Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Two days into Stage One water restrictions, and I looked out of the window to see the guy over the road washing his car. Admittedly, the restrictions don't actually forbid you to wash your car.  They limit you to using a hand-held bucket (does it count if you put it down on the driveway?) or hand-held hose "for quick rinses".  But they are pretty much "if you don't mind" rules at this stage anyway, with holes large enough to lose whole buckets of water through (hand-held or otherwise).  For example, we are now limited to watering our lawn twice a week, but this only applies to sprinkler systems.  You can still use a hose as much as you like, presumably on the assumption that you will get bored of standing there holding it very quickly.  And besides, everything you read about good watering technique says it's better to water thoroughly just once a week.  Our garden would think Christmas had come early if it got watered every three days! So hopefully...

Nor for those who have an irrational fear of snakes, or for that matter an irrational love of cute little bunny rabbits.  But for those who are intrigued by the natural world and don't get too freaked out by the ickier bits of it, this was our David Attenborough moment. John and Kristal's dog Boudin spotted it first, and went bounding up before the rest of us had a chance to register any more than some kind of mound on the path.  It was so interesting he resisted all Kristal's attempts to call him away for a while.  Even though she quickly identified it as a non-poisonous black snake, and besides, its mouth was far too full of rabbit to bite anything else, we were glad when he was safely to heel. We stood and watched for a few minutes.  The rabbit was clearly dead; whether the snake killed it or just found it, we don't know.  It was eating in a leisurely fashion, which I suppose is fair enough when your dinner is actually wider than your body.  Ev...

Funnily enough, it was the trees that we really noticed this time.  Spreading oaks three times higher than the houses huddling beneath them.  Fat roots wriggling beneath the brick pavements.  And on the highways, you barely got out of town before the road became a channel between two walls of green leaves.  In Texas they have fast food joints and billboards along the interstates.  In Virginia, they have trees. Richmond is a nicely-situated city; if you go south-east you get to the Atlantic Ocean, if you head north-west you reach the Blue Ridge Mountains.  We did both. Family photo on Sandbridge beach Graham and Toby at the Shenandoah Pass lookout point John and Kristal took a day off work so they could accompany us to Sandbridge, where we set up camp underneath a big green umbrella and tried to stop Toby from eating sand.  He was quite a fan of the beach (great texture!) but the sea was far too cold and unpredictable.  One minute it's...

Finally, a long-awaited blog post about Virginia!  I'm afraid you will have to wait a little longer to hear a little about all our fun activities (we fitted in beach and mountains, what more could you want on a holiday?) but the main purpose of the trip was to introduce Toby to some more of his family.  He charmed 'em all. First, the most important: Toby meets Grandma (or Meemaw as she is known to her great-grands) Of course, Grandpa (or Grampoo) was just as important, but didn't get quite so many cuddles owing to having heart surgery while we were there (you wouldn't know it, would you?) It was the second time for meeting Uncle John, but Toby's changed a bit in 6 months! Inspecting the James River with Aunt Kristal. With a couple of my cousins, Lloyd and Ben.  At the rate Toby's growing he may rival their height one day. With Great-Uncle Ben. Walking in the woods with Great-Aunt Mary, who did a great job entertaining us i...

A few years ago my friend Laura made a chilled watermelon tomato soup for a picnic.  The unusual but delicious combination stuck in my head, and I recently decided to recreate it.  I looked up a few recipes on the internet but mostly proceeded by trial and error.  After much blending and pouring of pink slushy liquids, I came up with something quite tasty.  And very refreshing when the mercury is topping 100F day after day. Chilled Watermelon Tomato Soup 1/4 of a largish watermelon About 6 tomatoes (1 lb 4 oz or so), peeled 1/2 of a medium onion, or a shallot if one happens to be residing in your fridge Handful of fresh parsley.  A bit of mint might be nice too. Juice of one lime 1 tbsp of wine vinegar (I used white, but red seems to be generally specified) Salt and pepper to taste This amount pretty much filled my blender, which says it has a capacity of 1.5 litres or 6 cups.  That was 4 generous servings, or you could easily ...

If you'll forgive a bit of bragging about my crafty exploits... We had a couple of frames that I thought would work well in Toby's room.  All we needed was something to fill them.  Inasmuch as the room has a theme (we never did get around to decorating the nursery) it's probably insects.  There are a few slightly blurry stencils of dragonflies and butterflies on the walls, left by the previous owners of the house.  So I found some cheerful insect pictures on the internet, and enlarged them freehand from the inch-square originals.  Acrylic paint gave the perfect bold effect. My sister-in-law Kristal has given us many beautiful sewn items, so for her birthday this year I wanted to give her something handmade too.  I discovered the technique of making pendants from glass microscope slides a few years ago, but after a frenzy of Christmas ornament making, I sort of forgot about it.  It was fun to take it up again, and this is the biggest ...

I felt like writing a blog but don't have much to blog about, so here's a few photos just to keep you updated on how big our little boy is getting. Here he is in his highchair. Holding on to his feet is the big new thing. He's also just discovered that rolling is a way to get around, so he was all over the living room floor yesterday. Playing pat-a-cake. He loves being sung to, so I've been dredging my memory for kids' songs, particularly ones with actions. Which reminds me, what is the line in "Our God is a great big God" which comes just before "...and beyond our wildest dreams"? I've been singing "He's dah dah dah dah-dah dah" for ages and kept meaning to look it up! Not that Toby cares, but it bugs me. In the paddling pool. He seems to enjoy water so we've been to the local pool a few times, and Keller Pointe water park this past weekend with some kids we were looking after. He's getting quite good a...