4th of July Weekend

A weekend full of work, friends and fun.

1. Gardening

My dad has been itching to get our gardens tended to so when both my brother and I were home and both he and my mom were off of work he jumped at the opportunity to get something yardwork done. 

I tended to hostas on the side street.

Nate painted the steps with help from Mom.

Dad tended to the garden out back.

 I hadn't ever really helped my dad out in the garden but I was pleasantly surprised how enjoyable it was to be out in the fresh air with a pair of gloves, some newspapers and mulch.  It felt good to get my hands dirty (well, my gloves dirty) and work in the garden.

Gardening had many qualities that I enjoy in crafts: solitude yet social activity, end result which is visible and easy to measure, creativity/ability to put your own style into the finished product. 

2. Dinner and Baking
I made dinner on Saturday while everyone else finished up their chores. I made chicken with Lea and Perrin's Marinade for Chicken as well as tortellini with homemade Garlic Scape Pesto using the garlic scape from our organic farm share.  The pesto turned out tasty but the consistency was a bit off. I plan to try again with either more olive oil or less scape. I read another recipe that seemed to think you should cut the top of the scape off, so maybe that is where I ran into trouble.  I really liked the chicken marinade: light but flavorful.
On Sunday I made banana bread to take to my CI's house for a party before the fireworks.  I should have taken a photo of the bananas I used because they were of the perfect overripeness.  Last time I tried to make banana bread my bananas weren't ripe enough (I eat them slightly green so bananas which are turning brown are plenty ripe to me, unfortunately it just makes flavorless banana bread) and the result was horrible.  I put a bit of extra walnuts in (something about banana bread and carrot cake: the more walnuts the better!) and didn't over cook the bread. It came out quite tasty!

3. Fireworks!

Photo courtesy of JCW 

Fireworks at our local park :) I forgot to bring my camera, but my dad got some great shots with his new camera we got him for Father's Day!

4. Buffalo Zoo

We hadn't been in years so Monday Dad, Nate and I trekked off to the zoo.  They had a few new exhibist: sealions, sea otters (who slept the whole time we were there) and a rainforest!  The armadillos in the rainforest exhibit were my favorite of the day.
While Moxie is our tiger kitten:

we decided Sassy...

looked much more like an ocelot!