1.

Remember those oleander bushes? I never did get around to digging them up, but our spring frost killed off a lot of branches. I’ve trimmed a few of them, and they are amazingly resilient, but it’s slow going. A couple of weeks ago I headed out to tackle yet another bush that I think is actually dead, and was amazed at what I found growing in the brown branches.

A passion fruit vine has taken over!

2.

I’m so excited because there are at least 20 fruits ripening! I’ve never had passion fruit by itself, just as a part of commercial juice blends. We’re zone 9, borderline tropical climate so yeah, we’ve got wild passion fruit!

3.

I won a giftcard from my friend Lerin’s blog, Beautiful Chaos.  I bought a dehydrator, even though I secretly drooled after the stainless steel mandolin.  Husband dear will be so happy!  He’s mentioned it maybe 3000 times in the last decade.  He’s a beef jerky aficionado so I think he’ll have a blast experimenting.

4.

Got any beef jerky recipes, hints, or tricks?

5.

I call him Husband Dear on this blog for a specific reason.  Once he saw me type “DH”, referring to him in standard blog lingo.  He, however, thought it meant “D*mn Husband and then wanted to know what he did wrong.

6.

A friend’s son drowned last week after hitting his head, but paramedics revived him and I just got word that he is off the venitalor and even talking a bit!  Wonderful news.

Which brings me to this must read article.

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

7.

In other news, 66,000 pounds of bison have been recalled.  We actually eat a lot of bison, because it’s raised without hormones or antibiotics and it’s cheaper than grassfed beef.   I can’t tell a difference from ground beef, actually.  Check your freezers, e. coli is nothing to mess with especially if you have young ones.