Not Working Hard

As we wind down the season, we finally have time just to breathe and to enjoy ourselves a bit.  I have gotten into the mode of doing a little task each day, and then not feeling guilty if I take the rest of the day off to sew, to read, or to work on my family genealogy.  Isn't that what retirement is supposed to be?

At least the fence was in the shade when I washed it!

Yesterday, I finished washing the fence.  Having a white fence is wonderful, but Florida is dusty (especially since we are in the midst of a severe drought), so the fence gets dirty.  Also, spiders like to leave their "spots," and birds and squirrels who perch on the top also add to the mess.  I keep telling them that they do not have to fertilize my fence... it will not grow!

It's clean again!

I did not do a soap-and-water, get-off-every-spot type of wash.  I will leave that for when we return in the fall.  This was more of a "take a wet rag and wipe down the top, scrape off what I can, and hose the whole thing down" type of wash.  It still took both time and energy, though.  I did the first half two days ago, and I finished the last half yesterday.  The fence is not perfectly clean, but it certainly looks a lot better than it did before I started.  At this point in the season, that is good enough for me.

To reward myself, I made pie for dinner.  Yes, the whole dinner consisted of various types of pie.  We had left-over ham from Easter, so I decided to make a ham and swiss quiche. A quiche, however, only takes one crust.  (I cheat and buy the ready-made crust in a box.) So what to do with the other crust?

Well, I discovered that I can re-roll that second crust into two smaller crusts and make a six-inch pie.  When we went to the store yesterday for the quiche ingredients, we also bought some peach pie filling.  After all, what is more Southern that peach pie?

This peach pie taught me a lesson: never
used canned peach pie filling!

The peach pie baked beautifully.  Sadly, it probably looked better than it tasted.  I learned another valuable lesson: if I want to make a peach pie in the future, I will look for a recipe that uses fresh peaches.  The canned pie filling just tasted like someone added too much corn starch to thicken it.  Fresh or nothing next time.

That said, dinner in slices of pie was filling, and we have enough left over for a second meal.  We continue to "eat down" our freezer as we prepare to close down the house soon.  This has been a very productive season, but the heat and humidity are coming in, so it's almost time to drive north again.