Mmm, Mmm Good - and Easy Too!

I came across a recipe for Unbelievable Cookies that only has three ingredients. I was intrigued so today I made a batch. They really are easy and tasty.

Unbelievable Cookies
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cream peanut butter and sugar. Add egg and mix until well blended. Shape into 1 1/2 inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Use a fork to flatten balls in a cross hatch pattern.

Bake until lightly brown and just firm to the touch about 10 minutes. Let cool on pan for about 5 minutes before putting them on a cooling rack. (They are very crumbly when just out of the oven.) Makes about 2 dozen cookies - I got 20.

Enjoy prudently.

Gardening Time in San Antonio

Monday morning there were a few sugar snap pea blossoms. By that evening there were noticeably more and they have continued to pop open all week. Hopefully we will get some peas before the weather gets too warm.

Monday evening Richard and I planted a row of green beans and mulched our vegetables. Richard picked some of the spinach which we are enjoying in salads.

Wednesday I purchased some Sunmaster tomato and Camelot bell pepper transplants which I plan to get in today before I go to work.

One of my camillia bushes is still blooming and had a particulary gorgeous bloom on it this week. An azalea bush is about to burst forth in color.

Richard brought to my attention a very good sale on annuals at Home Depot this morning. So I went there and got 62 plants in 4 1/2" pots to put in our flower beds. I also got a trailing petunia that is supposedly heat and drought tolerant. Unfortunately it will no doubt be put to the test. I also saw some stock I couldn't resist - they remind me of Grandma Harmon. She had some in a planter by her front door for many years. They smell sooo nice.

Time to go plant.

Why Mormons Build Temples

A television program on Sunday will, as part of the storyline, depict an endowment session using the "expertise" of a former member of the church to help the set and wardrobe designers depict as accurately and in as much detail as possible the sets and wardrobe. There is an article in the TV Guide with a picture.

It is unfortunate that the shows creators have violated their assurances to the Church that the show would not be about Mormons. It is a reference to their character that they have chosen to depict that which they know is sacred to many people - sacred enough that they had to use as a consultant someone who is disaffected with the church.

You might find the following links interesting. http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/the-publicity-dilemma

and http://www.youtube.com/mormonmessages

Spring has progressed

Several years ago I planted some freesia bulbs. They have bloomed with varying degrees of abundance over the years. This is the first of this year's bloom. They are in a cut glass bud vase I purchased in Ireland.




The tangerine bush is bursting into bloom. It smells heavenly. The bees and other insects are enjoying a feast which I don't begrudge. Notice the teeny baby tangerines.















I really enjoy the ground orchids. They are a colorful color spot. Individually the flowers are really pretty.

PH

This weekend I found some amazing information on my Hazelbaker ancestory. My 5G grandfather, Peter Hazelbaker was conscripted into the British Army in Germany in 1778. He was one of the Hessian soldiers in the Revolutionary War. He was captured when Lord Cornwallis surrendered in Yorktown in October 1781. When it came time to exchange prisoners, Peter apparently decided he wanted to stay in America and hid in a barn. He married the daughter of the farmer whose barn he hid in. (Wonder if she had something to do with his decision to stay in America?) The farm was in what is now West Virgina. Peter and his wife, Elizabeth Shievely, had 6 sons there. They moved to Allen Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania. Peter died at 41 in 1800. He was buried in the family cemetary on the Sphor family farm. The cemetary has succumbed to time with just a few headstones remaining. Efforts to find Peter's grave have been unscucessful until this past summer when Craig Hazelbaker found the marker. For many years it was thought that the marker was DH but after studying it, Craig determined it was really PH - Peter's headstone had been found.

You will enjoy reading the story of the discovery at http://www.hasselbacher.us/hazelbaker/phgrave/spahrcem.html. These pictures are from that address.

You can find the Hazelbaker Family Tree at http://www.hasselbacher.us/tng/index.phplbacher.us/tng/index.php. Search for Henry Franklin Ralstin or his mother, Margaret Hazelbaker. The line goes back to Steffan Hasselbacher born about 1570 in Gresten, Austria. His three sons were protestant refugees from Austria during the Counter Reformation and followed each other into an area of Germany following the Thirty-Years War that had suffered greatly during the war sometime shortly after 1655.

The Hasselbacher family website, http://www.hasselbacher.us/ , has lots of information with much to explore.