Summer Notes

I love summer suppers. Last night was simple grilled chicken (a whole chicken spatchcocked), corn on the cob (or corn sautéed with green and purple peppers, some chopped purple tomatillo), sliced cucumber, chopped tomato, and sliced eggplant sautéed till just soft in a cast iron pan. So simple. We still manage not to eat until after 8:00. As always, my biggest challenge is eating earlier. Sigh.

My hydrangea is beautiful again this year....positively hanging its head with the weight of its blooms. 

Speaking of hydrangea, could my blue hydrangea already be looking less blue? It’s only been planted a little while. Wow. I tried doing home tests on my soil to see if it’s acidic. I did the first one, in which you added vinegar to one soil sample and baking soda to another…and it seemed to indicate it was acidic. Yay, go blue hydrangea I thought. Then I did another test, because I couldn’t resist cooking red cabbage and seeing if my soil changed the resulting liquid to pink or to blue/green. Well that test seemed to indicate my soil was alkaline. Same soil sample. Hmmm. We planted it hopefully and added coffee grounds. Now a few days later they seem to be less blue. Any thoughts? Recommendations?

School starts one week from today for Owen. I don’t think any of us are ready. 

Sigh.