Visiting Chefs at Aunt Sarah's Cafe

For Father's Day this year I decided to try something different. My neice and nephew and my daughter cooked all day for our Father's Day dinner. I helped them but mostly they did all the work. They picked cherry tomatoes in the garden and roasted them for 3 hours and made a wonderful sauce to pour over cream cheese and that made a wonderful appetizer.
The sweetest kids EVER.
They set the table and made place cards.
They got the drinks ready.
They made the salad, and the bread, and and baked the potatoes and in between jobs they went swimming. That explains why these chefs work in wet bathing suits.
We celebrated with my dad, my brother and my husband - all wonderful fathers. The steaks were prepared by my husband since it didn't seem like a good idea for the kids to cook those. When it was over we had cheese cake with fresh strawberries prepared by the visiting chefs. Then the chefs became kitchen help and washed all the dishes. They never complained once. They had a great time and felt such a sense of pride at what they had accomplished.

Trees, Turf, and Tomatoes

When I started the Texas Master Gardener program last January one of the first speakers we had said, "The majority of questions Master Gardeners get are on, what I call, 'the three Ts' - turf, trees, and tomatoes. That's what Texans care about the most when it comes to growing things." Boy, was she right!! Texans love a good shade tree, a beautiful green lawn, and home grown tomatoes in the summer. Last, year I barely made any tomatoes. The soil was wrong and I most likely had an odd variety of tomatoes that don't do well in our Texas heat. This year I was determined to get it right. I composted for months to get a rich soil for growing vegetables, and I read all I could and asked a lot of questions in class. The picture above was taken several weeks after I planted my tomatoes. I planted about February 15, babied them through some very cold nights, and took their frost blankets off on warm days.
This is how they looked about June 15. They had grown to way over my head. Many of the branches were so heavy with tomatoes they were breaking or resting on the ground. Because of the huge success I had with the tomatoes this year, I am already looking into a support system for them to grown on next year.
I am very pleased with my tomatoes this year. I had more than I knew what to do with.
After eating sliced tomatoes became a little old, I had to learn how to do other things with tomatoes.
I learned to roast tomatoes. My family LOVES these!! They are so easy to make.
These are the roasted tomatoes poured hot over Philly cream cheese. Incredible!!
These are fried green tomatoes and Videlia onion dip. Fantastic!!
Another favorite is tomato and cheese sandwiches. Very good!!

I hope you are enjoying locally grown vegetables, too!!

A visitor that I don't want to have for dinner.

I just hope that this sweet bunny...

doesn't want to

eat this

or this

or this

or this

or this

because I would not be happy.

If I could teach my daughters one thing....

I used to love to shop. Don't get me wrong - I still love shopping but it's just not nearly as big a deal as it used to be. After I had children and as I have gotten older, I have found that finding a really good deal or something marked 80%off (which happened just last week) is really what thrills me to no end. What I have learned is that I really love giving away more than purchasing something for myself. I am not sure what changed or exactly what happened in my life or when I found that I felt better when I gave away than when I added to my own stack of stuff. Giving away makes my heart sing and my soul soar. My life has a feeling of completeness that I don't get from anything else when I am doing something for others rather than something for myself. If I could teach my daughters one thing it would be: buying stuff or things for the thrill of buying will never make you feel good for long - the only way you will feel 'filled up' is by doing something for others. Doing something for others will fill your soul in a way that no dress or shoes or purse can.

My mother passed away a few years ago and on her birthday this past March I decided to do something a little different. Rather than sit at home and be sad I decided to go out and give away some gift cards to strangers that I felt would appreciate a random gift of kindness. It was a day I will never forget and I felt that my mom would have been proud of the choices I made. I know that my mom lives through me and I hope that I am a reflection and reminder of the wonderful woman she was.
My daughter decided that for her birthday she wanted to do something similar. She came up with 14 Random Acts of Kindness Celebrating Caroline's 14th Birthday. We thought it over and made a list of random acts of kindness that wouldn't be too hard to do on a Satuday afternoon.
First, she had her guests watch this video.
Then we got busy.
All the girls got these tshirts as gifts and we loaded the cars and headed out. Caroline and her friends left coins and laundry detergent at the laundromat for people that came in to wash their clothes.

Gift cards were handed out to people in Starbucks and Barnes and Noble. Deciding to whom the gift cards should go was sometimes a hard decision.
This sweet girl received a gift card. A few minutes later she handed Caroline a birthday card she had just bought with the gift card in it as a birthday gift. She had written a sweet note about kindness. Caroline and her friends then passed the same gift card on to someone else. The girls talked a lot about how kind people are and how kindnesses and spirit of generosity should be passed forward to someone else.
Target customers got gift cards too.
The Fort Worth Fire Department got a big sack of cookies and in return they got to tour the fire station. They left notes on 10 Fort Worth police cars that said, 'thank you so much for your hard work and keeping our city safe'.
Cooks Children's Hospital received a big sack of coloring books and crayons and playing cards for the children waiting in the emergency room and for siblings of the sick children.

The more we give of self the richer we become in soul.

The more we go beyond ourselves in love the more we become our true selves

and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed.

Bishop of London

4-29-11

at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

Priceless.

Master Gardener Class : $200
Gardening Tools: $70


Seeing your yard finally start to look good: Priceless

15 things to know about Falling Leaf Cottage.

1. Things have been planted little by little. The goal this year is NO MISTAKES. In the past we have planed things we were drawn to in the garden center with out much thought about perennial or annual or shade or sun.
2. This year only perennials are being planted because annuals are expensive when you live on and acre. It's also really hard work planting all new plants each spring.
3. Foxglove
4. A sweet master gardener wanted to share some of her ivy that she cut out of her yard. Pass along plants are so nice.
5. In the vegetable garden things look much different than they looked last year at this time.
6. The tomatoes have gone crazy. Hopefully we will have lots to eat and share.

7. Sweet peppers are on the vine.
8. The lavender is growing in the mint bed. The mint has taken over one of the beds but that just means lots of mint for iced tea this spring and summer.
9. Hopefully the cilantro will keep doing well. I recently heard someone say they had never had luck with cilantro. I am hoping for lots of salsa and pico de gallo.
10. Last year the basil grew and grew and grew. I am hoping for the same luck this year because I love making fresh pesto. It is delicious!
11. I had no intention of growing pumpkins this year but the pumpkin seeds in the compost had another idea. After pulling up about 100 seedlings I decided to let this one grow. If I have good pollinators this year (bees) we should have pumpkins in about 90 days.
12. Tomatoes have been on the vine since about April 1. Because of the last odd bit of cold weather these plants had to have frost blankets for a long time after March 15 (average last frost date).

13. Master Gardener classes are over and I have finished the test (very difficult even though it is a take home open book test). It took me about 2 full days to finish. Now my volunteer work begins. I am looking forward to working in the the great gardens that I have chosen to fulfill my required hours.

14. Little projects continue around the house - inside and out. The washer and dryer have been moved to a much better spot and that means I have a real office now. Pictures are coming soon. A great rug was ordered from Turkey and in usual fashion it got here in 2 days and was super inexpensive. Buying directly from the rug market of the world is the ONLY way to go. I also found a wonderful seamstress on the website Etsy. Etsy is much like Ebay but it is mostly homemade goods. A sweet girl in North Carolina makes curtains out of her home and my new office curtains are just darling and SO well made.

15. I've been super busy. Where do the days go?