the situation warrants. 

Close Ups in the Garden

For a change, I decided to use the 10x macro lens this morning.  I also used an “auto enhance” feature in my photo editing software.  I told myself I’d just hit the “auto enhance” button and whatever the software decided, that’s what I would post.  So here we go. 

I was going to tell you what everything is…but I changed my mind.  Any guesses?

Morning Light

These are pickling cucumber plants at the back of one of our raised beds. 

They were dazzling the other morning.

In a Flower Mood

Bill and I just took our morning perambulation around the gardens, and I brought my camera.  Maybe it’s because of this morning’s earlier brief post, but I felt like taking pictures of any flowers currently in bloom, both on vegetable plants and on plain ol’ flowering plants.

I also took a few shots of other things…dew drops…assorted bug life (and death)…bird poop.  But mostly flowers.

No more words now…just the pictures….

Giants Bowling in the Sky

Within minutes after I took this picture this afternoon, a HUGE crack of thunder interrupted the quiet bringing-in of the groceries for a moment.

Julia raced into the house, a fearful look on her face.

“I’m scared!” she announced.

Tendrils

Just took our morning walk around the gardens.

As you know, if you’ve read my blog a while, I love tendrils.  They fascinate me.  Little curling, grasping bits of green reaching out, looking for something solid to hang onto so the plant (in this case, pickling cucumber) can climb higher.

So I took a bunch of pictures.