In the Nick of Time...

I'll warn you now, the picture accompanying this post is a little gross. Actually, it's a lot gross. But this is what happens when you have wasps all over the frickin place.

Here's the background. Even though we killed three fairly decent sized wasps nests this spring, another one a month ago, and had one blow off the house in a storm, we kept seeing wasps fly around. So we went out to investigate again. We found one underneath our deck, but decided that as long as we were checking we'd be absolutely thorough. Up on the roof we went to check where our eaves overlap. And boy, was that ever a good decision. Not only did we find a handful of a nest, but it had six wasps on it. We also got two additional ones that were trying to fly back to the nest as we were sitting on the roof. But that's not the gross part. Apparently when you spray the wasps nest with Raid (which, for the record, we will never use anything else for wasp control), it not only kills the adult wasps that are perched on it, but also the larvae that are growing. And by kills them, I mean makes them fall out of the nest. You ready for this picture?

Isn't that disgusting?!? We counted just over twenty larvae that fell out of the nest--and some of those larvae have got to be close to maturity; they're about the same size as the dead adult wasps! Can you imagine if we hadn't gotten to that nest when we did?? It honestly makes my stomach churn just a little bit.

Cake Box Cookies

Here's how I know I've found a good recipe. It shows up on my blog three times in the past five months. It all started with the Fudgy Crinkles back in March, then my red velvet variation for our anniversary in May, and most recently the varieties I made for my mom's jewelry party. After making the recipe so many times, I figured that it was time I made some comments and reviews on it, because I've definitely noticed some differences from time to time.

The biggest difference? The type of cake mix used. Not the flavor of cake mix being used, but rather the brand of cake mix (although I suppose that in order to do a true comparison, I should do the same flavor in different brands).

Notice how much flatter the lemon, and especially the red velvet, are compared to the chocolate? They all came out of the oven at roughly the same thickness, but only the chocolate didn't flatten significantly upon cooling. The difference? The chocolate is made from Pillsbury, while the other two are Duncan Hines. And not only did the cookies cool differently, but the dough was also significantly different. The use of my mixer may have impacted this slightly, but I found that the red velvet and lemon dough were far too sticky to be rolled into balls like the recipe calls for. Instead, I ended up loading the dough into my icing decorator and pressing out the dough like they were spritz cookies (although I did shape them like a ball and not flat, so I don't think that's why they flattened so much with cooling). All three of those varieties were made with half a cup of butter, but I've also made them with half a cup of oil before. If my memory serves me correctly, the ones made with oil were a little bit more moist, while the ones with butter definitely had a little butter flavor.

Truthfully, despite these differences, I haven't had a bad batch of them yet. They are definitely worth making, and they are easily customizable to any occasion. And just as a reminder, here is the basic recipe!

1 box cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter or oil

Mix all ingredients together. Roll into balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350* for 8-10 minutes, although this may vary depending on the size of the cookie. The cookies should still seem a little doughy when they come out of the oven. Cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire cooling rack.

Road Race Fun

As I mentioned earlier this week, one of my good friends was home from Hong Kong with her boyfriend from a short period of time. And for whatever reason, we decided that it would be a good idea to do a road race while they were in town. So, last Saturday, we drove to the booming metropolis of Madison SD (population 6000) for a 5K race. Although, to be fair, Linda's boyfriend was really the only one who "raced" the event. Here he is at the start, at the front of the pack.

He stayed with that pack for pretty much the entire race, finishing in the top 10 with a time just over 20 minutes later. Damn Canadians.

The rest of us took it much easier (mostly out of necessity, but whatever). We ran together with the middle of the pack for awhile, but it didn't take long for Darrell to split off from Linda and me.

And even though Linda probably could have finished faster than the pace I was running at (just faster than a 10 min/mile), we ran the whole thing together and got a fun picture of the finish.

Okay, so maybe I make it look more painful than fun, but whatever. The best part of the event actually came after the 5K was over; as a part of the day's festivities they had a half-mile fun run for the kids. So as we were walking around and cooling down this mob of kids, ranging in age from 2 to 12, came dashing down the street. It was super cute, and almost worth the grueling 5K race on mostly uncovered highways. Almost.

Seriously?!?!

Our house is apparently a haven for insects. We have spiders a plenty in the basement (part of the reason why cleaning it keeps getting put off), we have wasps a plenty outside (I think we're on nest six or seven for the summer), and we recently had ants a plenty in the house (you can bet that I sent Darrell out for some ant killer almost instantly). And as much as all of those suck, I suppose I can understand them a little bit; after all, they all tend to be common household pests. But this?!?!

