Free Food! Volunteer Squash

This past spring my husband and I started a small garden in our back yard. We didn't plant much since it was our first joint effort in gardening, planning to expand little by little over the next few years.

No need to get in over our heads, right?

Our plan was to only plant bell pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, and Seminole squash.  We ended up adding black raspberries, strawberries, concord grapes, onions, and bok choy. 

Some of the plants produced very well.  Others, nothing at all. 

One thing we didn't plant was butternut squash, but we grew it anyway.  It volunteered out of our compost pile.  Free food, y'all!

At first we didn't know what it was.  Well, we could tell it was some sort of squash, but we didn't know what kind specifically.

So we waited to see what would happen.  Another plant joined it, and together they camouflaged what was a potential eyesore.

Finally, the vine produced something that we recognized and we were able to harvest...

Notice anything strange?  The seeds are in the neck of the squash rather than the bulbous part!  As far as I know, that is not normal. 

I continued cutting it into cubes, hoping that the mutation wasn't poisonous or anything.  (It wasn't.  We both survived.)

As you can see, it gave us quite a lot of squash.

 

 



I haven't been very adventurous with cooking butternut squash, or any other winter squash for that matter.  I've roasted them, baked them, and made soup with them.  All with decent-to-delicious results.  

 

What is your favorite way to prepare and eat butternut squash? 

 

Linking to The Journey Back.  Join the fall linky party! 

 





Hodge Podge... Birthday Bash

1. [The host of Hodge Podge is] celebrating a birthday this week so a question relating to aging feels appropriate. Douglas MacArthur is quoted as saying, 'You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair." Would you agree? If not why not?

I'd agree to a point. 

2. What remarkable feat, interesting piece of trivia, or historical event occurred on your birth day and month? Not necessarily in your birthyear, just the same date/same month.

On October 16th, 1384, Jadwiga (Hedwig) was crowned king of Poland even though SHE was a woman.

3. Describe a time or circumstance where you wanted to 'have your cake and eat it too.'

I quite frequently want to "go do something" but don't really want to leave the house.  I think that's pretty common for introverts. 

4. What's something you do that makes you feel young? Something that makes you feel old?

Young... hiking.
Old... after hiking.

5. When did you last do something that was 'a piece of cake'?

Most of what I do is easy for me.  I'm not a fan of difficult.

6.  Beef, wine, and cheese all improve with age. What's something else you'd add to that list? (not necessarily food or beverage) 

Certainly not eyesight!  Hmmm... blue jeans.  I love a pair of old, comfy blue jeans.

7. If I were to have a giveaway when we hit Volume 200, what should I give away? By my calculations we'll hit Volume 200 on November 26th, the day before Thanksgiving, which means whoever wins would have whatever it is in time for Christmas.

Oh, dear!  Don't ask me those kinds of questions. 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Every year at about this time I start thinking about what I want as a special dessert for my birthday.  Will I want cake or pie or some other sort of sweet delight?  Will I choose something chocolatey or something fruity.  Something warm or something cold?  Something different or something familiar?  I tell myself that I have to do this because I'm going to have to make it myself.  Or buy it somewhere.

Every year it is the same process and I end up wanting it all.  ALL OF IT!  So I treat myself here and indulge myself there because I have created a craving.  Because I've spent so much time trying to decide what it is that I actually want! As a result I end up gaining weight, feeling horrible, and not even caring about a special dessert.  I've already eaten everything, after all!

It isn't that way for my husband.  Every year it is the same thing.  Strawberry Pretzel Salad.  Every. Single. Year.  I don't even know if he thinks about it until about 2 days before his birthday and only then because he wants to make sure I've bought everything I need to make it.  He knows what it is going to be.  He doesn't fool around with his options.  He knows what he likes best and sticks with it.

I think it must be that way for people who have a fixed focus with an eternal perspective.  They know exactly what they want.  They know right where they're going.  They don't bother with all the options because they've set their hearts on something that can't be moved.  They're not going to stand before God all bloated with the excesses of this life, with all the stuff that they thought would make them happy, wheezing and coughing by the burdens they've carried. They're not going to ask God "You sure you've got something better than what I've given to myself?" or  "This reward of yours better be worth it!" 

They're going to run freely up to the victory line because they've cast all that mess aside.  They're going to know that their day of celebration is going to be eternal and they just can't wait to get started singing!  Those goodies that the world offers don't mean a thing to them.  They're happy to be rid of them, I think.

Yeah, that's what I want.  I want that to be my choice. 

Monday's Sunrise

 

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Hope From My Husband

Let me be frank.  I'm a pessimist.  I am neither proud of it, nor I endorse pessimism as anything good.  It's just a fact.  A changeable fact, but there you have it. 

I am married to a man who is not an optimist.  Wouldn't it be great if he were?  He'd bring me balance.  Or so that's the theory.  But he is not an optimist.

Neither is he a pessimist.

What he is is a man of remarkable hope. 

You wouldn't notice it by what he says (He doesn't talk much. Except to me. Or when you get him talking about history and guns.  Or prisons.) but if you were to observe him over time, you couldn't help but see it by how he lives. 

To be sure (and he would admit to it) there are things that could have been, should have been different over the years.   His perspective is often too broad for the work of fine-tuning that family life frequently requires.

But regardless of the widely believed saying, hindsight is NOT 20/20.  It is only conjecture.  So I try not to belabor the point. 

And I try not to let the what ifs defile the reality...

His hope is what has kept him, and ultimately us, together.

He has chosen to lose a lot of battles so that the war would eventually be won by the right things.  That takes a humble, courageous kind of hope, y'all.

I reap good things in places where I did not sow because he is happy to share.