Yard, Gardens, Birds and Critters

I had pumpkins grow in my yard this year. All volunteer from last Halloween. There must have been a couple of hundred of the plants growing. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but not much!  I decided to let three of them grow. Later another sprouted on the other side of the yard and I don't have a clue where that seed came from. It wasn't like any of the pumpkins I had the previous year. A bird, chipmunk or some other way. Who knows.  I had eleven pumpkins that made it to maturity. Two from the odd plant. I baked one of my original pumpkins from my plants, in the oven, took forever and when I finally did take it out, it was so difficult to peel and cut up and puree.  I almost gave up, but I didn't.  Since then, I found a recipe to cook the pumpkin in an Instant Pot. It was a dream. Took me the longest to separate all the seeds from the string. The baked pumpkin seeds are great! So, I have pureed pumpkin for whatever, pie, bread, cookies or something else.   I ha...

 A small story about my Lacy! Lacy is a beggar! She is always by my side in the kitchen. Yes, I have dropped things on the floor and she licks them up! That is her job! The rest of the time I am chopping, dicing, cooking or whatever, she is waiting, sometimes whining, wanting that one special thing to drop!  Today was no different!  I am making my favorite potato salad! Cucumber Dill Potato Salad.  I got the recipe out of the J.C. Manor Nursing Home Cookbook and have made it instead of my old standby that mom used to make. It is a refreshing potato salad. I am chopping up the celery. Lacy keeps whining. I finally said, "here, but you aren't going to eat it!"  Sure enough, she dropped it right back on the floor. The next thing was the green onions. She could whine all day long and I wouldn't flip her a piece of that!  Next came the dill. There was no way that Lacy would touch dill, so I didn't even bother! Mixing it up with Mayonnaise and Kraft Cucumber Ranc...