We were busy bees today! Making progress on our shed remodel! We took several loads to temporary storage + one load to Goodwill between rain showers. Brent is the brains behind this operation. I never knew he was so handy! I must say that I am very impressed.
After we finished with the final load, Brent stopped an an antique store with me. Gasp! I know! I can’t believe it! I got a small globe and this store also had a non-antique movie/DVD section and we found The Shawshank Redemption, which Brent has never, ever seen! So we had to get it for only $3.
This week the crepe myrtle bloomed! Ours came out much later than most crepe myrtles around here because ours grows under the magnolia tree and has to fight for every bit of sun it gets.
We also got our first ripe figs this week! I’m so excited! We have tons and tons of figs on our trees! I just need to figure out what I am going to do with all of them. This afternoon I did lots of research about figs + fig trees on the internet. How did I not ever know that some fig trees are pollinated by fig wasps? Read about it! Maybe it is just the biology major in me, but I find it so fascinating!
Not our fig trees, though. At least I don’t think so, based on what I have read. I would assume these are common figs.
Oscar helped me with the figs that had fallen on the ground. Oh my goodness! He gorged himself and kept rooting around in the leaves for more. So funny. The couple who owned this house before us said that their dogs (2 large outside dogs) would just lay under the fig tree and feast on fallen figs all summer long. I’m not going to lie – I had several while I was picking! They are good!
Some of the ones I picked were not quite ripe. I didn’t realize until this afternoon that they do not continue ripening after you removed them from the tree. Also, as you can see, some of them are too ripe. There were several hanging from the tallest branches that had swollen and burst. You can see that the skin on some of these has started to crack.
Tonight we went with some friends to the Plantation House restaurant in Aliceville, AL. It is an old, updated actual plantation house. Gorgeous! This was our second time and we loved it. Last time I took the grand tour and it made me want to buy + fix up an old house. The Plantation House’s beef brisket is on the list of “100 Dishes to Eat in Alabama Before You Die,” and for good reason. Brent ordered it and loved it. We all tasted it an I will admit, it was fantastic. It was so tender that you could cut it with a spoon. He raved. The wife of the couple we went with raved. Everyone looked longingly at Brent’s meal. I got a country-fried ribeye with white gravy. Oh yes, I did. I LOVE me some country-fried steak with sawmill gravy and I thought that is what this was. But no. It was more like a chicken-fried grilled steak. Massive and very heavy and way over-the-top for me. It tasted good for what it was, but it was just too much.
And speaking of the list of 100 Dishes, we are working our way through it, slowly but surely, although not intentionally. We may just try to be more intentional about finding some of these other dishes. Some of our favorites are on the list, such as:
- Fried green tomatoes at the Irondale Cafe in Irondale
- Deep-dish pizza at Tortuga’s in Hoover
- Half-moon cookies from Full Moon BBQ in Birmingham
- Veggies from Nicki’s West in Birmingham
- Cheesecake from Hope’s Cheesecake in Gulf Shores
- Cheeseburger in Paradise from Lulu’s in Gulf Shores
- Smoked chicken + white BBQ sauce from Cypress Inn, Tuscaloosa
- Ribs & white bread from Dreamland in Tuscaloosa
I found several more places that we need to try, for sure!
On the agenda for tomorrow: R&R!
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