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Saturday, July 7, 2012

June Happenings and Wise Words To Live By and a Recipe

Wow can you believe that June is over and we already a week into July?  We had a busy June, Emily turned 19 on the 6/14, and Amber was 26 on the 6/26.  We had a family reunion in mid June with Dave's, mother's side of the family, and last Saturday we had a family/friends party at our house.
Indiana is in a drought, our part of the state is now classified as  "extreme drought".  We did get a little rain on June 30, but not in a way that we wanted, the storm blew in with 90 mile an hour winds and did a huge amount of damage throughout our county and left 118,000 customers without electricity.  Amber was over at our house visiting with our three grandsons, and Dave was at home. We sat in the family room and watched the storm clouds roll in, the sky got darker and darker and almost had a greenish color to it, and then an extremely strong wind hit the house, we all leaped up, grabbed a child and rushed to the basement, we were no sooner down the stairs when the power went out.  As our basement is a walkout we were able to watch the storm, the neighbors wooden swing set toppled, a bale of straw picked up and blew across their yard, branches ripped out of the tree by our barn, the rain came down horizontally and thunder and lightning were non-stop.  Once the weather calmed down a bit I went upstairs to look out out front of our property, I was saddened to see that one of our huge pine trees at the end of the driveway had snapped in half.  We were very thankful that our house was not damaged and we were all okay.
Once the storm rolled through the temperatures started to heat up, and for the past week we have had highs in the very upper nineties and low hundreds, it is extremely hot.  We were without power for about 78 hours,   we were hooked up early, there are still about 800 people without power and they are now in their eighth day.  Most people were without power for five days.  On Thursday evening another violent storm rolled through and knocked out power to almost 30,000 customers, the linemen have really had their work cut out for them.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, we celebrated two birthdays this month. Emily turned 19, she wanted chocolate chip cheesecake for her birthday cake and hamburgers, asparagus, and hollandaise sauce for dinner.  Amber turned 26, she wanted strawberry cake and mexican food.  We had a fun time celebrating both birthdays.  On June 30 we had a big family/friends party at our house, our son Matt, and son-in-love Brad grilled chicken for everyone, they did an awesome job as everyone raved about the chicken.  I fixed 10lbs of potato salad, baked beans, veggies and dip, layer salad, coleslaw, creamy cucumber salad, a large pan of banana pudding, a yellow cake with chocolate frosting and monster cookies, we had plenty to eat and not a whole lot left over so we guesstimated about right.  We did not have power, thankfully I had baked the cake and cookies before the power went off.  I was able to prepare the rest of the food and am always glad for my gas stove when the power goes out.  Without power we have no running water, so we had to buy water for cooking and drinking, and haul large buckets of water from our son Matt's house. Thankfully we have a generator so we were able to keep our freezers and refrigerator running along with a couple of other things, everyone was understanding of the situation and enjoyed the party.
On July 4 the temperature was around 100, no one wanted to go outside. Dave slow cooked short ribs on the grill, they were mighty fine and took 3 hours to cook to perfection and about 10 minutes to consume :).  Because of the drought there is a burn ban in place and a firework ban, Fort Wayne had their annual display but most communities opted to not do a firework display this year.  Of course it would not be July 4th if someone didn't find the Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV, broadcast live from Coney Island.  I must say it is a most revolting event, in fact I was getting so grossed out I couldn't watch. The winner was Joey Chestnut who managed to consume and astounding 68 hotdogs in 10 minutes, YIKES!
Can you believe that our newest grandson Charlie will be six weeks old tomorrow. He has filled out so nicely and is such a well behaved, contented little fellow, he is starting to smile :)
Last week I was in a local Amish store picking up some sewing notions and I noticed a coloring book picture hanging on the wall behind the counter.  The picture was carefully colored and hung with pride and had an excellent message, "A Hard Job is Many Easy Jobs Left Undone", how true is that.  I think they are  words to live by, and as we know it usually does not pay to procrastinate.
Today I made bologna salad, something I make a few times a year, grandson Henry had fun turning the crank on the meat grinder and stuck with it to grind 2lbs of bologna.
Bologna Salad
2lbs of bologna (ground)
4 hard boiled eggs (chopped)
2 T pickle relish
Mayonnaise to combine

Directions:
Grind the bologna, stir in the chopped boiled eggs and pickle relish, then add mayonnaise and stir until everything is blended.  Makes very nice sandwiches, store in the refrigerator.

Emily with the chocolate chip cheesecake


Amber with the strawberry cake

Branches down by the barn

Our poor pine tree

The top half of the tree lying in the road.

One of gardens, notice everything is leaning eastward after  the wind

Henry the master of the meat grinder.

9 comments:

Simple Pleasures said...

Hi Bean,
I just recently found your blog and have been having fun going back and reading posts. I am your newest follower. I hope you will stop by mine and do the same. I live in Illinois and visit Indiana often, I love it! Hope to get to know you better.
xoxo

Bean said...

Thank you for stopping by Michelle, and glad that you found my blog. I checked out your blog and was impressed with the things you make, they look really professional.

Blessings to you,
Bean

Lynda said...

Hi Bean - we have been hearing about the extremes in your whether in the US. I'm glad you and the family have been kept safe.

Nice that you could enjoy your family celebrations :o) xx

Pete said...

Hi Bean,
The drought sounds pretty serious - hope we see some rain soon. June isn't your BIG birthday month is it? I thought August was the time with a birthday every few days.
Sorry about your storm damage but, as you said, it could have been very much more serious. Get the temperatures under control before we get back if you can ;o)

Bean said...

Hi Lynda nice to see you in blogland.

Hi Dad,
Woke up this morning to a pleasant 73, today we are only going to have a high of 89, quite an improvement from this past week. Unfortunately there is no rain in the foreseeable future. The state will be sending letters this week asking factories and businesses to reduce their water usage by 5 - 10%, at this time there are no restrictions on home owners, but probably will be by August.
Bean

Bean said...

Oh and yes you are correct August is crazy with birthdays, Dave and Ben on the 8th, Brad the 14th, Henry the 26th, then Mom the 27th!!

Emily said...

Grandpa, the radio said today that we have set a record with 22 days straight that we temperature hit 90 degrees or above, it didn't get so hot today but you guys should be ready, its HOT!

Rebecca said...

I'm SO glad you comment on my blog! I live in Harlan! I would enjoy meeting you...maybe at Grabill Country Sales behind Save-A-Lot? We could enjoy a cup of coffee (or something) while we chat. My cell phone # is four three eight twenty-three sixty-seven if you're ever available.

We survived the storm you described here....and were able to assist several of our friends and neighbors who needed meals, showers, pick-up, etc.

We did get rain yesterday - I heard in the Fort Wayne area we had more rain in the last week than in the previous 108 days!

Bean said...

I would love to meet for coffee. I will give you a call in next day or two.

Blessings to you,

Bean