Winding Down Update

Not quite so humid this morning though it is warming up fast. I walked over a block to take a photo of the sunflowers. Our neighbor painted his house a bright red while we were in California. It makes a nice contrast to the flowers.

 As long as I was outside, I took a peek to find the cheddar pinks. Hurray! They are alive and have even grown a little. No buds or blossoms. I don’t have enough experience with them to know whether they will bloom again when the weather turns cooler; but they did survive the terrible winter of 2014 so they probably will come back next spring. I started weeding the moss roses, but when I got kind of sweaty, I decided to cut short the weeding session. It was mostly that weed that forms a flat mat and when you grab far enough down the whole mat comes up at once so it wasn’t very much labor.

 Hope your summer is going well. The humidity will drop some, but we do expect temperatures in the 80’s clear through next week, with chances of thunder storms most days.

Winding Down

Today was horribly humid and hot. The kind of day when one hurries into air-conditioned coolness. I worked many hours in the library. I was tired. After supper, the neighbor down the street called. He had planted two tomato plants and now he can’t keep up with the bumper crop. He remembered our chat about tomatoes at one of the community lunches, and he wondered if I would like some of his surplus. How thoughtful. He brought me 5 nice red tomatoes. These are just-right-two-person sized.

 

The plants are looking tired, too, in the heat. One of my rose bushes has a few buds yet to open, but the other has completely petered out.  The calibrachoa had a fungus problem early on and never recovered. There are a few flowers, but hardly any leaves. The verbena (yes, I discovered the bright pink clusters are verbenas) look pretty good. Once I discovered what they are, my internet reading told me to prune back in order to have a second blooming. I am enjoying the benefits of the pruning. Not many new flowers coming now, but there are still blooms all around the pot. The moss roses completely buried the cheddar pinks. I’m not sure the pinks will come back next year. I hope so as they bloom before most of the other plants. A bright cheery note is all of the sunflowers blooming around the neighborhood. The large maple I can see out my bedroom window has tinges of red on the ends of some branches. It will be a month probably before the tree completely changes, but the leafy green of summer is ending.

 

Last Friday, after eating breakfast out, we drove to a church rummage sale. I found a pink and white blouse that fits so well. It cost me 75 cents. It looks hardly worn. I plan to drive to Fort Wayne Friday to do some shopping at the mall. It is really inconvenient that Penneys shut down here in Warsaw. The Carson’s and Kohl’s in Fort Wayne are almost twice the size of the local stores; I like to browse Macy’s, too.

 

My neighbor who has breast cancer stopped in the library. She recently had some terrible side effects from her medication. She said that she has stage 4 cancer, the first time I have had that verified though I suspected as much. Her doctor is a fighter and told her not to give up, that he still has options in his arsenal. I didn’t sleep well last night. I started thinking how fast our retirement years are flying by. That means life is flying by as well. Maybe 18-20 years left if we are lucky. We have witnessed the decline of so many GV residents in these past 3 years of living here. It is sobering. Our countdown to heaven seems so very real and rather short; but we are ready whenever God wants to call us home. Are you?

Peach Cobbler Snack Cake

 

Of the 3 recipes for peach desserts from the internet that I tried, I think I liked this best. All the ingredients are things that I normally have on hand so if I buy peaches and they ripen and need to be eaten, I can easily make this recipe.  The other desserts were rather rich or time-consuming to make. The internet photo had whipped cream on top. It is a nice moist cake and doesn’t need that. Whipping cream is not something I keep around. If I were to make this for invited guests, I might make cream; for family, not.

Peach Cobbler Snack Cake

Yields 12

Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar plus 3 teaspoons, divided

2 1/2 cups sliced peaches

1/2 teaspoon corn starch

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 cups whole milk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Spray an 8-x-8-inch baking dish with nonstick spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

1. In a small bowl, combine 3 teaspoons sugar and corn starch. Toss peaches in the mixture and coat evenly. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup sugar, flour, salt and baking powder. In another bowl, whisk together milk and butter. Slowly pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until incorporated.

3. Pour cake batter into prepared baking dish. Press sliced peaches into the cake batter and place some on top. Put in the oven and bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Notes

Peach Cobbler Snack Cake will keep up to 3 days stored in an airtight container

I haven’t verified its keeping duration. Probably won’t either because I think it will be gone quickly. I did put it in the refrigerator to store. I checked my cake at 45 minutes of baking and it was almost done. Gave it about 4 minutes of additional baking time. An hour would have been too long.

Point Loma, Cabrillo Monument, Shelter Island (San Diego)

We were fortunate to have my sister and brother-in-law go with us to San Diego. My b-i-l did the driving. Since they had been to San Diego many times, we could sit back and relax without worry of being lost. We got in a bit of a traffic jam when driving to our lodging because Comic Con was still taking place.

 

We stayed at Humphfreys on Shelter Island, where my relatives had stayed before. It has a lot of pretty foliage and is next to a marina.

Our room at the top of the stairs

 

We ate breakfast at the restaurant hotel with a window table overlooking the marina.

Public park that runs along shore was a nice place to relax and within walking distance of the hotel.

Not far from Shelter Island is a peninsula; the very tip is Point Loma. This is also where Cabrillo National Monument stands.

 

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was the first European to set foot on the west coast of what is now the United States. On September 28, 1542 his flotilla of 3 ships arrived in what is now San Diego harbor. He went ashore on a strand of beach. His group spent 6 days waiting for a storm to pass, before proceeding further up the coast of current-day California. The monument overlooks where Cabrillo came ashore and his ships anchored.

There are great views of the San Diego area. Wish it hadn’t been so hazy in the morning. It seems to me that afternoon breezes give you a better chance of clearer views. I noticed that at the restaurant where we dined on a different night on Shelter Island, also.

San Diego is still an active naval center. You view from Cabrillo Monument ships in the harbor regularly.

There is a small museum and gift shop at Cabrillo Monument.

 

On the same peninsula is the Old Point Loma lighthouse.

My husband walked up the hill to the lighthouse while I visited the gift shop. We had already been told the lighthouse was locked.

 

This lighthouse opened in 1855. The oil-lit lens could be seen 20-30 miles out. However, the lighthouse was closed after 36 years because of a flaw. Though the visibility could be good, often the lighthouse was shrouded in fog and the light did not penetrate the fog adequately. A newer lighthouse was built down the hill.

Also on the peninsula is Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery . What a beautiful final resting place. One area overlooks San Diego harbor; another overlooks the Pacific Ocean.