I am soooo not okay with that being in my house. We have absolutely no idea where it came from, nor do we know what it is (Darrell thinks it's some sort of grasshopper--but it's frickin huge!!). It's just a good thing Darrell was home when I found it--I've started taking on some of our other household enemies, but no way was I going to take on this thing. I'm usually not much of a girly-girly, but when stuff like this shows up in my house, all bets are off.

Casualties

Well, it was bound to happen. Our garden has suffered some casualties. Can you spot the differences?

June 23rd

August 2nd

Aside from the obvious differences in size, you might notice that the middle and front center of the garden seems a little under-populated (that leafy thing you see front and center is not actually something rooted there but rather a vine from one of the winter squash plants). All three of our spinach plants died, and (the saddest news of all), so did one of our zucchini plants. We're not entirely sure what happened to the zucchini plant; in the past few weeks we've gotten three or four good sized zucchinis off it, and just a week ago Darrell picked two. A few days later when I went out to water, the entire plant was yellowing and completely limp. Upon closer investigation, it appeared that the stem was starting to disintegrate near the soil. Darrell thinks he may have damaged the stem when he picked the zucchinis, but I'm not sure it would have died that quickly. To make matters worse, when I was out taking these pictures it appeared the same thing was happening to the other zucchini plant. I may have to do some investigating into this--I've already used the Internet to determine that our summer squash keep rotting on the stem because they are suffering from blossom end rot, which can be caused by low calcium levels. We might be doing a few things differently next year if a similar ailment has affected our zucchini.


In happier news, it seems that the remaining plants are thriving. Our tomato plants are going pretty crazy--nothing has ripened yet, but two of the biggest ones looked like they were starting to darken this afternoon, so I'll have to keep an eye on them.

I count six tomatoes in this shot alone--how many do you see?

Our broccoli appears to be making broccoli, but we're not entire sure when and how to pick it. I think we're waiting for it to get a little thicker? We'll see.

Although the fate of our remaining zucchini plant and summer squash plants remains uncertain, our winter squash plant doesn't seem to be facing any of the same issues. It's vined several feet outside of the garden (in addition to all over the garden itself), and the rabbits that were living under our front step must have died because it doesn't appear that anything has been snacking on the vines. Which is fortunate, because it's starting to produce some good-looking squash.

Still no produce on the green bean or bell pepper plants, but they continue to grow and are flowering a little more consistently, so hopefully we're on our way to getting something out of those.

As a parting shot, I can't help but share what might be the last zucchini picked from our garden. Here's to hoping the remaining plant and summer squash plants start making a recovery!

Easy Fancy Treats!

My mom recently hosted a jewelry party, and, being the wonderful daughter that I am, I offered to bake her some treats for it (okay, maybe I was just dying to have an excuse to use my new mixer. Whatever). She wanted them to be a little on the "fancy" side, but nothing that would be terribly messy or sticky since people would also be touching and trying on her jewelry. After some brainstorming and deliberating, I had the perfect treat.

Are those cute or what? I had fun playing around with the flavors too--the one on the furthest left is lemon with strawberry filling, then chocolate with mint filling, and finally red velvet with cream cheese filling. And the best part is that they looked super cute with minimal effort! I'll do a full post on the recipe soon, but they were all variations on the cake-box cookies that I've blogged about before. And with the mixer, they were easier than ever. It went from this...

To this...

in under five minutes! Then just roll them into balls, bake them, pipe a little frosting in the middle, sandwich two together, and life is good! And they display nicely too!

These just might become my go-to treat. They're so great!

Good Friends, Good Fun, Good Grill

I was a little MIA last week because my good friend who has been living in Hong Kong for the past three years was back in town for a short visit. And we also got to finally meet her Canadian boyfriend (who she met in HK... It's a little random, I know). So we spent a good bit of time out and about last week showing him all of the exciting things Sioux Falls has to offer (and subsequently plan to recover this week). We also learned that since space is such a precious commodity in Hong Kong (and really, most of Asia), grilling is a fairly uncommon occurrence. And if you do find stuff that's been grilled, chances are that it's also been drenched in teriyaki sauce. Not that teriyaki is altogether bad...just a little boring after like the second time. So, thanks to some great weather and surprisingly open schedules, we were able to get a group together for a grill out. And grill we did.

It was quite the assortment of meats and veggies on the grill that night. Which is why grilling is an absolutely perfect choice for dinner with a group of people. And why buying a big grill was a great investment. Haven't regretted that purchase for a minute!

I'll share a few more of the things we did with the Asian and Canadian later this week (or once I get pictures!)--Sioux Falls is just so full of boring exciting things to do that I don't want to overwhelm you all at once!