Oh. my. goodness. And I do mean goodness. I don’t think we’ve ever tasted anything quite as good as these Key Lime Bars.
Quick! Follow the link, get the recipe, run (don’t walk) to the grocery for the ingredients, make them, eat them.

Be warned—they are extremely addictive.

Such sweet joy.

As promised, here is the video of Patches and the cubs. It would have been even better if I had actually had the camera recording when I thought I did. I’ve got to learn how to use that thing properly! You can see one of the little cubs has a white patch on its chest just like its mother!

or you can watch in on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koihAdkTkws

or the best quality link with a fast connection:
http://gallery.me.com/bmtndog/100210

I took this photo yesterday afternoon during yet another thunderstorm with heavy rain. I liked the reflection of my dining room light projected into the darkness outside.

Things have been strange this week. Lots of passings. Poor Farrah. She had the bad luck to die on the same day as Michael Jackson. Her death was totally over shadowed by that dark man. And by dark I am not referring to his color but to what a tortured soul he was. He was brilliant once upon a time. Maybe too much so. Everybody remembers what they were doing in life when Thriller came out. We were living in Germany at the time and whenever I hear songs from that album it takes me back there. Good times. Good memories. Where were you?

It was a strange day yesterday with a mix of clouds, sun, and of course, rain. Only two days this month have not registered any kind of precipitation at all. It’s been one of the wettest Junes on record. We have lots of mushrooms popping up in the yard and I even picked some fresh puffballs to contemplate eating. But, we aren’t completely sure of that even though we know they are edible. They smell wonderful and when cut in half have a creamy looking texture to them. Still thinking.

I mowed around this one the other day so I could take a photo of it. Not eating this one, but I think it’s pretty awesome!

The pool is warming up. Finally! The night before last we took our first skinny-dip. It was heaven. The pool temperature was up to 76 degrees. Still a little chilly but it felt great. We hope to get in some pool time over the weekend in-between the predicted afternoon thunderstorms. Hopefully some grilling can take place on the deck too. We still need to plan out our menus. I don’t want to get too carried away with planning because we are going to the Warwick farmer’s market tomorrow and will hopefully find some nice fresh peas. We did get peas from our CSA but they are too little to actually shell and must be eaten like snap peas.

We have used up everything in our produce box except for the peas. The romaine lettuce went into a wonderful Caesar salad. The recipe can be found here. The dressing was awesome and the homemade croutons are a definite must-do. I forgot to take a photo ... oops. We added leftover chicken for protein. (Leftover chicken from oven “fried” chicken the previous night.) We’ll be making this recipe again!

Last night we used the bunch of spinach in a delicious Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing. Just click for the recipe. This recipe we saw on Good Eats on the Food Network (Alton Brown). And, I did remember to take a photo before devouring it.

The day lilies have started to bloom. I just love it when they are blooming and the dragonflies do too! I took these photos yesterday after a little rain shower.

I love how the stamens look like an orange forest; the anthers covered in pollen, just waiting.

I know this is a strange mix of topics for a blog post, but it’s just what is on my mind this morning. I could show you a photo of how I’m coming on my embroidery but I think I’ve finally run out of steam for today.

I hope you’re not tired of seeing bear photos just yet. I do have to record them here on the blog when they come around.

Yesterday afternoon I tossed out some stale snack food, chips, and crackers that I had crumbled up for the squirrels. (My way of recycling!) I was typing away here in the office and the dogs were in here with me. I turned around to look out the window and there was Momma and the three cubs! The dogs had not seen her yet, and since the air conditioning was on (hurray!) the windows were closed. The cubs have grown since I first saw them two weeks ago and it’s hard to tell which one was the little one now. They settled in for a good snack.

hmm ... what’s that? ... oh look ... i found something interesting ...

a peanut! yum!

now just how did i find myself in this ridiculous position? is that my hind foot or my front foot?

Feeling comfy and just hanging out in this nice lady’s yard underneath this nice big tree.

I kept this photo in because it shows how large her leg and paw are! yikes.

Pretty soon the cubs got tired of munching and headed up the big oak tree. They settled themselves on branches high up in the tree (level with the top of my house’s roof) and fell sound asleep. I felt like I was hosting an afternoon sleep-over party! Momma Bear stayed below and patiently waited.

I went outside with the video camera and my digital camera to try and get some shots. I was pretty close to Momma Bear but on the opposite side of the fence from her. I took my time and gauged her reaction to my being so close. She looked up at me and made eye contact a few times but never budged. When we get the video put together I’ll be posting it here on the blog in the next few days or so.

I tried to get photos of the cubs in the tree but the branches were in the way. One cub literally hung himself on the branch with all his legs dangling down leaving only his body for balance. Sound asleep!

This one has its head propped up on the branch using it like a pillow while his two front legs hang off on either side.

When I took the photo above I didn’t realize that two cubs were cuddled up together.  Can you see them both in this photo? The lighting conditions were not ideal since the sun was behind them.

They slept for about 45 minutes, sweet as can be. Finally one cub came down first and Bella’s barking finally got to Momma. She started off with the one cub. A second cub came down the tree so fast it was unbelievable and dropped from about 12 feet up to catch up with Mom. I heard the little cub that was left alone in the tree start crying as it came ever so slowly down. (Maybe it’s tree climbing skills aren’t quite as developed as its siblings.) Such a pathetic mewling noise! Momma immediately turned around and came back to the bottom of the tree to wait for it. Once the family was fully reunited, off they went.

Keep watching for the video to be posted!

Yesterday was the first distribution day for our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Above is what was in our box: a beautiful big head of romaine lettuce, a large bunch of spinach, a few garlic scapes, and the first of the peas.

CSAs are a great way to enjoy fresh, local, seasonal food directly from the farmer. “Shares” are purchased like a yearly subscription and each week throughout the growing season you receive a box of fresh produce. Each week the produce can change depending on what is being grown and ready for harvest that week. Think of it like a surprise package! Typically the boxes are small at the beginning of the season, but as summer gets into full swing your box may be overflowing.

This is the first year for our CSA; Bear Swamp Farm. Pedro is the farmer and he grows everything organically. This is turning out to be a challenging year for him with all the wet, rainy weather we’ve had. When I picked out my box yesterday and hefted that huge and beautiful head of romaine lettuce in my hand I looked at him and said “You grew this???” He grinned and proudly said “Yes, I did.” He told me how to use the garlic scapes (just use them as you would normal garlic) and we chatted a bit about how the peas were now going to take off with the warmer weather to come next week. He said to expect some different lettuces next week. How fun!

Our town of West Milford finally got its very own farmer’s market and last Wednesday was the first day. They had a really good turn-out and sold out of things very quickly. It’s a small market with not many vendors and some things were a bit pricey as farmer’s markets can tend to be. It’s not on the caliber of the Warwick market but at least it’s a start.

My favorite vendor, Pie-Eyed, had a big crowd in front of his booth. Mostly because he was cooking pizzas and giving away lots of free samples of their fresh mozzarella rolls, pizza, stuffed chicken dishes, etc. I bought a pizza which I think we’ll have tonight and a roll of fresh mozzarella stuffed with proscuitto and roasted red pepper. Okay, not exactly fresh farmer’s market produce, but fun.

Rick and I thought it would be fun to share what we get in our box each week and what we do with it. I made a caesar salad with the romaine last night and I’ll be passing that recipe on in another post. I think it will be fun to come up with different ways to use our weekly share of a farm! We haven’t decided yet whether Rick will write those posts over on his site, or if I will here on my blog, but if he ends up writing them I will add a link to his post.