Where The Orange Blossoms Grow....

Hello! Welcome to the Stricklen's blog. We hope to keep our family and friends up to date with what is going on with our family. You will find a variety of experiences posted here -- you may find pictures of the never ending project of building our house, Callie helping William with his first steps, Mary studying a rare insect species, or perhaps you may be terribly bored with Molly's numerous fruit trees, berries, vegetables and rare plant pictures! Who knows what we may find Chris and CJ doing -- probably something having to do with a tractor or machine of sorts. Abby and Margaret will keep us entertained with costumes from other lands or a fairy story. Whatever we post, we trust it will lift your spirits and bring honor and glory to our Lord!

Friday, January 30, 2009

The Freeze and Fried Green Tomatoes

Well, I guess it was about time for it. A couple of days out of the year we can
handle it, but certainly not enjoy it! It got down to around 27 or colder here.
Everything in the garden held up well except for the tomatoes and we knew
there is always that chance of a freeze when you
grow tomatoes this time of year!


Our neighbor's grove


The children collected icicles and put them in the freezer


Our poor yard :(
It turned brown later

We lost all our tomato plants, but thankfully had already reaped
many yummy tomatoes!

We collected at least a hundred nice green tomatoes.

And what else can you do with nice green tomatoes??

Well, fried green tomatoes, of course!!!

YUMMY!!

Little Tex Stricklen




Mary's insect collection
The beginning of it. There are many
more to come I am sure!
Wills with Chloe

Margaret and Chloe

Margaret with Taluse.
Margaret has been in heaven since some kittens and a Mama
cat wandered on to our property a while back.
Only 2 of the kittens remain but Margaret is
as happy as a lark!
The joys of Motherhood

I enjoy every minute - they grow too fast!



Margaret, CJ and Wills decided to dress themselves
as "The Royal Florida Family"
(That is what they came up with!)
"Queen Hibiscus"
"The Florida Prince"
The Royal Family

Hats compliments of designer Abigail Stricklen

" King Papaya"
Hey, I'm glad they have imaginations!!
They keep me well entertained :)
Thank the Lord for the beautiful Florida sunshine where
all the beautiful tropicals can be grown most of the
year without any harm or damage. We sure do
miss the warm weather when we go without it just
a small bit. These pictures were obviously before "the FREEZE"!!
Our yard and some trees and bushes will have some self
repairing to do over the next few months ahead.
It is amazing how things do grow back as beautiful as ever!
God bless each of you!

10 comments:

The Miller Family said...

What a great assortment of pictures! I love the black and whites of William, they are precious.

I see William now wears the uniform of little Miller and Stricklen Florida boys...shorts, shorts, and only shorts!

BTW: Was that a c-c-c-cat I espied in your house? Is Chris comatose or has he gone blind? HaHa!

Love,
Katie

The Stricklen Family said...

Katie - That post was accidently published early. It is now in order with comments!

I am sure you were wondering ??

Molly

Bonnie said...

Boy, were those fried green tomatoes yummy! And your yard still looks lovely, BTW! It won't take long before things are bright green again, I am sure.

Y'all have supplied us with lots and lots of absolutely delicious winter produce from your wonderful garden this year! Stricklens are natural green thumbs.

Oh, and the Royal Family? Too cute!

Love,
Grandmother

The Pollock Family said...

I LOVE the picture of the grove across the street. AMAZING!!

Fried green tomatoes are Thomas's favorite food. He would've thought he was in Heaven at your house. He doesn't get them very often.

Tex Stricklen is "Precious", oh sorry wills, I mean "Handsome"!!

The Royal Florida Family is funny. Mary needs to do a blog story about them.

Love y'all,
Mrs. P

Anonymous said...

Those pics are so cute! I love fried green tomatoes, I would have made a trip just have some! Miss ya'll!

Love,
Ashley

Whiddon Family said...

Those pictures of "little Tex Stricklen" are too cute! And the little "Royal family" is so creative! :-) Thank y'all for posting!

Laney E. W.

Whiddon Family said...

I know I already commented, but I forgot to write about the frost.
One of the rare times we had a thick frost like y'all's, all the little kids came running in to tell us they were SURE it had snowed! ;-) It took quite a bit of convincing them that it HADN'T snowed. I guess that prooves how many times it's snowed here.....hehehe!
Laney E.

Kitty said...

Oh dear. Ho Hum. I'm going to miss my tomato stop during my daily errands!!! :'( Ho Hum. Oh dear...

The Royal Family certainly look noble and elegant in their interesting attire! My my, I had no idea I had such relations! I shall have to bow to King Smell-good--er, I mean CJ when I am next in his presence! :D

And those pictures of lil' cowboy...what can I say?? Adorable!!

~Kitty~

Kitty said...

Oh - PS. I want the misty grove picture framed for my next BDay.
:-P That was beautiful!

The Dischers said...

Well, if God gives you green tomatoes, fry them! Isn't that some kind of a saying or something? ha ha Those fried up tomatoes sure look good!

I too love that first picture. It is really nice!

Little Wills walking away in his cowboy gard is just too cute for words!

Love,
Beth