SharivilleLife stories from Shari

Jerry and I are looking forward to tomorrow, Monday, so we can rest up.  We had a rip snortin weekend, non stop.  Usually April and May in our area is very busy with Festivals and parades and esp get togethers as the weather is so wonderful.

We started Sat morning having breakfast with George Augustine at Home Town Buffet, went from there to Hodges Nursery just down the Midway toward Durham, about a mile from our house.  Hodges has an Heirloom Tomato specialist come in every spring and give a seminar on those wonderful tomatoes,  the only kind I ever plant anymore.  He spoke for a couple of hours and was very informative and handed out lots of material for reference.  Then for goodness sake, they served lunch.  We did not expect lunch.  They had a hot dog grill, which even if Jerry was stuffed like a tick he would still eat, and did.  They had beans, potato salad, vegies with dip, fruit and cookies and cake, coffee and juice, just for showing up.  That was a really nice surprise.  It’s also a great place to buy garden stuff.  In fact we bought 12 Heirloom tomato plants.  I have to have fresh home grown tomatoes for Angie.  She loves them and will be here in July for her class reunion. We all esp. love the Heirlooms.  They just have so much flavor.  So we will have red, pink, green, orange , yellow and black tomatoes to serve when she and Tommy are here.  She’s already happy.

From there we headed for the Patrick Ranch, also on the midway even closer to our place, for the Nut Festival.  I was ready to write out a check for 50$ for the tickets, as we wanted to support the first Nut Festival ever, when a group of people walked up and gave us two tickets they had left over.  What a deal.  Personally I think fifty bucks is to much to pay to get in, esp. since most are free; and it was just an OK festival.  On admission you got a wine glass and red and yellow tickets to use to food and drink taste.  Like we were going to eat again, not really.  We ended up using the drink tickets and giving most of the food tickets away.  It was all local restaurants and vendors for taste samples.  We tried the wine, for one ticket each we could taste 5 different wines from each winery.   I could never get past the 3nd sample, which amounted to about one swallow.  I think they were afraid to give out a real sample.  Point being the wine was so dry it would suck up a mud puddle. We both enjoy wine, but a Riesling, more fruity wine.  All they were serving was the pucker up kind.  They were so proud of their , like Chardonnay, type wine, I already cant stand Chardonnay.  So that was a loss, but the Sierra Nevada booth was wonderful, Jerry loves the Summer fest and I love the pale ale.  So out tickets went there. They were also more generous, you got a glass ful.  There were also lots of samples and freebies from the local fruit and nut people.  We got to taste pomegranate syrup and sauces.  They have 20 acres of pomegranates located just behind our property, and I can tell you if we were younger we would plant pomegranates on this property. They are fab and soooo good for you.  Maybe someday Angie will plant them here, I’ll leave that up to her when the time comes.  We visited with my friend and house sitter Liz, she was manning the cancer booth for Enloe Hospital.  bought some raffle tickets for a cat quilt that took my eye.  If I win the quilt goes to Liz anyway.  She has a thing for beautiful quilts.

Sunday took us out to George’s for a nice lunch and tour of his totally awsome garden.  It just gets better and more lovely.  His garden was in the garden show a couple yrs. ago and now it’s even better.  He invited a couple gals he used to work with who have wanted to see his yard.  George fixed a Chile Relano casserole, mexican corn bread, we brought a salad, called overnight salad,and one of the gals made, for scratch, brownies, who even does that anymore.  We ate outside in the pavillion and it was beautiful, dining alfresco.  George has become quite the cook after Kathy got sick.  He keeps the yard beautiful and the house looking fine.

From there it was home to grab Teddy and take him to the Dog Park.  He had the time of his life out there. There were lots of dogs to play with, once the butt sniffing and checking of the credentials was finished.  With each new arrival the process was repeated.  After everyone was content there was ball playing and wrestling.  Teddy is one tired dog tonight, so he will join the two of us who are also tired in bed tonight, yes, he does sleep with us and we love it.  Got to go, The Country Music Awards show just started……Hugs,   Shari and Jerry.