Quaint Essential Thymes

Pinky gets Slobber-y

 Brownie points for my hubby!  We went to PetSmart for litter and catfood last night and ended up spending a tab bit more than expected.  duh….

Hubby Tom was checking out the bird treats and then followed me into the cat aisle while I picked up the kitty food and he noticed at the end of the aisle a sale on The Whisker City Play Cavern Scratchers.  The same exact thing with a new label is 4 times the price of the on-sale City Play Cavern. If you like this product go now before they’re sold out.  They’re closing out the Whisker City brand name.  We bought 2 complete City Play Caverns and 2 extra cardboard scratching refills since that’s all they had left.  I think we got a deal and a half! Or in actuality, paying full retail for this cardboard cat toy is just plain nuts.  

Our Orange Tabby Dan took to his right away, scratching the living daylights out of it and moving it around the screened porch.  It’ll never be in the same place twice! LOL

Our Yellow cat Pinky (don’t ask, okay you can ask…) could smell the catnip as soon as I took the plastic wrap off the corrugated cardboard scratcher.  His head lifted, nose in the air and eyes alert.  He was ready for his treat!

He couldn’t wait until the scratcher hit the floor. Once I found the perfect spot on the floor for the cardboard box, he was all over it, rubbing his face on the rough surface and slobbering big time. Yep, those dark marks on the scratcher are wet spots from Pinky’s slobber! LOL

It keep him occupied and quiet for about 5 minutes.  Mind you, this is a cat with adult ADHD and neurosis, so a quiet 5 minutes is golden : )

(Don’t look now, but this bonkers cat just jumped up on the counter, something he never does, and is now QUIETLY and I’ll repeat that because it’s certainly worthy of being repeated, is now QUIETLY curled up about ready to snooze!!!!) 

Note to self:  Go back to PetSmart and buy all the catnip in the store!  Why haven’t I thought of this before?  That stuff is Groovy man!       Peace V

I really love this cat : )

Donna

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Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Lattice Crust

An order of fresh Rhubarb from PA came in to the Amish Store here in Largo, FL this week and I sent my hubby to pick up 2 pounds to make rhubarb pie and cobbler.  Here’s how I made the Rhubarb pie.  I added fresh strawberries to give it some sweetness and it reminds me of the pie mom makes too.

Rolling out Pie Crust

Make your favorite double pie crust recipe.  My hubby likes a traditional lattice top for the pie.

Wash Rhubarb stems and strawberries.  Cut rhubarb into 1″ chunks, don’t use the leaves.  Cut strawberries in half or quarters.  Allow to drain.

Rhubarb and Strawberries

Next I made a sugary mixture to sprinkle over the fruit.  This mixture helps to thicken the juice and make a sauce which firms up in the fridge.

Adding flour to sugarAdding sugar

Mix together 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1-1/4 cup sugar and 1/8 tsp. salt. Next line a 9″ pie pan with your bottom crust and layer in 1 cup fresh rhubarb and 1 cup strawberries.

Adding Rhubarb & Strawberries

Sprinkle half the sugar mixture over the fruit.  Now layer on the rest of the rhubarb, strawberries and sugar mixture and dot with butter.  I used about 2 Tbls. of butter. 

Making Lattice Top

Next weave on the lattice top, crimp edges and run knife along pie pan rim to remove excess crust.  Sprinkle lattice top with another tablespoon of sugar.

Place a cookie sheet on the bottom rack of the oven to catch drippers and put the pie on the middle rack of a preheated 425 degree oven and bake for 40-50 mins. or until crust is brown.  Let cool before slicing.  Refrigeration will firm up the juices so it won’t be as runny.

With the leftover crust we’d always make Pigs or Pig tails.  So I did the same thing with my left over crust.  Roll out leftover crust then slather with butter.  Top with a mix of cinnamon and sugar.

Making Pigs using excess pie crust

  Start at one end of the crust and start rolling to form a log.

Roll crust into a log

Cut in 1″ wedges and place in a baking pan and bake while you’re baking the pie.

Pigs in the pan

I check it every 10 mins.  Makes a nice snack before the pie is ready! But let it cool or you’ll scorch the roof of your mouth and burn your tongue.

Next up is the Rhubarb Cobbler.  Just as easy to do.

