Mersydotes

Hello everyone!  It's Penny here, reporting from the backseat of the car as we travel along on our annual July 4th road trip!  Mama and Papa are in the front, crocheting and driving, and the corn and soybeans are whizzing by outside. I sit in the backseat and hope that they forget that I'm here so that I can sneak up to the front during snack time and no one will notice.  They brought pretzels along this time- I love those extra-crunchy gluten free pretzels!  But I guess I'll just make do with my travel bag of kibble for the moment. For dessert, though, Mama made glee strawberry cupcakes filled with strawberry jam to take to our family.  Yippee!  Maybe if they stop for gas and leave me alone in the car for a few seconds, I can rip through the tape sealing the cupcake box, gnaw through the cardboard, and tear through the plastic wrap to eat some!  Cross your fingers and wish me luck! ~Penny

We live in a very cozy little apartment here in the middle of the Midwest, and my favorite part of our humble abode is the patio.  It's the first time we've ever had a patio, and it is such a wonderful feeling to have an outdoors space to call our own!  We've been trying to make it a haven for little birds and for flavorful plants. Every day mourning doves and red-headed sparrows and cardinals and juncos and starlings and house finches come to graze. Sometimes there is even a watchful red-tailed hawk atop the neighboring roof!  I think the little birds like our patio because they feel sheltered by the plants.  But oh! are they messy!  The sparrows especially like to fling the seed out of the feeder as they eat, showering the doves below with sunflower seeds!  It must be like dancing in a champagne rain to them! Nearly all the plants on the patio are edible., and I've been trying to keep up with the watering despite the amazingly high temperatures recently!  Here

  Need I say more? ~Mersydotes

This past weekend, Mr. Mersydotes and I ran out to the garden center to pick up some sunflower seeds to plant along the back fence of the garden (more on that later ;)  ).  While we were there, the red, orange, and pink flowers really caught my eye.  Now, I've always been a fan of pinks, roses, and mauves, but never before have I been captivated by reds and oranges.  They were so pretty that I'd love to share this little "study in scarlet" with you to brighten your day! Lots of love, ~Mersydotes

It's so nice to be back in bloggy land- a new season has started at work and it's been a long, long time since I've had a moment to update my little corner of the blogosphere.  One of our recent joys here at Mersydotes has been all of the fruit flooding into the grocery this summer, and we found two absolutely delicious mangos last week.   When we were traveling in Thailand not so long ago, I was mesmerized by the food.  It was a taste adventure for me, and I swear that the most delicious cooking in the world can be done on a rusty oil drum on a street near the border with Laos!  The spices and veggies and fruits were glorious!  And it was the first time that I ever encountered fruit carving. Would you like to learn how to slice the perfect mango? First, slice off either half alongside the pit.  You'll have two flat halves and the middle bit. Then, score the fruit into squares, being careful not to slice through the skin. When you're all finishe

This past winter in Florida, it was soooo glorious to be surrounded by blooming plants during the months that mean cold and greyness in the Midwest.  I especially loved the billions of hibiscus bushes that surrounded where we stayed.  Blossoms of all colors, orange, pink, red, and yellow, glowing in the sun, and sparkling with the afternoon tropical rains.  Oh, to enjoy a bit of that riotous color here at home! When we adopted our beautiful hibiscus plant from the local nursery, my goal was twofold: to add some bright color to the patio and also to grow, for the first time, an edible flower.  I've been experimenting with making hibiscus tea, and have really enjoyed the results.  Would you like to see how it works? The first thing to do is to pick some of the flowers. Then, remove the stamens (be careful not to get the yellow pollen on yourself- it's a bit hard to get off!), and wash the flowers. I decided to brew up my tea in my French press so that you could see

What happens when the Mersydotes blog gets ahold of washi tape, a glue gun, pompom makers, and it rains all weekend?..........It's a craft party!!!!!!!  Wooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It all started with the discovery of this new magazine at our local bookstore.  Recently, British publications have been pouring into the craft section of our local magazine rack, and it's made for some really neat reading. The first project that caught my eye was pin cushion mason jars- how can't you love anything to do with mason jars?  They just seem so American and summery- you can almost taste the strawberry jam! And what can be stored inside mason jars?  Why, lots of washi tape, of course! And what can one do with washi tape?  Decorate tiny birdhouses! Aren't they awesome?!  The next question that springs to mind is why I decorated tiny birdhouses with brightly colored tape, and I'll have you know that it was not a fruitless endeavor.  These three little h