Playing with the Ninja Foodi Grill, working on cleaning out the freezer and yard work

Things have been good here, although it is starting to get summertime hot pretty regularly now.  We are planning on heading out west this summer to ditch the heat, and that means plenty of prep's! Various projects, using up the freezer contents, general cleaning & packing, you get the picture - heck, you've probably done it many times too. We've been working on finishing up the dock painting and now, deck, dock, railings and connecting staircase done!

Next up for me is to clean up the front yard for summer.  Back in 2014 I made it my mission to get rid of the white rocks and driveway edging, clear out 1 azalea entirely and trim wa-a-y back the other azalea. Here's a shot of the front when we bought the place.  I had a lot of fun and instant gratification with the upgrade project. Our yard now is a xeriscape with red rocks within a brick paver border with just a few foundation plants. 

This is the yard we "inherited" when we bought in '12;
overgrown azaleas and ugly white rocks.

This picture is  few years old. We lost the sago about 4 years ago,
many neighborhood sagos died that year - not sure why.
We have since put a decorative coating on the sidewalk and driveway.

After a while, leaf litter, palm tree frond strings and just general dirt, dust and pollen clog up the rocks and give weed seeds a happy place to grow. When I converted this yard from white rocks to red rocks (what a job let me tell you!) I put down a double layer of landscape fabric to try to preserve a neat presentation and a tidy edge.  This is still intact and in good shape so my job now is to blow out as much of the leaf litter as I can (and rake/bag it up), and clean out the dirt etc. in amongst the rocks, give them a little rinse and done.  Of course I'm only addressing the edges and only going about 12" into the main body of the yard.

Before any attention, pretty messy!

Much tidier. (Taken from the street,)

Some of my neighbors think I'm crazy but I've been finding it pretty meditative and I get to enjoy the weather!  Trimmed my azalea and camellia wa-a-y back and added a bush daisy to replace a jasmine which was all played out.

The boss wanted to take a Ninja Foodie Grill out west with us to augment our table-top propane grill.  Because we have bears at our 7200' elevation, we have to clean up thoroughly after grilling. The Ninja should make that much easier, plus it should be easy to store in the pass-through storage area on Rocky (our 5th wheel).

I was all for it as it has several cooking functions beyond just grilling and looks like easy clean-up.

So far, I have grilled steaks, chicken drums and baked meatloaf in it! I love it. I haven't used the air crisper, roast or dehydrate yet, but the grill is so easy.

Just the way we like it, 3+ min's per side.

2 meatloaves gives us 2 meals for 2 each - yay.

Around Mother's Day we drove 95 miles up to my Mom's family plot in Georgia to do a neat'n'tidy-up and place a fresh arrangement for each family member. It was a beautiful day, very serene surroundings and all in all a super nice trip.

The Upper Mill Cemetery in Darien, GA.
Large and numerous live oak trees 
with plenty of Spanish moss.

My Mom and my brother, her parents are here too,
along with a few other assorted relatives.

And finally, foodie alert, I must stay on the ball with making sure I always have garlic-herbed compound butter around, it's indispensable!

Minced fresh garlic and dried herbs plus a bit more
salt and pepper make this a great addition to cooked pasta,
sautéed veggies or for making garlic toast or on baked potatoes.

 

Now, to close this blog entry, let's jump into the way-back machine and check out where we were in May, 2017; the link included takes you to the update page for the entire year and is chronological.

After a big project stay in the Time Out Boatyard
we spent some time just relaxing at anchor in St.Martin.
Here's a link to that time; May, 2017

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