Mix together 1 Cup sugar and 2 Tbls. cornstarch in a saucepan.  Add 5 Cups 1″ chunks of rhubarb and 1 Tbls. water.  Bring to a boil and cook and stir for one minute.  Pour into a 1 qt. casserole, dot with butter and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp. cinnamon and spoon biscuit mixture on top.  Bake at 350 for 30 mins.

Make a biscuit mix using 1 Cups flour, 1 Tbls. sugar, 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder & 1/4 tsp. salt.  Cut in 1/4 Cup softened butter until like course crumbs. Mix 1/4 Cup milk and 1 slightly beaten egg.  Add all at once to dry ingredients, stirring to just moisten.

Drop biscuit mix onto hot rhubarb mixture by spoonsful.  Sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 20 mins in 400 oven.

Rhubarb Pie and Cobbler

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Paleleaf woodland Sunflower

We’re celebrating Earth Day at Quaint Essential Antiques today by planting a new Florida native Tree called Summer Haw or Crataegus flava for all those Botanists out there.  It’s just a bitty thing right now but will be a small tree in a few years.  We’ll have more songbirds flocking into the yard for the small yellowish berries it produces after flowering in the Spring. 

Summer Haw

Since Tom installed the new fence and I spent the better part of a week painting it I’ve been planting new starter plants in beds around the fence in the front yard.  Here are just  a few samples of what I planted.  Some are native and some are not. 

Most of the plants are larval and nectar plants for the Sulphur Butterfly, Pipevine Butterfly, Monarch Butterfly, Painted Lady Butterfly and the Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly and other pollenators.  We have plenty of roosting areas nearby so the butterflies can get out of the mid-day sun and lots of water for the thirsty ones. 

Bahama Cassia, Senna mexicana var. chapmanii planted for Earth Day 4/22/2010

The front yard at Quaint Essential Antiques really took a hit this winter.  Everything died back and it looked so bare.  Now with the new fence and plantings it really looks like somebody cares! LOL  Here’s a listing of some of the plants:

White-topped Aster, Stokesia tortifolius
Mohrs thoroughwort, Eupatorium mohrii
Scrub Mint, Conradina canescens
Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens
Creeping Sage, Salvia misella
Lakeside Sunflower, Helianthus carnosus
Eastern smooth Beardtongue, Penstemon laevigatus
Twinflower, Dyschoriste oblongifolia
Rosinweed, Silphium astericus
Paleleaf Woodland Sunflower, Helianthus strumosus
Dutchman’s Pipevine, Aristolochia tomentosa
PawPaw, Asimina reticulata
Dotted Horsemint, Monarda punctata

Tropical Sages, Red, Pink & White

Tropical Sage, Salvia coccinea
Mexican Sage, Salvia mexicana
Lyreleaf Sage, Salvia lyrata
Beach Sunflower, Helianthus debilis

Butterfly milkweed, Asclepia spp.

Blanket flower, Gaillardia pulchella
Bahama Cassia, Senna mexicana var. chapmanii

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If you’ve known me long enough you know I’m an animal lover.  As a kid my sisters and I would rescue stray & injured cats, birds, bunnies, squirrels, raccoons and even snakes.  We’d nurse them back to health and some would stay and some we’d have to turn loose. 

I still have to feed the strays that come by the shop.  There’s usually one or two that I feed at any given time.  Some are wonderlusts and just roam the neighborhood because they really DO belong to somebody else.  But I can always tell the ones that have lost their way. 

There’s been this one scroungy soul that has been visiting the food dish for the last several months.  He’s a very pale orange Tabby cat and he reminds me of the poor old guy we had as a kid.  That cat had 18 lives and we named him Pinky.  So I secretly named this kitty Pinky too.  I don’t usually name cats but this one struck a cord.

Week after week I’d see him slinking around the one side of the shop.  Sometimes I’d catch him catnapping on a pile of oak leaves in the sun. Sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of him at the food dish.  Ever so slowly he was getting a little braver and he would sit at the side of the porch and watch as I refilled his food and water dishes.  One morning he was on the porch waiting for me as I pulled in the parking lot but ran as soon as I opened the gate.  As the weeks went on that too would change and he would come closer to the dish as I filled it but shyed away if I came too close.

