Tag Archives: #Weekend Coffee Share

Weekend Coffee Share#36-The Official Vegetable

Coffee’s ready. Today we have Columbian coffee. It is pretty good for a change. We used to drink Columbian all the time until we discovered the darker roasts. There are blueberry bagels to go with it. I got a couple of walks in this week. I need to get out early though. Yesterday it was about 85 degrees F at 6:30 AM when I started out. It is still pretty quiet around here at that hour. I did see a few other walkers and people with dogs again. They need to walk their dogs before it gets too hot. One thing that I am missing is roadrunners. I haven’t seen any lately. While walking, I admire all the different plants in the front yards. I came across an interesting one yesterday.

These are a type of agave plant and they do look like an artichoke. Although, you need to be careful of the needles.

I do like regular artichokes and we did enjoy eating a few this year. California supplies about 100% of the artichokes to the country. They are grown all over but I am familiar with the farms on the central coast below Santa Cruz. The cooler climate and moist air are good for artichokes. I usually cook them in a couple of inches of boiling water for about 45 minutes. I trim the leaves ,cut off the tops, and squeeze some lemon juice over them. I looked up a recipe on the California Artichoke Advisory Board website. I may try it in the future because it looks easier than the way I do it. When I trim the leaves, I cut off those little needles. The artichoke needles are not as scary as the ones on the agaves here. While reading about our artichokes I found out that the artichoke is California’s official vegetable.

Cooking artichokes in water

We like to eat them with melted butter or mayonnaise.

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.

Weekend Coffee Share#34-End of August

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Coffee’s ready. Grab a cup and pull up a chair. Today we have bagels with lox and cream cheese. The bagels were delivered this past weekend by our son from one of our favorite bagel places. He brought us two boxes. We put them in the freezer. They are fine there and just need to defrosted in the toaster oven. After heating mine, I sliced it and toasted it for a few minutes. We find that we don’t have any good bagel places near us. The one we used to go to went out of business during the pandemic. Our son tells us there is a good one near Palm Springs.

If we were having coffee I would tell you it has been a quiet week here. I decided not to participate in indoor exercise with mostly unmasked people. I did buy one of those foot pedal exercisers, mainly for my husband. I want to try it too for all the days when it is too hot to exercise outside.

It was so great to see our son and our little grandson last weekend. Our grandson just started TK, which is Transitional Kindergarten. He was born very premature so he is younger developmentally than other kids his age. His is so smart. He loves watching children’s music videos on his IPAD. I am getting familiar with his playlist. Some of the songs are ones my kids listened to when they were little, like ‘Wheels On The Bus.’ I am able to sing along with those. We have a stash of toys for him here, which he is not bored with yet. Some of the toys are over 30 years old. They were our kids toys that we had saved. He used to like to play ball with me, rolling a small rubber ball back and forth. I noticed this time he rolled me the ball while he went on playing with a toy he was more interested in. He was multi-tasking with Meme, and didn’t want to leave me out.

It’s hard to believe this is the end of August. Another year passing in this pandemic fog. I know we will come out it but the news from many places is sad. Stay well, stay safe, get vaccinated.

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie at Natalie the Explorer.

Weekend Coffee Share #23-Need To Be An Early Bird

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Coffee’s ready. Come in and pull up a chair. If we were having coffee I would tell you my life this week was controlled by outside demands and forces. My husband had medical appointments and I am the driver right now. I am glad we are getting connected with new healthcare providers in our community. My husband and I have both been catching up with long delayed medical check ups. At first it was nerve wracking to go into the clinic for appointments or lab work. But I feel that I have gotten more comfortable with going there. We will see how I feel after next Tuesday when restrictions are lifted and people are allowed to be in public without masks. I have gone into a few stores as well, still with my mask, so I am getting more comfortable with that.

Because I was so busy with the appointments I did not get a chance to get out and catch a photo of the roadrunner. I was up early one morning for a walk. I never thought I would be able to get up and out at 6:30 AM but I did. When I first started out, there were a couple of women out with their dogs. One of the women was talking loudly and I thought it would diminish my chances of seeing a roadrunner, the loud voices and dogs. But after I took a different route and walked over toward one of the greens where I had seen roadrunners before, I was rewarded with seeing the large one but only for a short time. There were some workers on the green and the roadrunner quickly sought a hiding place in a fenced yard.

I haven’t been able to get into a routine of early morning walks yet, but I will probably need to work on it because the daytime temperatures are starting to climb. We’re looking at a possible 114 degrees F on Tuesday.

Roadrunner that looked like this one crossed in front of our car.

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. Image of roadrunner via National Park Service Death Valley.

Weekend Coffee Share #11-On A Lighter Note

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Coffee’s up. Grab a cup and pull up a chair. If we were having coffee I would tell you this week we started ‘Daylight savings time’ here in California and most of the US. I thought I was over it since I no longer have to keep to a work schedule. But I notice I am more than usual groggy in the morning lately. It may take me more than two cups of coffee to wake up today. I have never liked the time change. Every year when my husband announces it’s time to reset the clocks ahead , you can hear my loud groan, ‘oh, no.’ I don’t mind ‘Fall back’ because you get the extra hour of sleep then. I have noticed since we moved to the desert that one thing we have plenty of is daylight. I don’t think we need to save any of it. It really seems brighter here. I read that the sky is bluer too because there aren’t as many dirt particles in the air. I hope we don’t have as much air pollution as the city. There is quite a bit of traffic here as the population has grown in recent years. Eventually, we are supposed to go to electric cars and what a change that will mean for Southern California.

Getting back to brightness of the light here. I have been attempting to take photos of some of flora with my android and noticed I have trouble seeing what’s on the viewfinder because of the glare. I took a couple of shots almost blind. I googled the problem and read I could use a umbrella or large brimmed hat to provide enough shade for the camera. It reminded me of the old-time photographers who used to cover their heads with a cloth to block the light. In my brief research, I found there are attachments for digital cameras called digital display shades. Or it was suggested to drape a towel over my head. I think I might scare the neighbors with that technique.

A couple of my blind shots:

I was frustrated I could not get the shots I wanted of other plants and trees. Still figuring out my new android and how to manage all the light. Almost forgot, I did get a shot some of my grapefruit blossoms.

‘Man standing in paddock’ c 1930 via State Library of Victoria on Flickr.com

Weekend Coffee Share is hosted by Natalie on Natalie the Explorer.