One of my favorite summertime childhood memories involves my parents holding a big crab feast at the cabin. They had a large stone barbecue fireplace that they would fire up and cook the crabs in a HUGE kettle. Then they spread newspapers over the cabin’s rustic dining table and put out potato chips, soda, and all of the boiled crabs you could eat! I never ate a lot of crabs, but I enjoyed the festive feeling of everyone else pounding and cracking the shells. Me, I loaded up on potato chips and soda and I was happy that my parents didn’t pay much attention to how much I wasn’t eating.
Yummy sounding new recipe
by Mary AnneThis past Christmas I gave a crock pot and a crock pot recipe magazine to my youngest son. He had asked for them, and I was pleased that he has taken an interest in cooking and was glad to give them to him! He let me borrow the magazine to look at the recipes, and I found one that I thought I’d try this weekend. The recipe calls for chicken thighs, orange marmalade, chicken broth, teriyaki sauce, broccoli and carrots.
I’m not quite sure when I’ll be going grocery shopping next, but I’ve got all of the ingredients on the shopping list – I think it sounds yummy, don’t you? My hubby might even eat it if I promise him that there will be no onions in it!
Summer memories
by Mary AnneOur childhood summers were full of weekend vacations to the “cabin.” My parents had a summer cottage that was built like a rustic log cabin. It had a very small galley style kitchen, a very spartan bathroom with just a toilet, sink and shower stall, and a very large main room. That main room had four sets of bunk beds in it on one end of the room, a large fireplace at the other end of the room, and a rustic picnic table in it. There were two Adirondack style chairs hewed out of logs, and a rustic end table between them. There was a small loft that you could access through the use of a ladder, but generally speaking nobody went up there – it was dirty and full of spider webs.
Also on the property was a small recreational vehicle we called “the trailer.” It was pink, and it had a “real” living room, and two small bedrooms. Sometimes our parents would let us kids sleep in the trailer, sometimes we slept in the log cabin. I think that I preferred sleeping in the cabin because at least then I had my own bed. When we slept in the trailer I had to share a full size bed with my sister, and she was a restless sleeper that tossed and turned and kicked – a lot! Besides, when we slept in the trailer we could hear the parents talking and laughing and the noise made it impossible to fall asleep.
About twenty years ago my parents sold both the cabin, and the trailer. I really wished that they had let me buy the cabin from them. I liked the rustic feel and the relaxing frame of mind that I always felt when we were spending our summer days there. I don’t know if I will every get that same feeling anywhere else.
Tackle box
by Mary AnneRecently I was looking for a place to keep some of my crafting supplies, and I went to a couple of stores that specialize in crafts. The stores had a lot of storage boxes that looked exactly like the tackle boxes that are used by fishermen (and fisherwomen – I don’t want to be sexist!) Although I did not end up buying a storage box for my craft supplies, I did end up buying a pink tackle-box and brought it home and transferred my personal tools (hammer, screwdriver, drill, etc) into that. I’m hoping that keeping my tools in a pink storage box might help to slow down the evaporative loss of my tools! And I think that I just might paint the handles of my tools pink, or wrap them with pink duct tape too! After all, REAL men don’t use pink tools, do they?
Flower boxes
by Mary AnneThis is the time of year when I enjoy going to different nurseries in the area and see what beautiful window boxes they have on display and for sale. One of my favorite ways to make my own house more attractive is by lining the sides of the porch with flower boxes that are filled with blooming annuals.
My favorite way to do that is to take an empty windowbox and put some peastone or gravel in the bottom of it, then take the purchased annuals (still in their flower pots) and set them inside the window box. Pack them as tightly as possible, and then fill in around the pots with cedar mulch. My grandmother taught me this method when I went up to the farm to visit her in the summertime, and every time I prepare the window boxes I am reminded of the good times I had with my grandparents on the farm. This method is quick and easy to do, and by swapping out the annuals as they fade I can keep the porch looking pretty for a very long time.