Texas Heat!

[Bird]

Dennis, I'll bet both you and your wife would enjoy the play Texas. It's quite a show, and obviously very popular. Looks like this is their 45th year. I know it was long ago that my parents were living in Ardmore, OK, and were a member of a seniors group when my mother went with a group by bus to see that show and then spend a night in Amarillo before going back to Ardmore.

 

[pacerron]

Jim,
Don't feel alone on the frustration of your garden. We are having problems up here too in the relatively cooler environment. We have raised a low acid tomato called Super Fantastic VFN for over 30 years
and are having serious problems with it this year too. Super Fantastic-Tomato
Since it is a hybrid we can't save the seeds; we have to trust the labels at the greenhouse and our experience of what the plant looks like when young,
but who knows.. in today's world you get what you get. The garden still looks decent from afar but up close you can see the leaf wilt on the tomatoes that started out yellow and then turned black after the heavy rain we had the other night.
I personally like soaker hoses in the garden but the wife has been doing the watering this year and she
likes to use a nozzle that really gets the entire plant soaked. She also doesn't like hay mulch since it makes a lot of new weeds and hides the snakes.
I think the problem on the leaves may be over watering but I have heard rumors of a tiny aphid around here doing the damage. It is time to can juice and whole tomatoes so maybe we can get it done before the vines crap out completely.
The cucumber picture is of the one the deer ate the top off about a month ago. It has revived and is producing. The peppers and squash survive about any weather.
The chatter on this thread prompted us to buy 6 month's more good quality hamburg from a neighbors butchering shop. $ 3.30 a pound but a lower quality is $3.89 in the groceries now. Sure glad we don't like prime t-bone steak anymore.
When I was a kid Kroger started selling 3 pound of hamburg for a dollar, but since we didn't have a freezer my mom thought it wouldn't keep so had to pay $0.39 per pound. How times have changed.
Ron

 

[txdon]

My wife and I have been wanting to go to Palo Dura for some time now. Myself mostly because of the history with Comanches in the canyon. I hadn't heard of a "show" there, that is a bonus. Is the lighthouse trail one of many, or is it "the trail"?

Any other suggestions for there would be great, I know the park has 3 rock cabins that looked interesting on the net. I also want to visit the Southwest Museum in armadillo, but we wont go this time of year, will be either Spring or Fall.

There are other trails, the lighthouse is just the most popular. It is very scenic if you can get to the top.

Try to ask for an end seat in the center isle at the Texas show, the seats are narrow and you will be touching shoulders. The Texas show has over 60 actors and is preformed on stage, the road behind the stage, the hill before the canyon wall, on the canyon wall, and on top of the canyon wall, it is amazing. There is seating for about 1100 and the night we went (Saturday) it was almost sold out. They also have a steak meal served before the show with a live band, you should reserve that also if you not vegetarian or have heart disease. Make sure when you go that the play is not shut down for the season.

The rock cabins are THE place to stay, get one if you can, they are on the canyon wall. If you can't there are some newer hotels/motels in Canyon Texas on the road to the park about 8 miles away. The museum is in Canyon (town) also and is on the same road as the hotels about a mile away. We also went there and it has everything and is very large. Let us know how you like it.

 

[Bird]

There is seating for about 1100 and the night we went (Saturday) it was almost sold out.

The heat this year might be hurting attendance. In 1994, I bought our tickets on June 11, originally planned to go on a Saturday (July 2) but the Saturday performance was already sold out by June 11, so I got tickets for Friday, July 1, and I think it was sold out, too, by the time July 1 arrived.

Instead of a steak dinner, it was BBQ when we went; cost $6.50.:laughing:

However, we did have a fine steak dinner the following Monday, July 4, at the Big Texan Steak Ranch ($71 for the 4 of us).:laughing:

 

[pacerron]

Bird,
Thanks for mentioning fried pie. We lived in the South and in the West during part of our service years but never heard of fried pie until you brought it up to Jim.
The wife made a ½ receipt of her pie crust. Takes about 7 minutes regardless of size. She used butter flavored Crisco, her standard, that she keeps in the refrigerator. That helps the cold cutting in process and is almost necessary anyway since they have thinned it down from the original so much. She may try it the next time using real butter, but I think it was plenty rich the way she did it this time. The test was to see if the dough would hold together while being fried and what the finished texture was like. It was very flaky just like her baked crust. She even used a can of peach pie filling to save time from making a good filling. Anyway here are a few pictures of the first attempt.

 

[Western]

Don and Bird, Thanks for the information, sounds like it would be a hoot. I think the show would be a great addition to a road trip! We enjoyed the show's in Glenrose TX and Silome (sp) Springs Ark (Passion play's).

I know the last great battle with the Comanches happened at PD canyon, that is my biggest interest. Have you guy's ever been to the SW Museum?? I've drove through that country a gazillion times , but never had time to stop.

Weatherman say's 7 more day's of 100+ and dry, we may start breaking some serious record soon. We broke the nighttime low temp Monday night I believe at 87.

 

[Bird]

The wife made a ｽ receipt of her pie crust.

Ron, I can certainly tell from your pictures that your wife is a better pastry chef than I am. I've always had a problem with my pie crust falling apart when frying the pies, so I haven't made my own in many years now. A few years ago, while visiting my wife's family in West Virginia, her brother and his wife made a bunch of fried pies using canned biscuits for the crust; rolled them out thin, and used a brush to brush egg white around the edge to "glue" the edges together when they folded them over. Now they weren't "bad" but they certainly weren't in the same class as what your wife made, or what we buy.

 

[Bird]

We enjoyed the show's in Glenrose TX and Silome (sp) Springs Ark (Passion play's).

We've not seen the one at Glenrose or Siloam Springs, but in the mid-70s we saw the Great Passion Play at Eureka Springs, AR, and it was a magnificent production.

 

[txdon]

The museum we went to in Canyon Texas was the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum - Texas's Largest Museum.

Panhandle Plains Historical Museum

 

[oldballs]

It's 101 in the shade here on my front porch in eastern Kansas. Wind from the south at 30 mph. Been using a lot of water to keep things alive in the garden and some Blue Spruce trees. Oklahoma cattle are being sold in mid Missouri according to the Farm Radio that I listen. But in 1934, when I was a kid it was worse than this...and without any AC or fans. Mother Nature always gets her way.