Clear Sky Sunday

Making A Blueberry Pie With Granny

6:21

Dahlia

I was up just in time to see the sun peak over Long Point at 6:20.  Not a cloud in the sky, just a light blue and finally, the wind has settled down after I brought in our float of course.  We had a good 36 hours of heavy winds the past two days for some reason.  It's now 9:00, the wind is pickng up and both Beth and Evie are up as well.  I already did some thoroughly watering of the trees and garden and took some pictures of the dahlias as you can see.

Goodbye To Halle

The Retired Colonel Heads Home

Yesterday we said aloha to Jill's family, as they left for home around 8:15 and Beth took Mitchell to the Buffalo Airport, leaving around 11:00, as he was flying home to Dallas.  That left Marisa, Evie and me to an almost empty and quiet house.  So what did we do?  The beginning of the 'big clean up,' as we spent a good part of our morning just straightening rooms and putting away extra blankets, comforters, mattresses, as we no longer need them because we now have more than enough beds and bedrooms.  In fact, Marisa spent a good part of yesterday, luxuriating in her own bedroom with a king size bed and cosy comforter.  It was almost like we were recovering from something, in this case the fun and chaos of a week of family.  Anyways, this clean up is our way of coping with the fact that we won't be seeing our kids and grandchildren for a few months, probably not until Thanksgiving.

Pie Girl

A Lattice Blueberry Pie

Once we were tired of organizing and vacuuming, we got down to business and found a blueberry pie recipe on our computer.  First, Evie and Marisa decided to make an all butter pie crust rather than use a store bought one.  So that took some time and it ended up great.  They then put some blackberries in a pan with sugar, heated it until the sugar melted, made a slurry of cornstarch and water and added it to the mixture and brought it to a boil, adding lemon zest, butter and a dash of cinnamon.  After the cooked blueberries cooled off they added 4 more cups of uncooked blueberries to the mixture.  They then rolled out the pie crust, added the blueberry mixture, then put a lattice pattern of dough on top before baking for 40 minutes or until the crust was just turning brown.

Dahlia

Beth meanwhile spent a good part of the day on the road, taking Mitchell to Buffalo, then stopping in Westfield where there was a Farmer's market with mostly Amish goodies and an Arts and Craft Festival.  She browsed both, buying corn from the Amish and some earrings for both Evie and herself.  Finally, she stopped at Tops in Mayville, to pick up some French Vanilla ice cream for our pie and some salad.

Around 3:30, all of us went out to enjoy the dock and go for a swim but we neither swam nor lasted long on the dock because of the 15-20 mph winds.  So we either sat on the porch, came in the house or like me, relaxed on a chaise lounge reading in the side yard. We were all hungry by 6:00, so Evie roasted some cauliflower, Beth made a salad and I grilled Marisa's favorite, Juicy Lucies, burgers with a slice of cheese in the middle.  It was still too windy to eat outside so we ate at the dining room table, just the four of us, alas.  We certainly missed both Jill and Tommy's family.

A Dinner With Juicy Lucies

After an easy cleanup, we played bean bag and Marisa and I got beaten thoroughly by Beth and Evie. We were good losers.  We then decided to watch a movie and after some discussion, we ended up watching a Netflix original, OKJA, about a young girl's fight to save her massive pet animal. We also had our blueberry pie with ice cream and it was every bit as good as we hoped and the crust was buttery and flaky.  Yum.  We watched half of it before we got tired and a little bored and decided to go to bed. I am reading a new book by Mark Bowden called HUE 1968, about the seminal battle in Vietnam which changed the Americans attitude toward the war.  It's really good.

Dahlia