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Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Recipe needed for CHEWY Pumpkin Bars please!


(Max, my beloved and very spoiled cat)

This is a call for recipes for CHEWY Pumpkin Bars! I have searched the internet, but have yet to find a recipe for this. All of them seem to be the 'cakey' version. They are nice too, but lately I've been fantasizing about bars that resemble peanut butter bars in texture. You know, the nice chewy moist kind?
Is there a pumpkin bar like this out there? I'd love to hear about them if they are. Please share your recipe with me so I can satisfy this craving and move on to the next one! LoL!

Monday, July 20, 2009

It's the middle of summer...

...and we haven't had a major heat wave yet! Yay!!!! It's actually not been bad, really. Usually, we've had 90's by now, maybe even upper 90's.
I know there's still time left in July, and August could bring us some really hot days.
I'm hoping not. I don't like intense heat, and even more, I HATE to sweat! I really dislike the tacky feeling I get when the temperatures are soaring, and the humidity is climbing.
I guess it's too many years spent up north, must have thickened my blood too much. Perhaps?



I didn't really mind all the rain and cloudy weather in June, except for the fact it brought the slugs out in droves, and they ate my plants. Not happy about that. Nope. The plants survived, though, albeit some were nearly leafless.
My poor columbine's were attacked by some very green worms. They were the exact same color
as the leaves they were eating, so they were very hard to see.
I noticed the plant was nearly defoliated before spraying them, and when I sprayed, a bunch of little green worms showed up writhing in the soil below. I know, I was really mean to those poor worms.
But you should see my poor columbine!! It was TOTALLY defoliated at this point. It was skeletonized.
It has since tried to recover, sending up tiny little leaves about 3 inches tall. At least it survived, and should come back good as new next spring. They were gorgeous this year.

I bought another color/variety of columbine at the end of season sale, brought it home, admired it again, and proceed to pull the crown out of the plant while trying to loosen it from the pot, as it was quite rootbound.

I was heartbroken. That is the first time that's happened to me. I am usually so careful.








First, I had out of town company coming later that day for a 4 day visit, and my goal was to get that sucker planted, along with the other trunkload I had brought home.
Secondly, it was hot. And humid. And buggy. The mosquitoes were quite deliriously happy and hungry after our wet month of June.

Darn. It was so pretty too. It was an unusual color - reminded me of a flame. It was yellowish on the bottom, and orange on the points. I will try next spring to find another to replace it.

I had no idea they came in so many colors. Right now, I have 3 colors.
The white, blue, and dark eggplant
purple.
The eggplant color has been very happy in the front hill flower bed for 3 years, and this year, we have several offspring. They are also much earlier blooming than the others, as this photo was taken a month or two earlier.
Columbines are a fun flower, comes in many colors, and are quite hardy. They will also multiply, but not so much as to be invasive, just enough to share!