August 19, 2018 Who says nothing is going on?

From the road, again. We have just gone to Maine for a week.

Any gardener knows about August. It can be a difficult time in the garden. It can be hot and dry. The high bloom of summer is over.This is just the time to throw out that attitude and appreciate how much beauty there can be even in August.

It seems like I had more energy early in the week. I went and found these pictures last Sunday.

The one night blooming cereus I have had for years inches towards blooming again.


After that one flower blooms, maybe Tuesday night, there will be about 7-8 more in another ten days or so.


Several cactus plants are also about ready to bloom

I looked at the other variety of night blooming cereus, the one that is smaller but more exquisite, to see if there were buds coming. Sure enough all three in the front yard under the walnut tree had buds. They were not more than maybe an inch long, at that. But buds they were. One plant had 3. I expect they will bloom in about two weeks.

The zinnias are attracting butterflies.

We are getting ready for a new arrival. I bought another dogwood on Saturday. It is to be delivered on Monday and planted not long after that. We got one last year in August, and it was great this year; healthy and growing in height not width like young trees sometimes do. I am filling the area where the very old pink crabapple trees are dying.
Here is the area where it is to go.

Some orchid or another has been blooming all summer it seems. Here were some blooming as I walked around this afternoon.


Monday
The tree arrived. That was certainly big news.



Near the place where the dogwood will live is hosta Earth Angel. It had one leaf that just seems like it wanted its picture taken.

We have this hydrangea. While it would like more sun, it still puts on a show. Here is the individual blooming end of the stem. I do not know what to call this group. I guess it is all the flowers, of different sizes and shapes.

The morning glories have 2 flowers. Can I remember to water them long enough for them to be covered with flowers? That is the real garden question of the month.

**********************
So that was Sunday and Monday. I just could not keep up the picture taking for the rest of the week.
We planted the tree Wednesday morning at 6:45. It rained almost two inches the rest of the morning. The tree stood straight and tall, right there in the hole.
Remarkably I could not find the energy to take its picture at that point.

Later in the week was mostly a blur, between work and getting ready to go to Maine.
But here were some pictures.

The night blooming cactus bloomed with one flower I think on Wednesday night. It was fully open by 10 pm, which was earlier than it had been the previous month. I think it just blooms about two hours after sunset, whenever sunset is. Sunset is earlier now than it was a month ago.

We flew off the Maine yesterday. We are already enjoying Christopher and his frog boots splashing his way through puddles.
We left behind about ten flowers on the night blooming cereus, that probably bloomed last night. I hope someone came by with a camera.
Here is the one flower from Wednesday.

Julia's recipe

Sausage and peppers

Sausage and peppers is a good late summer dish, when peppers are plentiful at the farmer's market and it's too hot to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I think this recipe, for which there is not really a recipe, also came to us from our old dear friend Wendy, who knew her way around a tasty and easy recipe.

Here are most of the players: peppers of various shapes and colors and sizes, an onion and some sausages. The sausages are the brownish things in the little bowl.

I started out by simmering 4 sausages (about 1 lb.) in some water for about 15 minutes. I drained them, saving about 1 cup of the liquid they cooked in.  Then I took off the casings (working under cool water) and popped the skinless cooked sausages into the little bowl to await further developments.

Next, I cleaned the peppers and sliced them into rounds or squares, depending on the shape they started out with. I ended up with about 4 cups of pepper pieces.

Then I cleaned and cut up the onion, in half through the root, then across into 4 thickish slices, then across the slices so that I had about 1 cup of thick quarter slices.

I poured 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a big skillet and warmed the oil a little (no need for smoking hot), then added the onions and peppers plus 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, 3/4 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1/2 teaspoon of dried basil.

I cooked this mixture gently over medium heat until the peppers and onions softened, maybe 5-7 minutes.

Then I sliced the sausages into rounds and added
the sausage pieces (about 2 cups) along with about 1/2 cup of white wine and about 1/2 cup of the sausage cooking water. I simmered the whole thing on medium-low heat until everything was warmed up and mixed together nicely.

While the sausage-pepper mixture was simmering, we heated up a pot of water and cooked some bow-tie pasta (aka farfalle). And here is the resulting dish, colorful and tasty. Make sure you have parmesan cheese (or asiago or romano) on the table for diners to sprinkle on their portions.

Another picture of the finished product.

A word about sausage. The success of this dish depends on the sausage. I have used Italian sausage - sweet or hot or some of each.  New Pioneer Food Co-op here in the Iowa City area makes very nice Italian sausage. This time, I used plain brats from Mrs. Pavelka at the farmer's market. They were also just fine. When I use Italian sausage, I don't add much by way of additional seasoning. When I used brats, I added pepper flakes, oregano and basil as described above.

The critical factor for the sausage is texture: you want to use fine textured sausage. We once made this dish while traveling and made the mistake of buying grocery store pre-packaged national brand sausage which (to our dismay) contained larger bits of meat and fat. Unappetizing. But with nice sausage, a fast and tasty meal. 

Odds and ends

I am tired. It is always busy at work the week before you leave, even if it is only for a week. This week was particularly busy. There was good work. Busy sometimes has its rewards.
I know I am tired when....
I actually look forward to pulling some weeds in the near future.
Philip