T Stands for Tuesday

 Hi Everyone, Happy T 

   We are in for many days in a row of mid to high 90's F here at the lake for the next two weeks or more.  We have been enjoying lovely cooler weather with a little rain thrown in so this will be a shock to the plants for sure-and me too haha  I am not all that thrilled with weather this hot and for many days in a row.

 We did enjoy our Wisconsin friends Rob and Rich for a few days last week. Good eats, they caught lots of fish to take home with them, and nice for us to have visitors for awhile. (more in a previous post)

 I have a handful of slow mail friends that I really enjoy writing to, and look forward to receiving mail as well-it's always a surprise to see a letter in my mail box and makes me happy. This past week I received art along with their letters.

 From Iris in Germany a lovely drawing and Henry

I love these stamps

and from one of my Debra slow mail friends (I have three Deb, Debra, Debbie friends) I received another beautiful painting and she sent me a 40th wedding anniversary card too. Thank you so much to the both of you-hugs

For my drink share this week I bought a new tea. It is one of Oliver Pluff & Co's cold brew teas made with lemongrass, dried lemon and orange peels, and rose hips. Since I bought a lemongrass plant thought I could dry some of the leaves and then buy the rest of the ingredients. It was cheaper at this point to buy the tea and it also came with a large tea strainer.

I wanted to just make a quart but I didn't have a container wide enough for the tea ball-then I remembered I had this lovely small vintage crystal pitcher that I received as a wedding gift from my cousin Ray all those years ago-perfect.

   I needed to empty the tin to find the tea ball

 This was a nice refreshing tea, next time I will let it brew a bit longer-I needed the frig space at the time. I do really like this tea company they have mostly historical tea blends and I love the packaging too

   Lake photos

We enjoyed watching this man and his dog fishing one early morning

Heavy fog early Saturday Morning

About an hour later as the sun came up and allot of the fog lifted

The lake was crazy busy most of Saturday-there is a boat parade going on trying to break a Guinness world record, and other activities Sunday morning revealed they fell short again but didn't say how much-afterward there was also a dog jumping event more here

I started drying bee balm for teas I have lots of flowers now so harvested more over the weekend

  I also tried out this wine one evening,  The wine was on sale from the local small grocery store nearby I always enjoy a glass of merlot once in awhile

  

Happy T and new week

T Day Stands for Long Weekend-Boats and Good Eats

   Tuesday came quick this week with Monday being Memorial Day here in the States. We share our beverage in our post and gather for T over at Bluebeard and Elizabeths-find link in side bar.

   Friday and Saturday here was cold and very stormy. I am thinking those opening up their lake homes for the summer were not too happy, or those coming up for the long weekend. This was a very unusual cold Memorial Day weekend for this area of the country.

   Sunday mid day the sun finally came out, still in the mid 60's F though, but Wow did the boats all come out-as we knew from last year they would. All sizes, race boats, pontoons, fishing boats, huge ocean boats and cabin cruisers of all sizes, the personal water crafts-it was all on the lake all day Sunday and quite a few braved the cold late afternoon Saturday. Today Monday most had to go back home if they were working so the lake was more normal-the weather warmer, perfect for sitting on the deck enjoying the views with less boat noise. Safer too for swimming and fishing off the dock.

  I invited just a few people that had helped Larry with the dock project over for foods today (Monday Memorial Day) and fishing or swimming if they chose to, and they brought their families.

  I roasted a 10 pound Boston Butt pork roast on Saturday-and then when cool shred it all-that was allot of work-much more so than a beef roast would take-took me over 3 hours. So I was tired for sure.

   This morning I added it all to the crock pot, added beef stock to keep it moist and lots of pepperoncini peppers. I made sloppy joes from scratch just getting spice ideas from a couple different recipes-turned out really delicious. I made a pot of beans of different types, added  little of this and that-let cook slow on the stove for over 6 hours to cook off the liquid-that turned out really good too. This morning I also made gluten free brownies, cleaned house, washed and dried all the throw rugs-by the time our meal at 2 pm I was tired lol.

   The kids brought a change of clothes so they could swim in the water after we ate. One lady brought her fishing pole-she is a really good fisher-woman and came away with a big stringer full of croppies-she fished off the dock while the kids were swimming. Found she was a life guard in her younger days so the kids felt more safe.

   Saturday morning early when it was really cold and windy our friend and his Father (father drove up from Colorado) came up to to see us and go fishing. It was too rough to take the boat out so they fished off the dock. This is our friend's catch along with his father's catch--Good Eats It was really really cold and windy Larry only stayed out with them for about an hour.

We saw the pirate ship go by today, and this is something new-an ice cream boat

  This morning's bake-Gluten Free brownies cooling

The peppers and shredded pork just going into the crock pot early this morning

The beans cooking slow-these ended up nice and thick-and delicious

Sloppy Joes simmering early this morning-this got really thick too

I was pleased that the foods were all a big hit. I grilled the mini (for sliders) buns, and had slices of provolone cheese to add to the sandwiches. I even found really nice gluten free buns for me from Udi foods-they make good gluten free breads.

The pirate ship going by-

Girls swimming

One young girl was leery of jumping off the diving board, so she jumped off the dock-here father taking photos  Her friend did have fun jumping off the diving board.

One can enlarge the videos to full screen-then press esc on your keyboard to return

 A video of one of the smaller ocean boats we watched go by us this weekend

I took a couple videos-sorry not the best of videos but you can see some of the boats-these were taken just before it got really busy on Sunday 

This video shows a wave boat-which I had never heard of before last year. It makes waves so someone behind the boat can surf-or learn how to surf.  I does make allot of waves too.

I totally forgot to take photos, but after we ate, I made us adults fresh mango margaritas-sooo- good and perfect to end the day and weekend.

  I did grab a photo of this beverage that I finished drinking on the deck Thursday-I picked it up at the grocery store while shopping for foods for this weekend. This was a new to me beverage-the flavoring was up on top-after taking the cap off-you push down in the middle which releases all the flavors into the sparkling water-was pretty good

and I spotted this guy on our brick walkway in front of the house

Happy T and new week everyone