As you saw in my previous posts, I have been drying herbs to store them whole and ground. It was time to clear out the garden until next year but our herbs looked so good still so I decided to bring them inside to have fresh herbs all winter. The fragrance they bring to the kitchen is better than any candle! In addition to the aloe plant, we have sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. I didn't plan to keep the chives in the bottom left but at the last minute I found a pot and will see how they do inside.

From bright sun, beautiful flowers, hot sand, chirping birds, and long days, we now enter a new color of life. Summer ends, Fall begins.

I have always dreaded Fall and Winter. It  seems like an end to all of the wonderful things I love in life - sun, sand, and sail. As I grow older, I am yearning to embrace the seasons and be thankful for the blessings that surround us, even if they don't seem like blessings at the time. 

Our girls (Adrian, Hennifer, and Ruby) will be 6 weeks old tomorrow and are growing so fast! Bobby designed a run for them and started building it. Check back for the finished product in a couple weeks!! 

In our previous blog post, we dried herbs and stored them whole. Storing them whole is said to keep the flavor longer then grinding or crushing them. We have plenty of herbs so we decided to experiment and store them crushed for Round 2. 

We dried the same herbs as last time - Rosemary, Oregano, Sweet Basil, Thyme, and Sage. This time we added Chives. More on chives later in this post. (Click Read More to continue)
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Cooking with fresh herbs makes even a basic meal taste yummy. 

This year we added an herb garden to our backyard vegetable garden. It was so fun going to our 'own store' each night to gather seasonings for dinner, or even breakfast! Scrambled eggs with fresh basil, oregano, and thyme is delicious! The health benefits to each are amazing too! (click Read More)

We spent November participating in 3 Turkey Shoots. 

We saved two trips for one post since it was the same location but different times of the year. White sand, blue water, offshore fishing, and sun was our desire, so we headed to Siesta Key/Lido Beach for our honeymoon in February 2021 and again in September for our 6 month anniversary. February was our first time there and we couldn't wait to go back!

With travel baseball there isn't a lot of time to tend to our garden. We did manage to get 2 okra plants to grow. Tomatoes and onions were abundant, and the brussels sprouts are almost ready to harvest. 

One of my newly tried and favorite vegetable is okra - especially pickled okra.  Even our 14 year old eats them!

One thing you will find with us is that we do not follow recipes and we do not measure. So if you are looking for a Jalapeño Popper recipe with exact steps, keep scrolling lol. We definitely trial and error and wing it as we go!

After soaking our catfish fillets in salt water overnight, we froze them in packs of 2. We like to purchase bulk meat then split it up and freeze it. Pork and Chicken can look similar when frozen so labeling with contents and the date is a good idea. 

My (Kathy's) mom mentioned she liked a beer batter fry she tried, so we purchased McCormick's Beer Batter Seafood Batter Mix. It was crunchy and delicious!  Catfish tends to be more meaty instead of flaky which makes one fillet fulfilling, except for our 14 year  who required two.