Once upon a time the Husband and the Mama each bought me a simple dehydrator for Christmas. The Mama let me choose my present from her, while the Husband said, "Surprise!" I'm spoiled rotten, I tell you. Yes, I returned one dehydrator. As for the kept dehydrator, I experimented with it once. The dehydrator was nothing more than five plastic trays sitting on top of a plastic base that has a heating element in it. Both the Mama and I agreed that it took a lot of hours to dry a handful of fruit. Not to say I had to interrupt whatever I was doing to rotate the trays every two hours. After that one time I cleaned the trays and put everything back into its box. On Sunday, I decided that I wanted to dry some persimmons so I brought out the dehydrator. Instructions stated that it would take at least 24 hours to dry the fruit, which I figure would be about five or six persimmons. I didn't like the idea of the flimsy-looking machine being on while we slept. Besides I w

Last Saturday, the Husband and I walked a bit along a slough. I'm not kidding about "a bit". We couldn't find access to a slough where I felt like we wouldn't be trapped by four-legged or two-legged creatures. When we saw what looked like someone's tent by the water, we took the other path which circled us back to the car. Because I now walk on knees without cartilage the bit of a walk was good enough. We even climbed up an incline that had me gasping for breath at the top. It wasn't until I was looking at my photo on the computer that I saw the duck and egret in the scene, which I didn't see because I was so focused on composing the shot with the palm trees in the distance. With the magic of Photoshop, I was rewarded with this wonderfulness. I'm hooking up with Our World Tuesday . It's been a while. Click here to check out the other participants from around the world.

Ever had spaghetti pizza? The other day I used leftover spaghetti, made with a friend's awesome marinara sauce, as the "sauce" for a pizza. The spaghetti had zucchini, red pepper, yellow onion,  two huge handfuls of spring salad mix, and brie. On top of the spaghetti went layers of red onion, pepperoni, green olives, pimento, and farmer cheese. The marinara sauce was homemade by friend Gloria who grinds her own mixture of dried herbs and spices. The sauce had a light and mellow taste. Subtle and sophisticated. Wowza wow wow! Gloria gave us two tubs of her sauce, one for the freezer.  There are so many possibilities for the second tub. I could use it as a base for a cioppino or make a pasta dish with Italian sausage, for example. Both the Husband and I agree that we could even slurp up the sauce straight as soup. Yummmmm. Thank you, Gloria!

Caaa! Caaaa! Caaaa! We like sharing the persimmons with the crows and the other birds. Why not? I'm linking up at All Seasons , a weekly meme hosted by Jesh at Artworks from JeshStG. Click here to check out Jesh and click here to check out other participants.

In 1974 the Daddy and I brought back wall plaques of peacocks and fishes from our visit to the Philippines. Gifts for the Mama, the wall art were made of coconut shells. Until last year, the pieces wore their plastic wrappings and were carefully stored away. The Mama wanted to make sure they stayed pristine forever, of course. Of course, when I discovered the plaques last year, I ripped them out of their packaging and set them aside to sell in our garage sale. No one wanted to buy them. That was fortunate. A few weeks ago, on a whim, I colored in one of the peacock plaques with acrylic paints. Not the one above. That's my second effort. I'm finding zen as I color between the lines. There are two or three more plaques that I can color, if I want. And I want. A couple of dull-looking vases could also use a paint job. . . .