Busy, busy week so far!

Wow. Five minutes out to catch my breath and update my blog! I have a friend who has a theory that the rest of the week will go as Monday goes... if Monday is busy the rest of the week will be busy, if Monday is slow the rest of the week will slow. I don't know how accurate this theory is on a long term basis, but it certainly held true for this week. It's been non-stop until today.

A few weeks ago we had 15 large pine trees cut down. Hated to lose them (such a lovely swooshing noise when the wind blew through them, plus lots of cool shade on our house) but they were too dangerous to keep. Since pines have one major tap root instead of the strong lateral root system of other trees they uproot fairly easily during heavy rain and wind -it was not unusual to see the tree trunks swaying back and forth! Not good when they're close enough to fall on your house.

After the trees are cut there are stumps to deal with. Luckily, my son works for a family tree cutting service, so he and his friend came down yesterday and ground the stumps. What an awesome machine is a modern stump grinder. The owner operates it by remote control. He stands a few feet away and pushes buttons. I watched as, robotlike, it rolled up to the first stump, lowered its rapidly spinning grinding teeth and proceeded to eat a large diameter stump in no time.

In old Southern tradition when someone comes over to help you out you always provide a good meal for them. So, while they were grinding, I was cooking (now you know why there's no new art to post today!). When all of the stumps were reduced to shreds of scattered pine chips we all settled down for a meal and talked a while. For dessert I served Blueberry Crisp (with my blog name being what it is, you knew it was going to be blueberries, didn't you?). Fruit cobblers are very popular down here in the South, but I actually prefer a fruit crisp. I love the sweet crunchy topping! For those who might like to try it, here's my Blueberry Crisp recipe:

Blueberry Crisp

4 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
1-1/4 cups sugar, divided
1/2 cup water*
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Using a little of the melted butter, lightly grease a 9x13x2 baking pan
- Combine blueberries, 1/2 cup of the sugar, *water, cinnamon and vanilla. Pour into greased baking pan.
- Combine flour, baking powder, salt and remaining sugar (3/4 cup); add egg and mix until crumbly. Sprinkle on blueberry mixture and drizzle with melted butter.
- Bake for approximately 35 minutes or until golden brown.
- Serve warm or cool. Great with vanilla ice cream!
*If using fresh blueberries, use recipe as is. If using frozen blueberries: when the berries thaw out there willl often be some liquid too. In this case, I omit the 1/2 cup of water and also add 1/2 - 1 tsp. corn starch to the blueberry mix so that it makes gives a nice "saucy" consistency to the blueberries instead of being watery.