This morning was different.

I put the food in the dish, he came over while my hand was still in the dish and he nudged my hand away!  He did that twice and I thought then that I’d try to rub his head.  HE LET ME!  He was so happy and so starved for attention.  He timidly slinked into the shop by the front door and stopped but rolled on his side by my feet.  I sat there for several minutes stroking and petting him.  He meowed and purred the whole time, telling me this is what he’s wanted all these months but was so afraid.

Pinky

It’ll be fun getting to know Pinky Lee!

  ~*~I’m Okay now Dad, two’s enough~*~

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It happened!  And it was nice!  Euphoric. A sense of Well-Being, like all was right with the World : )  That’s how I felt when I  woke up this morning and it was, well I don’t know how else to describe it other than, Yummy.

You might be wondering what I was dreaming about! Well…..there was nothing Sexual about it at all! LOL  It was just the neatest feeling.  No aches or pains, no negative thoughts in my brain, just yumminess!  Wow!  What a terrific way to start the day!  I woke up Happy!

I just wanted to know how often you wake up feeling this way?  Do you feel like this every morning?  Have you ever felt like this?  Please comment below.  I’d love to know!

(Yep, that’s me on the Beach this morning…..NOT! LOL)

Note to self:  Eat more pears before bedtime.

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Even though I live in Florida I still long for the whites of winter and the frosty window panes and windshields.  I’m silly I know but it’s just my hometown roots.  I just remembered the snow fences along the back roads in the farmers fields.  The fences were put up to stop the snow from drifting across the road.  Most farmers didn’t take them down after the winter season.  I remember them painted in barn red paint and the jagged roughness to the wood.  And how they were strung together with twisted wire. This winter most fences are completely buried under a snowdrift and won’t see the light of day until Spring.

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I treated myself to a nice soak in the tub and lit this McCall’s Cabin Scents Candle for the soft candlelight and aroma therapy I so much needed.  When I snuffed out the flame I noticed this precious heart at the very tip of the wick!  How sweet for Valentine’s Day.  Now I don’t want to burn the candle!

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Vintage Style St. Valentine's Day Card

 To My Valentine, You’re Sweet, I Love You, Hug Me, Sweet Talk, Be Mine, Kiss Me.  Remember all those messages on the Necco Sweetheart Candies?  It was always fun to read the loving words.  I didn’t like the candy very much though. LOL  Now the messages are a bit different then they were from back in my day.  You might read: Fax Me, Love You, All Star, It’s Love, My Way, Love Me and Awe Some just to name a few.

How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day?  A dinner out?  A Card sent with Love?  A movie at the theater?  A Heart-Shaped box of Chocolates?  A weekend away?  Or just a nice quiet evening at home in front of the TV? 

I’d love to hear about your most romantic Valentines Day.  Post me a comment! 

XOXOXO
Donna

(Oh my, the comments area on this page is broken right now.  Please click on the Title to leave your comments.)

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My Baby Doll from the mid-’50’s still sits on a shelf in my bedroom.  She’s not been played with in years. But rather is tucked back in the corner of the nightstand where I catch glimpses of her from time to time.  She jogs my memory of times past.

Her long dress was an original pattern that mom or my great Aunt Margie made for her.  The fabric was left-over scraps from hand-sewn dresses.  She had many handmade outfits and her clothes were changed often.  This dress is adorned with red rick rack and a brass safety pin on the back keeps it from falling off.  I’m sure there used to be a snap or hook-and-eye back there at one time.

This baby doll spent time in the bath tub with me and she probably played with me outside too.  The rubber has turned brittle from 50+ years but her sweet features, fingers and toes are still cute as a button.

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Bald Eagle in Pine

Mother Nature paid us a visit yesterday morning.  Here’s our resident Bald Eagle drying her wings in the Pine snag across the street from Quaint.  We had a nasty downpour the night before and she was soaked.  I watched her from a distance for many minutes before she was content enough to go back to nest building.

The immense stick nest in the tower down the street “mysteriously” disappeared during road construction last summer.  Luckily the babies had flown the coup and the happy couple is back rebuilding.  It’s great to see them bringing sticks and spanish moss to their aerie. 

Did you know the largest Eagle nest on record was one built in Florida that weighed in at 3 Tons?

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